Back to School Prep Checklist for school SLPs

Hi friend!

Back-to-school season is here! 🍎

Whether you’re already back in the swing of things, just starting to think about the new year, or still soaking up every last bit of summer, I’ve put together a Back-to-School Prep Checklist made just for seasoned SLPs like you.

It’s filled with quick, practical tasks to help you feel more organized, grounded, and ready to take on the new year without the overwhelm.

Get Your Systems In Place: 

🗂️ Set up your caseload management system, whether that’s a digital spreadsheet (like this one) or a binder. 

🗂️ Map out your IEP meetings for the year.

🗂️ Create a plan for staying on top of incoming referrals and triennial assessments.

🗂️ Don’t forget about caregiver communication—monthly newsletters and themed take-home notes can make a big difference in keeping families in the loop. For a head start, take a peek at these monthly newsletters and these themed newsletters.

👉🏽 Need some help getting organized? Check out this blog post.

Organize Your Materials: 

✔️ Sort through your therapy materials and purge anything outdated. 

✔️ Group your favorite activities by skill or theme so they’re easy to find. 

✔️ Open your Google Drive full of resources and purge three resources or create three folders (e.g. theme, skill, grade, type of resource).

👉🏽 Need some help getting your books and materials organized? Check out these book bin labels. 

Give Your Therapy Space a Reset: 

🧹 Dust, sanitize toys, and maybe rearrange a piece of furniture or two.

🧹 Swap out decorative wall decor for functional decor, making sure 20-50% of your walls are bare (read more about wall decor in this article).

🧹 Consider adding a plant or a rug to make the space extra warm. A fresh, organized environment can energize you and your students come school time! 

👉🏽 Refresh your space with some new, functional posters like these articulation ones or these all things speech therapy ones.

Gather Your Go-To Assessment Tools: 

📝 Take inventory of your go-to screening and evaluation tools. 

📝 Group tools by skills assessed and/or grade level.

📝 Don’t forget to organize your digital assessment tools (e.g. teacher input, caregiver questionnaire, etc.) into folders. 

👉🏽 Struggling to determine educational impact during speech sound assessments? This free intelligibility tool can help you gather meaningful data and strengthen your recommendations.

Find New Therapy Materials: 

🌟 Browse your local library catalog or check out YouTube to discover a new book.

🌟 Head to a garage sale or visit your local thrift store.

🌟 Check out your favorite TPT stores to see what’s new.

🌟 Browse your wishlist on TPT. Clean out what you no longer need and add your must-haves to your cart so you're ready for the sale!

👉🏽 Looking for a place to start? Take a peek at my favorite books for speech therapy in this blog post, browse my back-to-school activities, or check out what’s new in my website shop!

Plan Your First Week of Therapy: 

🎯 Pick an easy, engaging activity to build rapport and gather baseline data.

🎯 Give yourself some options so you can be flexible and go with the flow. Here are some ideas: a game, a book, would you rather prompts, virtual field trip.

🎯 Browse back-to-school freebies and activities here.

👉🏽 Looking for a versatile book to kick off the year? Check out How the Crayons Saved the School! Pair it with these free narrative activities to get started, or grab the comprehensive book companion for even more done-for-you support.

Check In with Teachers: 

💬 New to the school? Send a quick intro email to all teachers so they know who you are and how to reach you.

💬 Drop by in person to build rapport with self-contained and special education teachers.

💬 Review the speech referral process so teachers know what to look for and how to get students the support they need.

💬 Share visuals and low-tech core boards with aides and classroom staff to support carryover in the classroom.

👉🏽 Don’t have a core board handy? Check out this blog post full of free ones.

Learn Something New: 

🧠 Been curious about a new therapy approach or strategy? Explore it by signing up for a PD, reading a blog post, or listening to a podcast or audiobook episode.

🧠 Attended a PD this summer? Create a quick cheat sheet or prep any materials you might need.

🧠 Read a blog post that stuck with you? Print it out and keep it handy in your therapy space for easy reference.

For some inspiration, check out...

👉🏽 This blog post on using CROWD prompts while reading stories with your students

👉🏽 This blog post on how to use the two-step prompting technique

👉🏽 Dive into the world of literacy-based therapy starting with this blog post

This checklist is here to support you and bring a little structure to what can be a busy (and sometimes overwhelming) time of year.

Use it in whatever way works best for you: choose one or two sections to tackle this back-to-school season, print out this blog post and highlight one task in each section to complete, bookmark it to revisit when motivation strikes, or team up with an SLP buddy to tackle a few things together!

I hope these tips and resources are just what you need to feel prepared and even excited to tackle the new year.

You’ve got this my friend! 💛