Theresa Mourey is a practicing speech-language pathologist in both Connecticut and Nebraska. She has a teaching license as well as a Master of Arts Degree in Speech-Language Pathology and Bachelor of Science in Special Education from the University of Connecticut.  Her career has spanned over 29 years, focusing on many age groups ranging from birth to the elderly.

Programming for students with language-learning disabilities involving literacy and written expression has been an area of specific interest for Theresa.  She has utilized a variety of tools and strategies in both small group therapy sessions and collaboration with regular and special education teachers for whole class application.  In addition, she has provided professional development to special education and regular education staff in the areas of language development, vocabulary, story grammar and written expression.  Theresa has collaborated with regular education teachers to target the NESA writing assessment.  ESU 10 is proud to have Theresa return to ESU 10 to help area professionals improve their skills in supporting children's speaking and writing skills, which in turn impacts their reading and comprehension skills.

Learning Objectives

1.      Participants will be able to create specific measureable goals/objectives for students who exhibit weaknesses in narrative verbal and written language skills based on their narrative developmental level after reviewing a narrative goal bank.

2.     Participants will learn ways to establish baselines, data collection and progress monitoring through a variety of strategies and tools to report accurate student performance across marking periods in the areas of verbal and written narrative expression. 

3.     Participants will be able to develop lesson plans that scaffold and target specific narrative skills using a variety of visual/manipulative techniques and strategies, videos, modeling, blogs, websites and additional resources.

4.     Participants will be able to identify the appropriate tools/strategies/techniques for different students’ needs in order to create a narrative verbal and written expression toolbox, as well as how to introduce these strategies with a variety of staff and in a variety of settings (i.e., resource room, classroom, specials) throughout the school day.