Hi families! Now that we have found ourselves trying to navigate through these uncharted times, I wanted to share with you what you can expect in regards to your child's speech and language services through the Grandview School District.
This is definitely new territory for us and we are doing our best to continue to meet your child's needs from a distance. So, I would like to share with you some preliminary information as far as how your child's speech/language pathologist will proceed... 1. You should be expecting some type of contact with your SLP. She may call or email you this week to begin developing a plan that would work best for you. 2. Teachers have been instructed to contact each family at least once a week. This contact may be phone calls, text messages, emails, or possibly some virtual format such as zoom or FaceTime. This is information that your SLP will be talking to you about. 3. A plan will be made regarding your child's therapy. You and your therapist will determine the best method to work on therapy goals. Some examples include: * emailing you some activities to do including specific language or speech targets * mailing you packets of activities to do with your child or for older children, they may be able to complete independently. * you may want to have a virtual therapy session with your therapist each week. That will be up to you and your therapist to determine. These sessions would be best conducted through a phone call or if you prefer face-to-face, zoom.us is a great platform for visual, interactive sessions. Whatever the plan is for your child, please know that we are here to support you as best we can. Feel free to reach out to your therapist through email. Teachers and therapists are continuing to work daily from home. Therefore, the best way to reach them would be through email. This blog will be updated more frequently with some fun home activities that you can do with your child during this "stay at home" time. Please know that we are here and will do what we can from a distance to answer questions or provide guidance. Keep checking back for additional information.
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When your child isn’t communicating much, it’s very concerning. Parents are always wanting advice on how to help their child. The best thing you can do to help your child is be a good model. This is true in many areas of development and throughout their entire lives. Not only do we model good language, we also model behavior and health and lifestyle choices. Think about it…kids imitate things you do every day. I have pictures of my two-year-old following his daddy in the yard pushing a little lawn mower. He is imitating was his father is modeling. In his little mind, he was probably thinking, “Daddy’s mow yards.” Lol. We’ve all said things like “because I said so” and we say it because we heard our parents said it to us. I’ve heard my daughter use the same phrases that I know I’ve said at some point in time. Everything you do, your child is watching and observing. This never stops! So, when it comes to language, you need to be a good model. For young children and minimally verbal children, there are 5 basic types of modeling that I want to share…
The first is language expansion. You (the adult) are simply restating what the child says but adding a few words to it. For example, if your son is playing with a truck and says “truck”, you could say, “a big red truck” or “the truck goes zoom”, etc. A second type of modeling is self-talk. This is when the adult talks about what they (the adult) are doing, sort of like narrating your life or your activity. Statements like, “I’m hungry. I want a snack. I am eating an apple.” “I want to sit down on the couch. This tv show is funny.” When shopping at the grocery store: “we need apples. I am going to get 5 red apples.” When driving in the car: “I need to turn on the car. I see a stop sign. Look it’s our house, we are home.” It may feel silly to say things about what you are doing, but providing more simple statements is great for your child to hear. There are all sorts of studies that talk about the more words a child hears, the more vocabulary they have and the more likely they are to acquire reading easier. Parallel talk is another way to model good language. This is simply talking about what they (the child) are doing. “You’re taking a bath. Here is the soap. It makes bubbles. Time to rinse your hair. Time to dry off. Where are your clothes. They are in your drawer.” “Your shoe is untied. You need me to tie your shoe.” “The horse it going into the barn. The horse says neigh.” Another type of modeling is recasting. This is when the adult changes a child phrase to a different type of statement (declarative, question, etc.). If the child says “mommy, no” (declarative). The adult might change it to “you don’t want mommy to tie your shoe?” (question). If the child says “more juice.” The adult would say “Do you want more juice?” Another strategy that is helpful for encouraging language is using cloze phrases. This is a sentence completion strategy where the last word in a sentence (or several words) are left off and the child completes the sentence. Some examples of using cloze phrases would be during reading books with the child, “hickory dickory dock, the mouse went up the ___”. Or during playing with playdough, “oh my playdough feels _____”. When you smell something in the kitchen, “the cookies smell ____ (yummy, good)” or “I smell the yummy cookies with my ____(nose). Using a visual such as rubbing your tummy when you are cueing yummy, or touching your nose when talking about smelling are also helpful to encourage appropriate language. The whole point of modeling good language in a variety of different ways is to bombard your child with a language rich environment. The more words a child is exposed to is related to how easily language is acquired. Another great way to provide a language rich environment for your child is to read EVERY DAY to them. There are studies that state that children who are read 5 books a day, enter kindergarten having been exposed to well over a million words! There is evidence to support that this is also linked to easier acquisition of language skills. Read, read, read. And talk to your child frequently. With all of that being said, notice when your child is being overwhelmed with language. Allow time for your child to process what you are saying. Keep your statements and questions simple. Repeat when necessary. Welcome to the 2019-2020 school year!
We are so excited to get this school year going! Our district Speech/Language Pathologists are hard at work organizing and scheduling students for speech and language therapy. Therapy started this week for all students who are receiving speech and/or language therapy and have IEPs. Students who are receiving speech therapy and do not have IEPs, we refer to that programming as a Speech Improvement Plan (SI Plan). This is for students who only have one or two sounds to work on and their education is not impacted because of their articulation weaknesses. Parents, please look for permission forms in your child's backpack to continue receiving speech therapy under the SI Plan format. Return those forms as soon as possible so your child can continue receiving speech therapy. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your child's speech therapist at their school. The contact information is listed on this website. We hope you and your children have a wonderful school year! Phonological awareness is a way for young children to get ready for reading. There are several things parents can do to help bring their child's awareness to different sounds and words. We do several of these activities and probably don't even realize that they are helpful!
1. Finding the Beat. Clapping out the syllables in words. Apple: A-pple has 2 syllables, so you clap 2 times. Elephant: el-a-fant has 3 syllables, so you clap 3 times. 2. Write the letter and practice the sound the letter makes. For example, write the letter B and talk about the sound /b/. Encourage your child to make the sound the same way you make it. 3. Find something that starts with a sound. Find pictures in books that start with the B sound or play a game such as "I spy" and find something in the room that starts with the B sound. 4. Practice rhyming words. What rhymes with "hat"? Bat, cat, fat, sat, mat, etc. Read stories that have rhyming words. Ask your child "what rhymes with ____?" Nursery rhymes have lots of rhyming words. Maybe you can have your child listen to words and pick out the word that doesn't rhyme. 5. Break apart compound words such as "airplane", "bathtub", "cowboy", "baseball", "sunflower", "railroad", "football", etc. Talk about how 2 different words make 1 word. 6. Word families. Talk about words that end in "it" and then put different sounds in front of the "it". S-it, F-it, L-it, B-it, etc. Words that end in "op" such as H-op, C-op, B-op, ST-op, etc. It can be scary and frustrating for parents to communicate with their children, especially when the child has a very limited expressive vocabulary. Although a child may not have "words" or a very extensive vocabulary, they are communicating. Communication occurs both verbally and nonverbally. Some examples of nonverbal communication include pointing, waving, gesturing, signing, waving, vocalizing, facial expression, sounds, body movements, eye gaze, and a variety of behaviors such as crying, hitting, pushing, hugging, tapping, etc. In some way, every child is communicating. As the adults and caregivers, it is up to us to figure out what the child is trying to communicate. Here are a few tips that I found on The Hanen Centre website. I hope these tips help you expand your child's vocabulary and communications skills:
1. Put the child's message into words. Once you have figured out what your child is trying to communicate, put it into words. It's important to keep it short. Don't overload your child with too much language. For example, if your child is reaching up towards a cupboard with cups, say "you want a drink." or "OK I'll get you a drink." 2. Stop talking and wait. Give your child a chance to communicate. Accept all attempts from your child to communicate. She may not have used words, but she gestured or pointed or had a look of surprise on her face. This is communication. Then acknowledge her communication attempt. For example, if she hears loud music and puts her hands to her ears. You say, "yes the music is loud." or "I will turn the music down." It's really easy to fill in the quiet with words. Try to resist the urge to talk too much. 3. Encourage verbal turn taking. Pause and wait for your child to take a turn communicating. This is a good activity to do when you are doing something that can be repeated over and over. For example, when swinging and you know he wants more pushes. Model the word "push" or "more push" one time then wait. Give him time to tell you what he wants. 4. Use fun words and fun sounds like "whee", "boom", "uh-oh", "pop", "crash", "moo", "bang", "boom", "splash", etc. These words are fun because they are usually said with a lot of expression. Also encourage animal sounds and other environmental sounds such as "choo choo", "vroom", etc. 5. Imitate your child's sound and actions. Imitation is a very important skill for your child to learn because it causes her to notice you. She may then begin to imitate you when she is ready. Imitate her verbalizations such as "dada", "ooo", "no", etc. as well as her motor actions. For example, if she runs across the room and bangs on a drum, you imitate her. If she laughs at a funny toy, you laugh too. 6. Talk during everyday routines. For example, while changing a diaper, while taking a bath, while getting dressed. Describe what is happening. For example: "you are splashing". "Let's wash your hands with soap." "It's time to put on your shirt." 7. Use gestures and actions and demonstrations when speaking to your child. When talking about an airplane in the sky, point up. When talking about an animal at the zoo, point to the animal. When talking about going bye-bye, hold up your car keys. When talking about swinging, move your body/head back and forth. 8. Offer your child a choice. Give your child a choice of two items by holding them up. "Do you want an apple or a banana?" "Do you want to red shirt or pink shirt?" When your child has indicated his or her choice, verbalize the answer. "Pink shirt." "Banana please." Pause and see if he or she can verbalize or indicate in some way. 9. Be face to face. Play with your child down on the floor. Get to eye level when talking to her. Face her when she's in the highchair. Limit your screen time (phones, ipads, tv's) while playing with your child. 10. Ask fewer questions. Instead comment on things in everyday life. When your child is playing with play dough, don't ask "what are you doing?" Instead comment, "you're squishing the playdough." When looking at books, don't ask "what is that?" Instead, comment "that's a funny puppy." It's easy to get into the habit of asking lots of questions, but if you're child isn't using words, it is difficulty for him to answer you. Some questions are good! But not too many! What are executive functioning skills?
They are those skills that help students think about and plan out activities in their daily lives. The two main categories include skills that help us regulate our behavior and metacognitive skills which include those skills that help us plan how to approach a learning task. In other words…”thinking about thinking” We use self talk for metacognitive skills. We use self talk when problem solving, self correcting, self monitoring, and self assessing. We adjust ourselves depending on our ability to learn a task. Where are Executive functioning skills located? They are located in the frontal lobe of the brain. They are the skills we use to connect new experiences to past experiences. We learn from our past mistakes and successes. These experiences guide us when approaching new situations and allow us to adjust to changes in situations. The following are some of the Executive Functioning Skills
Why is everyone talking about "Screen Time"? What is "Screen Time?" Screen time is the time adults and children spend looking at a screen. A screen can be a TV, phone, Ipad, digital game, computers/laptops, youtube videos, etc. If you think about how much time we spend per day staring at some type of screen, you might be surprised! As adults, we set an example for our children. If we are doing it, they think they should do it. Often parents have good intentions by setting their child in front of a screen such as "It makes them happy." "They're playing educational games." "They are having fun." While all of these things are true...just like with anything...too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. What is the big deal? Why do I need to limit "Screen Time"? The following information is from Healthy Kids, Healthy Future. When watching TV or playing video games, kids are likely to be sedentary rather than playing with peers, friends or parents.
"Screen Time" also reduces the amount of time, children and adults spend communicating with others. Communication is a social interaction that requires reading and understanding facial expressions and body language and gauging our own communication in response to another's communication. Watching social interactions on TV or other screens does not provide enough education and practice for children to become effective social communicators. So how do I limit "Screen Time"? Infants should have no screen time, and toddlers should be limited to no more than four times a year, or never. Not too long ago, parents and child care providers all over the country were buying and showing videos geared entirely toward the infant audience. But now we know that babies and even toddlers (up to two years old) shouldn’t get any screen time at all, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. For preschoolers, use screen time sparingly.
Whenever young children in your care do get screen time, make sure it’s for educational or physical activity purposes only. A lot of educational shows and DVDs today weave developmentally appropriate academic messages or physical activity in seamlessly. Be sure to participate in any activities with the children. For older children and teenagers, setting family rules is important. If a teen spends all day scrolling on their phone and watching YouTube videos on their laptop, they're going to be less likely to move enough and less likely to get enough sleep. This can quickly lead to a vicious cycle, where teens are less active develop poor sleep habits, and spend more time on screens each day. Here are some tips for helping to reduce Screen Time.
It doesn't matter what winter holiday you celebrate...there are lots of language rich activities you can do with your child this season. The holidays bring out excitement in children (and adults) of all ages. Spending time with family and friends to celebrate the season is a wonderful way to practice a variety of language concepts such as:
1. Crafts! There are so many different craft activities available online and at hobby stores. While you are crafting with your child, they are hearing new words (ornaments, candy canes, tinsel, garland, wreaths, sparkly, glowing, blinking, twinkling, fireplace, dreidel, menorah, festival, etc.) The following button will take you to a quick reference for some fun and easy crafts for the holidays. Making holiday cookies is a fun language rich activity. You will practice following directions such as "put one egg in the bowl", "pour the cup of flour in the bowel", etc. You will also be introducing new vocabulary: flour, vanilla, frosting, sprinkles, etc. Younger kids may learn new language concepts such as "hot", "roll", "cut", etc. Older kids may be given a little more independence to follow a recipe with limited or no guidance from the adult. Of course, the adult should be nearby to answer questions and supervise the activity while talking about the activity. Below is a link to some fun holiday cookie recipes. There are lots of other recipes available online too! Reading holiday books and watching holiday movies is a fun way to provide language interactions with your child! During and after the books and shows, asking your child questions about the main idea, details, prediction questions, and problem solving questions will spark deeper thinking. Also ask your child to retell or reread the story to you with or without the book. Ask your child what their favorite part of the story or movie was and why? The following are some suggested holiday books:
Do a Holiday Countdown. Either make an advent calendar or use one that you already have. Practice counting and using sentences. For example, "there are 14 more days until Christmas." or "this is the third night of Hanukkah." Holiday Mad Libs are fun! Here is a link to some quick print mad libs. Practice Sequencing by talking about and doing easy sequential activities such as:
Phonemic Awareness, Phonological Awareness, Phonics...aren’t they the same thing? NO. Although it seems that they are the same, there are differences. When children learn to read, there is a continuum of skills that have to be developed. You can’t jump ahead in levels...you must first build the foundational skills before moving on. Let’s investigate these differences. Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate different sounds in spoken words. Phonemic Awareness is the foundation required to learn to read. Skills within this category include:
Phonological Awareness is the awareness of sounds in bigger units such as syllables and words. For example, understanding how many syllables are in a words, understanding that two letters make up one sound (sh), word families and rhymes, recognizing sounds in different parts of words (what sound is at the end of bat?). Skills in this category include:
Phonics is a teaching tool for reading. This focuses on the relationship between sounds and their spelling. So before teaching phonics and spelling, a child must first understand that specific letters make specific sounds (phonemic awareness) and then understand that several sounds go together to make syllables and words (phonological awareness). The first two steps are auditory skills. Phonics is both auditory and visual. Here is a great visual to help you understand the building blocks for reading: Despite these different focuses, phonics instruction and phonemic awareness instruction are connected. In fact, phonemic awareness is necessary for phonics instruction to be effective. Before students can use a knowledge of sound-spelling relationships to decode written words, they must understand that words (whether written or spoken) are made up of sounds. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that a word is made up of a series of discrete sounds. Without this insight, phonics instruction will not make sense to students.
How can parents reinforce these phonemic skills at home?
For many parents, the start of the school year is an exciting time. It’s a time for their child to branch out and make new friends and learn lots of new and exciting things. For other parents, it can be stressful and scary especially if there are concerns about academic and language development. Some preschoolers (and their parents) have not spent much time around other children their same age and it may be an eye opener to observe the developmental levels of other children the same age. Often this is the time when parents notice that their child is not talking or interacting at the same level as other children. They begin to question or wonder if there is something “wrong” with their child. Here are some things to think about when these questions arise…
3 years old: By the age of 3 years, most children are able to follow 2 step familiar directions such as “take off your shirt and put it in the hamper.” They know the names of common objects as well as the functions of the objects. They are speaking in short sentences of at least 3 words in length and they are constantly learning new words. 3 year olds can tell you their name and age and know the difference between boys and girls. 3 year olds are also learning descriptive concepts such as colors, numbers and some attributes (such as big, funny, etc.). The "3 year old" button, below, is a link to some 3 year old skills. 4 years old: By the age of 4 years, you should see a big growth in your child’s language skills. They have a much bigger vocabulary. Some developmental charts say 4 year old should have a vocabulary of approximately 1000 words. 4 year olds love to tell you stories and are communicating while they play by either talking/narrating their play to themselves or with a peer. The "4 year old" button at the bottom, is a link to some skills for quick reference for 4 year old. 5 years old: By the age of 5 years, children should have a vocabulary of 1500-2000 words and they should be continuing to learn new words. 5 year olds can tell elaborate stories and should understand future concepts such as “in the morning” or “tomorrow”. They should be able to follow multi-step directions and can ask for clarification if they are unsure of something. They should begin to be thinking in more abstract ways such as “I hope…” If you feel your child is not developing language at the rate that you would expect, contact your school district’s speech/language pathologist for assistance. Please keep in mind that the “average range” is exactly that…a “range”. Some children develop certain skills quicker than others. Some children may be at the lower end of the average range, and then hit a “language growth spurt” later. A speech/language pathologist can observe and interact with your child during a screening. This will give her a better idea of how your child is doing. Several different situations may occur following a screening:
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