July Year of Core Vocabulary & Future Directions for the School Year of Core Vocabulary Words

Planning for comprehensive core vocabulary instruction? The Year of Core Vocabulary Words and The School Year of Core Vocabulary Words, two series of monthly resources for core vocabulary teaching, both have resources that can be helpful to therapists, educators, and families. We’re reprising a past post for anyone interested in following along and utilizing the resources developed by quite a few people in the AAC community. We also have an exciting update from the School Year of Core Vocabulary Words team about some resources that we’ll be sharing for the upcoming school year.

The initial Year of Core Vocabulary series was based on a small set of core words for each month (see that post here). We followed that with a second set of Year of Core Vocabulary Word resources for a new list of words (click here for that post). Among the many resources are the activity calendars created by AAC SLP and co-founder of Talking AAC, Rachael Langley. There were many other contributors over the years who added to these efforts. The School Year of Core Vocabulary Words, authored by guest contributors Michaela Sullivan, Alisa Lego, and Beth Lytle, was first published in 2020.

You can access the resources for July words by clicking on the images below.

Set 1 & Set 2 Words

School Year of Core Vocabulary Words

The School Year of Core Team has expanded and we have some exciting project updates, takeaways, and information about an all-new expansion of SYOC in August of 2022. We will be providing older student lessons for individuals in middle school through adulthood in August of 2022! (If you are not familiar with the original School Year of Core resources, they can be found on the PrAACtical AAC website and as a free resource in the AAC Language Lab). 

The SYOC approach has forever changed the way we conduct our sessions. Aside from being more organized and streamlined in therapy services, we have experienced less self-imposed stress and a greater feeling of satisfaction knowing that we are introducing core words methodically and consistently. Instead of feeling as though we have not accomplished anything, (sometimes we do that, right?). We feel more confident that we are providing more of what our students need and we can utilize such resources to provide home assignments as well.

Setting the CORE words as the foundation along with chosen monthly lesson themes, we have been able to expediently add some of the original elements of the SYOC resource to create the Older Student lessons in Google Slides, making them readily accessible and organized for individual, small, and larger group sessions, (both virtual and in-person). Since the SYOC resources, on the whole, were geared more toward younger students, (with some older student activities or media), some of the resources were appropriate and some missed the mark, especially for older students. 

How can the SYOC be utilized with older students? Having first-hand experience collectively working and/or interning in middle, high schools, and transition settings, we realized our students needed to work on core words every bit as much as any younger student. Over the summer, in preparation for SY 2021-2022, we started to create bi-monthly Google Slides August lessons and quickly realized that many, if not most of the present material was not age-relevant or appropriate for the students in the transition program. I was set to be working with two interns from San Francisco State University and wanted to start the year out feeling more organized and ready to swing into core vocabulary and implement our SYOC project. 

Over the first month, the incredible interns, Lindsay Dougherty, (now in her CFY) and Jadine Veluya, utilized and often modified the emerging SYOC Older Student Lessons depending on students’ needs and skills. We additionally discussed what worked, and what didn’t and made revisions across the board. Over the semester, and month after month, the lessons changed in content, set-up, and appearance. We determined what aspects we believed should always be present in bi-monthly lessons, (e.g. sharing feelings, communication functions, national days, etc). Additionally, two spring interns, Joseph Cachapero and Christelle Marcelo joined the project and made the team stronger!. 

The School Year of Core- Older Student Lesson Team 2022 is excited to announce the upcoming release of comprehensive lessons for older students, (middle school through adulthood) in August of 2022. The bi-monthly, thematic lessons will contain level 1 and 2 core words presented in Google Slides, PPT, or PDF formats and include age-relevant content. 

The team consists of myself and the incredible Fall and Spring interns from San Francisco State University, Lindsay Dougherty, (now starting her CFY), Jadine Veluya, Joseph Cachapero, and Christelle Marcelo. 

Of course, no posting would ever be complete without acknowledging the amazing and original co-creators of the SYOC who are completing their CFY, Beth Lytle and Alisa Lego. They hope to become involved with this project in the future and we hope they do as well. Thank you, both! 

We will keep you posted on updates from SYOC Older Student Lessons, Team 2022, and we would greatly appreciate any ideas you might have about core content for older students. 

In gratitude for all that you do!

The School Year of Core Older Students’ Lessons Team