After trying to piece together a literacy-based speech therapy framework for over two decades, one veteran school SLP shares how finding the right school-based SLP system completely transformed her prep time, progress monitoring, and student behavior.
Emily has been a school-based SLP since 1999. She’s worked in 17 or 18 different schools, across every grade level, including high school, adult programs, and behavior classrooms.
She is deeply passionate about this work. And she’s retiring after next school year.
But here’s the thing: even with all that experience, one problem followed her for decades.
Speech therapy book units.
She Knew Literacy-Based Therapy Was the Answer. She Just Couldn’t Pull It Together.
Emily had attended a professional development on literacy-based therapy back when she was pregnant with her daughter, who is now 25. She thought: this is the way. She could see how one book could go 75 different directions.
She tried to piece things together using Teachers Pay Teachers, a traveling secretary who helped prep materials, and whatever else she could find. But it never quite came together. The materials were inconsistent. Sessions felt scattered. Something was always missing.
Then one of her SLP students mentioned SLP Now.
The Free Trial Changed Everything
Emily tried the free trial. She explored one book unit. And her reaction was simple:
“This is what I’ve always wanted to do.”
She signed up. She started with the book units and slowly discovered everything else inside the membership. Her toolkit expanded to include:
- SLP progress monitoring
- SLP data collection
- Attendance tracking
- Fluency videos and phonology packets
She compares learning the platform to when Google first came out. Overwhelming at first, but you just play with it. You figure out this piece, then that piece. And then one day it all clicks.
What Sessions Actually Look Like Now
Emily’s planning process is now simple. She checks the classroom theme. She finds a matching book unit. She writes the vocabulary words on the board. She makes the copies.
That’s it.
And because she’s been doing this for a few years now, she has month boxes. The March materials are already copied from last year. She just pulls them out. Sessions follow the exact same routine every time:
- Read aloud
- WH questions
- Targeted activity
- Coloring
- End-of-month game
It’s consistent. The kids know what to expect. And that consistency has made a real difference.
“Kids thrive on consistency, and that means fewer behavior issues.”
For her older students, she lets them choose the topic by pulling up the therapy plans on her TV. They pick what they’re interested in. That buy-in matters, especially for reluctant readers.
The Progress Monitoring Feature Was a Game Changer
When Emily found the SLP progress monitoring feature, she wanted everyone to know about it.
She had been working with an SLPA who was based at a different school. They were both collecting data at the same time. The system let them track separately with different color dots, and everything came together in one place.
When it was time for progress reports and IEP meetings, the data was already organized. She’d pull it over into her plans and it looked like she’d typed everything manually.
“It looks like I typed a whole ton, but it’s all just transferred over and it puts it so pretty.”
She calls it a game changer. And it’s the kind of thing she couldn’t get anyone on her team to understand until they saw it themselves.
What She Wishes Her Team Understood
Emily leads a team of 20 SLPs. She introduced SLP Now to the group. A handful tried it. A few stayed. The others went back to their previous tool because the schedule feature felt more familiar.
She understands the hesitation. She also knows what they’re missing.
They never had enough time in team meetings to actually explore the platform together. Meetings got consumed by forms and procedures. The deeper features never got showcased. Her advice for anyone on the fence?
“Just come on over. Just come watch.”
She believes the book units and reading passages alone are worth it. Add in progress monitoring, data tracking, and screening tools, and it’s a completely different way to work.
25 Years In, and She Wishes She’d Found It Sooner
Emily has said it more than once. She wishes she had found SLP Now 15 years ago.
She’s still discovering new features. She still recommends it to every SLP student she mentors. She’s building out month boxes so that each year, her planning gets easier.
And she’s heading into retirement knowing she finished her career with the system she always wanted. That’s a pretty good note to end on.
Want to try what Emily found? Start your free 14-day trial at slpnow.com. No credit card required.
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