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Great Books for Reinforcing Language work

Great Books for Reinforcing Language work

Michael Audas – Speech Pathologist

 

When your child works on language goals with a speech pathol- ogist, it tends to be within the context of very specific, structured activities. Being able to carry out these same activities at home is a great way for children to practice and make progress towards their language goals, but, given the complexity of the activities, and the limitations on time, that isn’t always possible.

Here, then, are some great books that your child will enjoy reading, but which will also reinforce some of the language con- cepts that they may have been working on in therapy.

Prepositions

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin, Jr. E.g., “I hear [sound] in my ear.”

One Gorilla, by Atsuko Morozumi. New prepositions on each page.

Negatives

Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss. E.g., “I do not like them.”

– Have You Seen My Cat, by Eric Carle. E.g., “That is not my cat.”

Verbs

I’m a Hungry Dinosaur, by Usborne. E.g., shake, stir, pat, smooth.

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, by Linda Williams. E.g., wiggle, shake, clap, nod

Plural Nouns

Wombat Stew, by Marica Vaughan. E.g., soft feathers, crunchy flies.

Farm Babies, by Rod Campbell. E.g., two lambs, three pup- pies.

Adjectives

– Dinosaur Roar, by Henrietta Strickland. E.g., bumpy, smooth, grumpy, sweet, clean, dirty.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst. E.g., terrible, horrible, scrunched, smushed.

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Great Games for Reading and Spelling

Great Games for Reading and Spelling

Michael Audas – Speech Pathologist.

Reading and spelling are not ’natural’ skills for any child to acquire. Unlike learning to walk, learning to speak, and so on, the decoding of words and their constituent alphabetic characters into sounds requires more than just the right kind of environmental stimuli to be present. That being said, a lot of kids do acquire the necessary knowledge and skills for reading and spelling with very little in the way of explicit instruction concerning spelling rules or letter-to-sound correspondences.

Struggling readers and spellers, however, do require explicit instruction, and drills, and quite a lot of both. An amount which quickly becomes tedious for them, in fact. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t fun ways for these same children to improve their reading and spelling—ways that can help break up otherwise- monotonous phonics drills and the like. In fact, when you play these games with your children, they’ll be having so much fun they won’t even realise they’re working on academic skills!

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Size of the Problem

Size of the Problem

Melanie Chan – Psychologist

Supporting our kids to recognise the size of the problem can help teach them to respond appropriately to different problems. When we are faced with a small problem, we can respond with it with a small reaction! When there is a bigproblem, what is an appropriate big reaction we can have?

Here is a little guide that I’ve been using with some of my clients to help identify which size our problem is and how we can respond in a helpful way.

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Why is sleep important?

Why is sleep important?

By Stephanie Cordingley – Provisional Psychologist

 

Sleep is needed to maintain and improve our mental health and wellbeing. It helps improve our attention, learning, memory, and behaviour, as, our body and mind can rest and repair.  Sleep is like food for your brain! Most of us need at least 8 – 9 hours of sleep per night.

To help you sleep better try turning off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bed, enjoy some exercise during the day, develop a quiet and soothing bedtime routine and get any worries off your mind by writing them down before going to sleep.

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Dealing with big feelings

Dealing with big feelings.

By Stephanie Cordingley – Provisional Psychologist.

For many reasons a child may feel anxious, usually described as ‘worries’. A useful tool which provides an outlet for the anxiety is to get the child to name the ‘worries’. A name creates distance between the child and the problem; therefore, the child does not feel that they are the ‘worries’ or the problem. To expand on externalising the problem ‘worries’, the child can draw what the worry looks like. This leads to compassionate responding to the child’s anxious questions, e.g. “That sounds like another question from The Worry Bee, The Worry Bee just doesn’t stop, how annoying is that?”

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The Power of Yet

The power of “Yet”

Melanie Chan – Pyschologist

This simple three-letter word can change the way we view our current abilities. Try adding it to the end of a sentence like “I can’t draw” or “I can’t solve this math problem”. It becomes “I can’t draw YET” and “I can’t solve this math problem YET”.

Understanding that our abilities and skill can be grown helps us to see ourselves in a better light and to promote positive self-esteem. This also helps our children work on their flexible thinking as they consider the possibility of an alternative.

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Barrier Games

Barrier Games

By Michael Audas – Speech Pathology

What is a barrier game?

Barrier games are all about helping children to understand that other people do not necessarily or automatically have access to their internal mental states. There are a wide variety of barrier games commonly utilised in therapy, but the basic premise is that two players will sit across from one another, with a barrier intervening between them, and attempt to work towards some kind of common goal—think Battleship, but with a cooperative, rather than competitive, goal.

The fact that the two players cannot see another means that they have rely on communication in order to reach their common goal. If they are trying to draw the same picture, for instance, they will need to describe exactly what lines, colours, and shapes they are utilising, and where they are marking them on the page, in order to wind up with reasonable amount of parity. Players soon learn that they cannot simply state that they’re going to draw a rabbit and assume that it’s going to look the same as the other player’s rabbit, or that it even necessarily be located in the same place on the page.

Barrier games, by their very nature, require a greater-than-usual degree of precise, and specific language. This makes them an excellent tool for developing a child’s language, and to build their capacity to communicate in a clear and concise way.

Benefits of barrier games

Barrier games are suited to the development of the following skills:

  • Listening to, and giving, directions
  • Requesting clarification of information that one has not understood
  • Comprehensiona and expression of a range of concepts
  • Narrative formulation and expression
  • Expressing and comprehending vocabulary
  • Using describing words: e.g., adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions.

Try it at home

  • Provide each child with a piece of paper, as well as textas, pencils, or crayons.
  • Have one child draw a picture and then describe it to his or her peer.
  • The other child listens to the description and then tries to draw the same picture on their page.
  • The children compare the pictures at the end and describe any differences they notice.
    • You can also try asking them about how a particular difference came about: e.g., did the instruction pertaining to that detail not include a location word.
  • Have the children switch roles.
  • You can simplify this task—particularly for younger children—by giving them colouring pages instead. This way, the children only have to attend to the different colours that they are using.

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Social Communication Development Handout

Social Communication Development Handout

By Aamina Shakoor – Speech Pathologist.

 

For kids ages 1-6 years old.

 

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Self Care

Self Care

Stephanie Cordingley – Provisional Psychologist

When times are stressful, you may be feeling overwhelmed or burnt out which makes it hard to look after yourself physically and mentally. Using self-care strategies can help to calm the mind and body, so you can be physically and mentally healthier. By taking care of yourself often, you are better able to cope with stress or other feelings that you may experience. See below for ideas for practicing self-care!