Targeting Language Delays: book review and giveaway!

Woodbine cover copy

***Congratulations to Damaris who won a free copy of this resource!***

A few months ago I was contacted by Woodbine House and asked to review Targeting Language Delays by Caroline Lee, L.C.S.T.  I was happy to do so, but was a little shocked when the manuscript arrived.  It was huge!

The aim of the book (and its subtitle) is to provide IEP goals and activities for students with developmental challenges.  Ambitious, huh?!  It takes a systematic, developmental hierarchy of goals, breaking them down into individual components, and offers activities to address each.

Woodbine inside copy

So, you’ll have a general goal such as, “The student will understand and use concepts of_____”  with an achievement criteria (80-90% accuracy).

It’s then broken down into 1-6 smaller goals like “concepts of  position (prepostions)” or “concepts of quantity.”

Each goal begins with an introduction which includes the prerequisite skills needed and revisions based on whether you need to target receptive, expressive or carryover of the skill.  Often there is also a list of materials, activities, including a stimulus list and/or a sheet for tracking data.

Sometimes chapters will also give recommendations for chapters/goals that include further work in the same area.

It’s a great resource for newer clinicians, assistants and interns that need hand holding and even parents.  It’s a blessing for the experienced clinician that wants to double check their work, is starting to address less familiar treatment areas or simply finds themselves too taxed at the end of the day to generate new goals for each student.  It’s a huge time saver!

Woodbine back cover copy

The book is divided into two sections, Part 1 gives tips on improving communication skills and Part 2 has chapters on each IEP goal including:  following directions, negatives, same/different, questions (yes/no and wh-), vocabulary development (nouns and verbs), descriptive concepts, categorization, sentence structure, listening skills and whole word reading.  The book is paperback, 400 pages and retails for $26.95.

Woodbine provided me with a copy for review and another for a giveaway, but all opinions here are strictly my own.  To enter the giveaway, leave a comment below with the language goal you find yourself targeting most often.  You must have a US mailing address to enter.  Leave your comment by midnight EST on May 11, 2014.  The winner will be drawn at random and announced on Monday, May 12, 2014.  Good luck!

And remember, the TpT Teacher Appreciation Sale is going on through May 8, 2014.  My store will be 20% off and you can use code:  TPTXO for additional discounts at checkout.  

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This Post Has 48 Comments

  1. Valerie

    This year I am targeting vocabulary the most. Antonyms, synonyms, and multiple meaning words.

    1. Lminva

      I have two goals that I find I find I am targeting with a large number of my language delayed students , vocabulary and following directions. This book sounds like a great resource! Thanks for sharing!

  2. Emily

    Thank you so much! This is, in my opinion, an area that we could all use a little bit more resources in. My most used language goals would be answering concrete (implicit) wh- questions and following 2-step temporal and spatial directions! Thanks for the opportunity to participate in the giveaway!

  3. M. Parker

    I am targeting “formulating questions” on several kiddos.

  4. Debby Childs

    Vocabulary development via synonyms, antonyms, multiple meaning words, and using new words in logical grammatical sentences.

  5. Shannon Shry

    Almost all of my students are working on answering questions. My younger ones are working more on the yes/no type, and my older students are working more on the inferential questions such as main idea and character motivation. One thing I’ve had to do with almost all of them, is go back and make sure that they understood the question word-referent relationship, as I was finding that many of them didn’t know that if I said “who” they were supposed to answer with a person or a character!

  6. Megan

    Working with 3-5 year olds… Basic concepts such as comparison, direction/position, size, quantity, texture/material is a goal often targeted.

  7. susan kowalski

    In 12 months time will increase verbal utterances from single word to 2 to 3 word utterances with 80% accuracy in 4 of 5 trials.

  8. Sue

    The younger students are working on basic WH, concepts, syntax and the older students higher level language skills that involve making inferences, multi-meaning words, finding the main idea, looking for similarities/differences….

  9. Sherrie M

    Many of my students are working on visualizing and verbalizing so I have written objectives to target using structure words as well as using visualizing as a strategy to answer factual and inferential questions.

  10. LisaE

    Many of my students are working on answering literal comprehension questions such as yes/no and “wh” questions, as well as more inferential questions. This looks like a GREAT resource – I’m always looking for examples to write more specific IEP goals. Thanks for the opportunity to win!

  11. Carrie

    What a fantastic resource! I’m targeting vocabulary and syntax with most of my kids.

  12. mtmarySLP

    This looks great. I love when I get books to review for the blog!! 🙂

    This year, I find myself targeting a lot of vocabulary – antonyms, synonyms, multiple meaning words, nuances (shades of meaning), etc. So many kids seem to lack this deeper understanding that really impacts their understanding of their reading books, etc.

    The other goal I seem to be writing a lot this year has to do with writing…and I struggle with coming up with good writing goals beyond what the classroom teacher wants.

  13. Ann F

    My language goals usually involve formulating questions and increasing vocabulary. The book looks like a real time saver! Thanks for giving us the opportunity to own it for free.

  14. Jennifer

    I find myself targeting narratives, vocabulary and asking questions a lot this year.

  15. Nicole

    I find myself writing a ton of vocabulary goals. I also work with severely delayed children and this sounds like a book that might spark some new ideas for me so I don’t get stuck in a rut.

  16. Susan S.

    Vocabulary. Students will define using the word – a car is a car you drive. We work on this constantly.

  17. Debra S.

    Working in the schools and finding many students with developmental delays on my caseload that may have been in self contained classrooms in previous years, I find that I spend a great deal of time working on basic concept development. Having a resource that breaks down developmental sequence of teaching these concepts would be invaluable. Also breaking down how to teach each concept would be awesome. It sounds like this book does this with all goals. This would be a great source for a new clinician as well as an experienced one that may be mentoring a CFY student , for all language goals!

  18. Tara Roof

    With my school-age kiddos, I am working a lot with complex sentence structures, ambiguous language, and describing/defining, and narrative skills. Would love this as a resource! Thanks for sharing!

  19. Pam B.

    I have to “ditto” the above. Most often it is vocabulary and expanding expression. Thanks for the post and bringing new things into view!

  20. Kelly

    I’m targeting vocabulary and direction following skills in most of my elementary students’ IEPs.

  21. Shane

    It doesn’t matter if I’m working on articulation, fluency or a targeted language goal, I always, always, always incorporate new vocabulary or activities to expand on present vocabulary. In my school district we have found that age and grade level appropriate vocabulary is one of our major student weaknesses.

  22. Jenn Alcorn

    I feel like I work most on goals to target syntax, both in oral and written language. With the emphasis being so heavy on writing in the Common Core standards, I am finding a lot of my language impaired students need help with this! This book looks great, thanks for the review!

  23. Andrea

    I target of goals relating to reading comprehension, including identifying the main idea, answering inferential questions, and paraphrasing.

  24. Sara

    I am frequently targeting question formation recently. Also, increasing utterance length, specifically use of verbs. Thank you!

  25. Lee Woodford

    Working w/ 2-4 year olds, I target vocabulary, following directions, increasing MLU, and social use of language most often.

  26. Jill

    This seems like a great resource! I have been targeting antonyms, synonyms, and multiple meaning words this year.

  27. Stephanie K

    Inference skills and answering wh-questions

  28. Kim Hovey

    I find myself getting at relational vocabulary and semantic relations through wh-question answering goals.

  29. Catherine Roussos

    I work with students in grades 1 through 5. The language objectives most often addressed include those focusing on vocabulary development, semantic knowledge and auditory comprehension.

  30. Molly

    I am constantly working on defining and describing, higher level questions, inferencing, problem solving. Many of my students have difficulty with self generation of language. .. I’m trying to help them with critical thinking and generating their own ideas. So many students of my students demonstrate “learned helplessness”

  31. Sue Blankenship

    I tend to write goals for word retrieval and language processing the most.

  32. Annette

    The most common language goals are for developing vocabulary, especially homonyms and homophones.

  33. Jay

    I find myself targeting antonyms and synonyms. This sounds like an interesting resource.

  34. Connie

    Vocabulary– including concepts, synonyms, antonyms, verbs

  35. Ashley

    Most of my students have difficulty answering ‘wh’ questions. We also always work on improving vocabulary skills ! This looks like a great resource!

  36. Victoria Wiley

    I find that I am most often targeting social pragmatic goals for elementary school students. Cheers!!

  37. Damaris

    The goal I have targeted the most is answering wh questions.

  38. Carol

    Vocabulary is a popular target for me too, including antonyms, synonyms and multiple meaning words. This book looks great!

  39. Kim

    Wow! What a great resource! I believe I would use it most for formulating & answering questions and language processing.

  40. Kimberly

    I also write a number of goals targeting vocab – synonyms, antonyms, multiple meanings, using context clues for unknown words, etc. Also grammar, morphology goals. 🙂

  41. Lisa Black

    WH questions for sure, but also temporal, spatial, and quantitative concepts.

  42. Kristen Miller

    My most common goal pertains to being able to demonstrate different aspects of describing: function, category, shape/color, similar words, antonyms, and associated words. Many thanks !!

  43. Kellie Christensen

    Giving an appropriate inference is huge for my kids right now, along with understanding context clues.

  44. Nicole

    This school year, and while writing IEPs this spring, I find myself writing goals for creating syntactically correct sentence forms. This would include question forms.

  45. Ashley W

    Answering wh- questions, making inferences, and vocabulary (synonyms, antonyms, MMW, Tier II words)

  46. Kaylee

    I have lots of vocabulary goals as well as inferential questions.

  47. Robin H

    Expanding utterance length and syntactic complexity, language processing, and answering questions.

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The views expressed in this blog are my own and are intended to inspire other speech-language pathologists in their own practice. If you are a parent, teacher or other educator, these ideas are not intended to take the place of treatment by a certified clinician. Read full disclaimer here.