Welcome to Elevate Essentials!
This is your go-to spot for news and information on everything you need inside of SLP Elevate, updated throughout the month to keep you in the know! Come here anytime to stay up to date on what’s new - whether it’s the latest bonus resources, upcoming PD sessions, or key updates for Elevate members. Think of this page as your one-stop space to keep you connected, organized, and in the loop.
☀️July Favorites & Summer Must-Haves ☀️
July is all about keeping things flexible, engaging, and easy to use. Whether you're supporting ESY students, seeing a smaller summer caseload, or planning ahead for the school year, this is a great month to lean into high-interest topics that feel relevant, seasonal, and fun.
Start on your My Resources page with these Monthly Theme Units:
🦈 Sharks
Shark Week kicks off July 26, making this the perfect time to dive into one of our most popular summer themes. Students love learning about sharks, which makes it easy to target vocabulary, reading comprehension, inferencing, describing, comparing, and building background knowledge. Plus, nothing grabs attention quite like a shark fact!
🌊 Summer: Making Waves
Still a summer favorite, this unit is packed with seasonal content that helps students work on conversation skills, vocabulary, comprehension, inferencing, and social communication while talking about experiences they can actually relate to.
🏄 Water Parks & Amusement Parks
These high-interest themes continue to be a hit all summer long. They're perfect for targeting sequencing, problem-solving, perspective-taking, WH-questions, descriptive language, and social scenarios through topics students are excited to discuss.
⚽ Soccer
If you have students who have been following the World Cup or simply love sports, this unit is still a great choice. It provides plenty of opportunities to work on predicting, inferencing, describing, comprehension, and conversation skills using a topic many students are naturally interested in.
💼 Young Entrepreneurs
Summer is a great time to start talking about earning money, small businesses, and future job skills. This unit supports life skills, problem-solving, reading comprehension, and real-world communication while helping students think about independence and responsibility.
Then don't forget to check the Bonus Page for summer-ready supports:
🎲 Need More Engagement?
The Engagement section is packed with student favorites like Science Experiments, Magic Tricks, Giant Game Companion, Emoji Kitchen, and the Ultimate School Scavenger Hunt. These are perfect for keeping participation high during those long summer weeks.
☀️ Summer Bonus Resources
Head to the Holidays section → Summer tab for resources like Summer Conversation Starters and other seasonal activities designed to spark discussion, social communication, and language growth.
🎯 Summer Speech Goals Resource
Also located in the Holidays section, this resource helps students and families stay connected to speech and language goals over the summer. It includes a Summer Goal Checklist, End-of-Summer Reflections, a Caregiver Guide, and a Caregiver Email Template.
🗣️ AAC Supports
Don't forget about AAC Foundations and AAC Summer Chat Mats for functional, seasonally relevant communication opportunities that fit naturally into summer conversations and routines.
Whether you're teaching, planning, or simply collecting ideas for later, these July resources are designed to keep therapy feeling fresh, relevant, and low-prep all summer long. 💜
🏕️ SLP Elevate Summer Camp
SLP Elevate Summer Camp is officially here, and we are SO excited for everything coming this summer inside Elevate! 💜
This year’s Summer Camp is designed to help you stay connected, supported, inspired, and prepared heading into the next school year — without making summer feel overwhelming. Throughout June, July, and August, members will have access to:
✨ ASHA CEU-eligible PD sessions
✨ Our Summer Book Club featuring Hallie’s book The Secondary SLP Roadmap
✨ CF Bootcamp sessions with Hallie and SLP Elevate members
✨ Back-to-school planning and membership support sessions
✨ Fun Facebook engagement opportunities
✨ And our NEW Summer Camp Challenge with prizes and giveaways!
Whether you attend every event or just hop into the sessions that fit your summer schedule, we’re so excited to spend the summer with you inside SLP Elevate. Keep an eye on your email and the Facebook group for registration links, reminders, Summer Camp Challenge opportunities, and more details all summer long! 🏕️☀️
✨ A little reminder about the SLP Elevate Referral Program…
Sharing SLP Elevate with a colleague just got even more fun… and more rewarding. 💜
Here’s the new lineup:
1 referral → $10 Starbucks gift card ☕
2 referrals → Speech Time Fun merch 📔
3 referrals → FREE ticket to a Speech Time Fun Speech Retreat Virtual Conference (ASHA CEUs!) 🎉
4+ referrals → FREE month of SLP Elevate 💻
Know a CF who needs support? A coworker who wants better materials? A fellow SLP who would love this community? Send them our way! When they list your name on the onboarding survey, you get the credit - and the perks.
There’s no limit, so refer away. We’re so grateful for every recommendation and connection you help create.
💼 July 2026 – Job Squad 👔📋✨
This month, we're helping students build the communication and life skills they'll need long after they leave the classroom. Job Squad is packed with real-world, workplace-focused activities designed to support a wide range of learners, from Life Skills students and transition-age learners to students working on higher-level language, social communication, executive functioning, and vocational readiness skills.
Once you're inside the unit, start with the quick video walkthrough, then download the full ZIP file or grab individual resources based on your students' needs.
You'll find all of your favorite core resources, including Reading Passages & Activities, Picture Stories, Building Background Knowledge, Word of the Week, and YouTube Cheat Sheets. This month's topics focus on jobs, workplace expectations, communication skills, and vocational readiness, helping students make meaningful connections between speech therapy and life beyond school.
The supplemental resources bring those skills to life through practical, hands-on activities. Students can practice navigating workplace situations with Workplace Communication Problem Solving, build comprehension and critical thinking with Context Clues Picture Stories, and strengthen summarizing skills through the Summarizing Card Game and Main Idea Jeopardy.
Looking for functional, real-world communication opportunities? Getting a Job: Step-by-Step, Inferring Emails, and WH Questions: Workplace Expectations help students work through common workplace tasks, understand expectations, and build confidence in professional communication. The AAC Out in the Community Chat Mats provide supported communication opportunities for discussing community locations, workplace interactions, and everyday experiences.
You'll also find engaging resources like Articulation Stories Boom Cards and the Life Skills 2 Learn Companion: Jobs, making it easy to target speech, language, and vocational skills all within the same theme.
✨ Bonus Resource Spotlight: We also pulled several member-favorite bonus resources directly into this unit because they fit so naturally with the theme and we wanted all your job-related materials in one easy-to-find place. You'll find Life Skills Job Readiness Activities, Life Skills Summer Job & Interview Questions, and Vocational Job Scenes & Activities included as bonus add-ons to help students practice workplace vocabulary, interview skills, inferencing, problem-solving, and real-world job scenarios.
Whether you're working with Life Skills students learning foundational workplace expectations, transition students preparing for employment, or higher-level learners discussing professional communication, teamwork, self-advocacy, and workplace problem-solving, Job Squad was designed to give you meaningful, age-respectful activities that meet students where they are.
Because sometimes the most important speech and language goals aren't just about success in school—they're about success after school. 💜
WH Questions: Workplace Expectations
Help students build workplace readiness skills through engaging WH-questions, problem-solving scenarios, and real-world discussion activities. Students explore workplace expectations like responsibility, safety, teamwork, and professionalism while practicing comprehension, inferencing, decision-making, and explaining their reasoning in realistic job-related situations.
Workplace Communication & Problem Solving
Support students in developing confident, functional communication skills for real-world job settings. This resource includes scripts and guided role-play for common workplace interactions (bosses, coworkers, customers, asking for help, reporting problems, and receiving feedback), along with problem-solving task cards to help students practice appropriate, effective communication in realistic work scenarios.
Getting a Job Step by Step
Guide students through the full process of understanding, exploring, and preparing for employment. This resource breaks down job readiness into simple, structured steps - from identifying what a job is, to searching and applying, to practicing interviews - using picture stories, sorting activities, sequencing tasks, sentence strips, and role-play cards to build functional communication and real-world confidence.
✨ New June Bonuses Are Here!
Whether you're still seeing students, supporting ESY, or already planning ahead for next year, this month’s bonus resources are all about helping students build real-world knowledge, functional communication skills, and meaningful conversations. These activities are flexible, practical, and easy to weave into therapy throughout the summer.
🌎 Building Background Knowledge: Summer Holidays Around the World
Take students beyond their own experiences as they learn about summer celebrations from around the globe, including Independence Day, Obon, Midsummer, Bastille Day, and the White Nights Festival. With curated videos, reading passages, and comprehension activities, this resource helps students build the background knowledge they need for stronger vocabulary, inferencing, and reading comprehension.
(Located in the Holidays section of the Bonus page.)
💪 Healthy Habits in Real Life: Functional Life Skills Vocabulary
Support functional communication while teaching health and wellness vocabulary that students can actually use. Includes vocabulary cards, sorting activities, AAC supports, chat mats, sentence strips, and discussion activities that target expressive language, self-advocacy, critical thinking, and real-world communication.
(Located in the Life Skills section of the Bonus page.)
🤔 Life Skills: Would You Rather?
Spark meaningful conversations with 50 life skills-themed Would You Rather questions. Students compare choices, explain their reasoning, problem-solve, and explore everyday tasks like cooking, cleaning, transportation, and independent living skills. It's an easy way to build language, conversation, and life skills all at once.
(Located in the Life Skills section of the Bonus page.)
🩺 Health & Wellness Tier 2 Vocabulary
Build deeper vocabulary knowledge through real-life health and wellness topics. Students practice using Tier 2 vocabulary through passages, role-play scenarios, sorting activities, discussion prompts, and problem-solving tasks that support communication, flexible thinking, self-advocacy, and comprehension.
(Located in the Vocabulary section of the Bonus page.)
💡 Whether you're finishing out the school year, working through ESY, or collecting ideas for fall, these June bonuses are packed with practical activities that help students connect communication skills to everyday life.
Building Background Knowledge: Summer Holidays Around the World
Bonuses → Holidays
Life Skills Health Vocabulary
Bonuses → Life Skills
Life Skills: Would You Rather?
Bonuses →Life Skills
Health & Wellness Tier 2 Vocabulary
Bonuses → Vocabulary
Up Next in SLP Elevate...
The coming few months are packed with exciting theme units that bring fresh ideas and student-approved fun. From new stories to ready to go activities, we’ve got tools that make therapy planning easier and sessions more memorable. Stay tuned - you won’t want to miss these!
August 2026
September 2026
October2026
SLP Elevate Summer Camp is bringing you THREE incredible ASHA CEU-eligible PD opportunities this summer — all INCLUDED within your membership! 💜
🎓 The SLP Balancing Act: Ethics, Eligibility, Workload, and Advocacy with Karen Kockler — June 3, 2026
Register here: Summer Camp 2026 Registration
🎓 Better Bilingual Evaluations Through Converging Evidence with Emily Sweet — June 15, 2026
Register here: Summer Camp Session 2 Registration
🎓 Beyond Checklists: Rethinking Clinical Supervision in Real Practice with Kayla Obenour — August 6, 2026
Register here: Summer Camp Session 3 Registration
These sessions focus on highly requested, real-world topics for school-based SLPs and are designed to provide practical strategies and immediately applicable takeaways for your clinical practice.
Keep an eye on your email for registration information and reminders for all upcoming Summer Camp PD events! 💜
335: Wondering how it all began?
334: Stop Guessing With Stuttering Therapy
333: Trauma-Informed Practice: Why It Matters for Every SLP
332: Rethinking “Following Directions” Goals in Speech Therapy
From Hallie's Desk -
Hey Elevate Friends,
July is that moment where everything finally… slows down a little. ☀️
Most of you are officially out for the summer now (yes, even our New York friends who hang in there the longest 💜), and whether you’re deep into ESY, fully in vacation mode, or somewhere in that “I don’t even know what day it is anymore” phase, I hope you’re getting some space to breathe again.
This month inside Elevate, we’re leaning into something we’re really excited about: Summer Camp 👀✨
Think of it like your drop-in, no-pressure space this summer. You can pop in when you feel like it, grab ideas when you need them, and explore some really practical PD, CF sessions, and resources without the overwhelm or the “you have to do this right now” energy.
Just support, inspiration, and things that actually make your life easier when you’re ready for them.
And this time of year… it really does feel a little different. Some days you’re completely off. Some days you’re planning ahead for next year. Some days you’re just trying to avoid anything that feels like a schedule. All of that makes sense. You are where you need to be.
So wherever you are in that mix, this is your reminder that you don’t have to be in full work mode to still be growing, getting ideas, or setting yourself up for a smoother year ahead.
And more than anything, I hope you’re giving yourself a little room to rest. You poured a lot into your students this year. A lot. And now it’s your turn to come up for air.
We’ll be right here when you’re ready for whatever’s next. 💜
Xoxo,
Hallie 💜