Strengthening the Core: Getting Ready for March Core Vocabulary

March is around the corner, so if you are following along our 2013 Year of Core (12 words/month) or the 2014 A(nother) Year of Core (16 words/month; Different than the previous year’s core words), it is time to get ready to focus on a new set of words.

“Wait! My clients/students didn’t master the January or February words. Should I really go on?”

Yes, you probably should! Every situation is different, of course, but for the vast majority it makes sense to move on. Sticking with the same set of words is likely to bore you and frustrate the kids. With a core word approach, it’s about progress, not perfection. We aren’t giving up on the prior words. In fact, we will continue to model them (with aided language input) and create opportunities for our learners to use them, providing supports, as needed). At the same time, we’re expanding our focus to include new words. That’s how language grows and develops.  Plus, changing things up tends to bring a new energy to the process. Don’t we all need a little encouragement to keep up our efforts in modeling, teaching, and eliciting core words from time to time?

Here are the words that we will focus on in March.

2013 A Year of Core

• away
• bad
• come
• good
• it
• make
• now
• off
• read
• there
• thing
• where

2014 A(nother) Year of Core

• baby
• dirty
• easy
• friend
• finish
• home
• loud
• mother/mom
• next
• red
• sleep
• smart
• teacher
• toy
• win
• wrong

For now, get the symbols ready for use in March. You can go to these resources or create your own. By the way, these were mostly made by people like you (SLPs, teachers, and family members) who  reached out and generously offered to share their work here. If you have similar resources and want others to benefit from your efforts, we would be grateful and delighted to add those in. Here is what we have so far:

1. Templates for you to plug in your own symbols: 2013 words, 2014 words
2. Minspeak/Unity version: 2013
3. PCS versions: 2014
4. Speak for Yourself version: 2014

So, get those color cartridges ready, print out a copy or two, and can get ready to make these 12 or 16 words a focal point for the March. We’ll be back next week with ideas for how to build skills with these words.