Understanding Language

A post, I wrote earlier this year, gives some tips as to when parents/teachers should expect children to accurately use specific sounds.  Speech-Language support is not limited in it's focus to development of sounds.  We also offer guidance and practice with students use and understanding of language.  A delay in language development may be trickier to notice, but I came across a useful "Indicator Checklist" within the online store, Teachers Pay Teachers.  The checklist, found at this source is pasted below.

Language Difficulty Indicators:
 Vocabulary is low or limited
 Exhibits word finding difficulties
 Responses are delayed or inappropriate
 Has trouble following directions
 Requires frequent redirection, repetition, or rephrasing
 Has difficulty with concepts of time, sequence, quantity, position, direction, and/or quality
 Responds inappropriately to who, what, when, where and why-questions
 Multi-step directions or tasks are difficult
 Word grammar is poor
 Sentence construction and/or grammar is poor
 Has difficulty making word associations and/or categorizations
 Trouble defining and describing words/objects
 Difficulty determining similarities, differences, and/or attributes
 Difficulty using and/or understanding past/present/future tenses
 Phonemic awareness skills are low
 Poor spelling skills
*Students who have these problems may have problems processing language and could possibly benefit from extra help.

Once again my door is open to start or continue this conversation if there are any concerns!

"Cookie" : A Great Website for Learning at Home!

I bet that many of you have had teachers recommend "Starfall" for continued at-home learning with your children.  It is a fun and easy to navigate site, geared towards preschool through early elementary years.

But I recently have begun exploring and using a new website, that was recommended to me as "better than Starfall".  It is called "Cookie".

What is "Cookie"?  The website answers this question in their following statement.

"At cookie, child experts and educators design interactive online games for kids. Our learning games for kids help in building skills needed for success in school. While playing our fun educational games, kids learn to read with phonics, build skills in math, language, social studies, science and much more. Our educational videos encourage children to keep learning, even after school hours.e playing our fun educational games, kids learn to read with phonics, build skills in math, language, social studies, science and much more. Our educational videos encourage children to keep learning, even after school hours."

A sampling of the "Language Lessons", all terrific for supplementing receptive/expressive language goals for  4K through 5th grade, is shown below.  

Click on the following link to start exploring on your own!  It will take you directly to a game I enjoy using with 1st through 4th grade students involving sentence construction and editing skills.

cookie - Learning – Language – Making Sentences – Primary School Game

Elmer's and Glue

This past week our preschool groups have been working hard to pronounce "ch" at the end of words.  David McKee's book Elmer was a perfect match for this.  The kids learned all about the colorful patches that made this elephant stand out from the others in a perfect way. They named their favorite colored "patch" and then enjoyed seeing all the other elephant's celebrate Elmer in a parade "march". 

The children then had a chance to "change" their grey elephant to one with "patch"-work, like Elmer.  Work on requesting and direction following was accomplished during this colorful art activity.

The kids shared glue cups and were careful not to take too "much"!

We played a game of musical chairs and named the color "patch" that each student sat upon.

It was fun pairing this activity with "The Ants Go Marching" song, as we had learned it earlier in the week.

More "CH" practice activities can be found at:

http://www.speakingofspeech.com/Articulation_Materials.html#ch

Digital Technology in the Speech Room

Walker Elementary is ahead of many schools, in regards to their use and application of technology within the classroom.  This week we celebrated all that we have learned during Digital Technology Day.

A real time online tour of Miller Park was arranged.  All staff and students were able to go behind the scenes and ask questions of our tour guide.  How cool!  

To see a sampling of the tour please click on the link below:

Walker Elementary Digital Technology Day Miller Park Tour

I keep on learning more ways to utilize technology as a mode to educating, engaging and encouraging my own students, from 3 years of age to 5th grade.  As a speech-language pathologist I do not have a Smart Board but I do enjoy using my district purchased I Pad with my students.

Here are some of my favorite apps, all free at time of "purchase" that promote development of speech-language skills:   

Mad Libs 

Students love hearing the silly stories they create by stating words for adjectives, nouns, verbs and other word groups.  It promotes development of rich vocabulary and the ability to pull up words from specific "files".  This is an activity that assists with word finding skills, fluency, articulation and verb tense.  It is also a great 5 minute filler that is enriching and educational.

Story Wheel

Create your own story by spinning a wheel to find a pictured topic.  Students can work in a group, each taking a turn recording their voice for one minute intervals.  They are challenged to connect one "page" to another and can help edit their own and peers work.  We like sending the finished product to their classroom teachers via email!

Touch and Learn: Emotions by Alligator Apps

Excellent way to target comprehension of different emotions via photos of realistic situations.  Students can either touch the photo themselves or describe which photo should be tapped.  We also practice answer "Why" questions to understand the reason behind the emotion.  Connections are also made as to when students might have felt that emotion. 

Check out these apps... hopefully they are all still free for you.

Chocolate Fun practicing "CH"

Our Preschool Speech-Language groups had a fun time trying to produce the /ch/ sound within our "Chocolate" themed activities.  

They first listened and commented on the story Chocolatina, by Erik Craft.  Items that could be made from chocolate were identified, then actions were named too.  There was plenty of opportunities to practice with "She is..." sentence starters for all of the students.

These are the art projects each student made and took home.  Ice cream cones of their chosen flavor, including "cherry", "chocolate", "mint chip", "peach" and more!  Students' homework included repeating the phrase written onto their art, "I chose ___ ice cream".

We topped of the group time with more food chat, during a group "Food Bingo" game.  Surprisingly, many items that could be made with "chocolate" were found on our boards - from donuts, pancakes to cookies.  Students practiced their expressive vocabulary skills by naming the picture they drew.  

We were a bit hungry by the end of our classes, so a tootsie rolls were shared to take home!!!