SLPs use a lot of materials in their lessons. This means there are a lot of little things to keep track of! Personally, I find that this is especially true with visual supports. If you run speech sessions with littles, I know you can probably relate to having endless piles of visual supports floating around. This can get overwhelming quickly, so today I’m going to chat about how I go about organizing visual supports in the speech room! Ready to get organized? Let’s get to it!

Staying organized is key to carrying out great lessons. After all, those amazing resources are only valuable to you if you can actually find them when you need them! I don’t know about you, but there is nothing more frustrating to me than when I can’t find what I need for a lesson! 

Today we are going to tackle that together! We have already discussed why visual supports are so important for speech and language development, so now let’s dive into how you’re going to keep them all organized in the speech room. 

Step 1: Gather Your Materials 

First off, I would like to highly encourage you to peek around your room or supply closet and see what you already have. If you’re anything like me, you likely have a variety of bins, boxes, and containers lying around. Before you buy anything, take stock of what you have and see what can be repurposed. Some great items to gather up are:

• Boxes or bins with lids
• Binders 
• Binder Rings 
• Magnetic Hooks
• Velcro 

Gather up all your goodies and don’t forget to grab up all of your visual support materials as well. Before getting things organized, I like to pull everything out and take stock of what I have so I can start crafting a plan of attack. 

Step 2: Choose Systems That Work For You 

There are many different ways you can organize visual supports for your speech therapy sessions, so this part will really come down to personal preference and what works best for your room. I actually use all of these systems but feel free to pick and choose the ones that work best for you! 

1. Small Boxes with Snapping Lids for Long Term-Storage

If you have been around here a while, you may have noticed my deep love for tiny, colorful containers. I love these little boxes since they are bright, cheery, and the perfect size for my Grab-and Go Visual Supports.

These containers are perfect for long-term storage because they are small and stack easily on a shelf.

I also love that they are clear so I can see what’s inside without having to label the boxes! Just place the “title” card on top and you have an instant label! 

Every week as I prepare for lessons, I look through my boxes and find the ones I will need for our planned activities.

Then, I toss the boxes into my bigger, weekly planning basket and we’re ready to go! These containers make it simple and easy to bring these cards along anywhere and keep all my cards in order. 

2. Binder Rings & Magnetic Hooks for Easy Access

I also LOVE organizing Grab-and-Go Visual Supports with binder rings. This method provides super-easy access to resources we use often like basic concepts, vocabulary, and prepositions. I find that we use these cards almost daily so it’s great to have them hanging right on my cabinet at all times. 

To do this, laminate your cards and then punch a hole in the top left-hand corner of each card. Place them in a binder ring and use these magnetic hooks to attach them to any metal cabinet or magnetic surface. Check out this post on IG that shows what a huge transformation this can method make with your organization! 

These are a total lifesaver when you need a quick visual support to use with an activity at a moment’s notice. I love having easy access to these without having to dig through file folders or plastic baggies.

3. Activity Boards for Organized Displays

And finally, I have an awesome hack for you on how to make your own activity boards for use during your sessions. In the past, I have purchased pre-made activity boards that are great, but also kinda pricey! Then I had the fabulous idea to create my own using mini cutting boards! What?!? I know, but trust me - you will LOVE this tip for organizing visuals. 

To get started, grab yourself a few plastic cutting boards like these, and some sticky back velcro. All you need to do is adhere the velcro to the boards, add some velcro to the back of your visuals and you are good to go! You can also use a glue gun to make the velcro stick if you don’t have the self-adhesive kind. 

Then you can use these activity boards for cooking lessons, science experiments, sensory activities, circle time, stories, and more! This is a great way to display a list of visual supports to your students to help prompt their language on a daily basis. Best of all, the velcro will keep everything from sliding all over the table and getting lost during your lesson. If you want to see a video tutorial, be sure to take a peek at this highlight on IG! 

Step 3: Make A Plan To Organize Data Too

SLPs spend a lot of time gathering data, so don't forget to put a system in place for that too! I find that this goes hand-in-hand with getting my visual supports in order since I am usually collecting student data each time we use them. 

For this, I love to use 3-ring binders. I like to use dividers for each student’s name and keep all of their information behind it. This system makes it simple for me to sort students by group and keep everyone’s information handy in one place. This is also a great place to store parent communication and any other helpful info you want to keep top of mind. 

As a special thank you for being a reader, I have the perfect freebie to kick-start your organizing! Grab a copy of these free data collection binder covers to add a pop of color to your binders. Included in the download are 5 different covers. I like to use a different one for each group that I work with. 

Get Started Organizing Visual Supports!

Are you excited to get going on organizing visual supports in your room?! I hope this post was inspirational and helped kickstart your organizing. It can seem daunting at first, but once you get everything situated in a system, it makes a world of difference! Having well-organized visual supports will help you plan lessons quickly and efficiently and allow you to spend more time learning with your littles! Happy Organizing! 

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