Amazon Must Haves: When Working with Older Students

Have you ever asked yourself, “I’m working with older students, what materials do I need to buy?” or “My administration said they want to buy materials for me but I don’t know what I need?” We were guilty of asking those exact questions, especially when we were new to working with older students. Now that we can look back on those newbie days, we realize they have very similar needs as younger students; they want to do activities that are engaging. We just needed to be a bit more creative to figure out what older students find “engaging.” We are here to guide your spending so that you buy quality and engaging items for your older students. 

In truth, we started our TPT store because we felt there were not enough materials geared towards older students who received speech and language support services.  Middle and high school students do not want materials that are full of cartoon images or require cutting and gluing. In addition, many of our printable resources are designed for the speech and language provider who only has access to a black and white printer but still wants materials that are fun and engaging. We are excited to share a few tricks we use to keep the materials basic but still fun and engaging. 

1. Colored Pens: We love writing with colored pens.  It makes any white piece of paper more fun to look at.  Our students also love writing in their favorite colors.  Simply ask, “What color do you want to write in today?” You will see a higher level of engagement just from allowing them to choose a color. 

2. Binding Machine: So many of our students like when they see our materials have been bound. So when we make them a student planner or a subject notebook we bind it for them.  That easy gesture makes them feel special and motivates them to use the materials since it seems like a ‘real book.’ 

3. Laminator: We love to laminate everything! We have learned that our students love to help us use the laminator. When we introduce a new strategy and want them to use a bookmark for carryover, we have the students laminate the bookmark they are taking from class to class. Many students love to help and are proud when they accomplish a ‘Teacher Task.’ 

4. Astrobright Paper: Bright colored paper makes everyone happy. The most basic of resources look 10x better when they are printed on brightly colored paper. Instead of putting clip art on our resources, we opt to print on astrobright paper to jazz up the resource. Best part: you don’t need a color printer to add color to your materials! 

Now those were our Amazon recommendations as they relate to making the resources more engaging. Read on for some of our Amazon favorites to use in everyday therapy. 

1. Dry Erase Blocks: The students love having the opportunity to roll the dice, especially ones that you can write and rewrite on.  Sometimes we take a written assignment, transition it to use it with the dice, and voila! The students are more willing to complete the task! The dry erase blocks become a game and allow the students to be more hands on and access that tactile learning style. 

2. Answer Buzzers: When you want students to give you answers, sometimes you just need to turn it into a game. Once we found these buzzers, everything else was history. We now ask students simple questions and are sure to get responses. These answer buzzers make a group of five students listen and respond – we say that’s a win!

3. The Rocketbook: This is an always-evolving notebook that we love to use during an in-classroom session. We can easily take notes on this notebook, upload the notes to our Google Classroom, and then share the notes with different students. The best part is you just use water to erase what you wrote and then reuse the pages over and over. 

As you can tell, we put thought into the materials and resources we like to use with our students and also share in the Amazon obsession.  Click here to see more of our amazon favorites!

We know we are not alone in spreading the Amazon love, share your favorite must have resource? 

If this is your first time visiting NYC Speechies, welcome!  We give tips to work on receptive and expressive language with the older students on our Instagram page, so make sure to follow us.  And don’t forget to sign up to receive emails with updates and freebies!