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My Speech Universe

09 August 2023

5 Steps to Reading Books with Your Preschool Speech and Language Students

Teacher reading book with two preschoolers


Are you looking for ways to read with your preschool speech and language students while encouraging language growth and goals? Go beyond just reading TO your students and start reading WITH them!

Here are five steps you can take to read a book with your preschool students.

hands holding up the cover of a book
1.  Talk About the Cover

This is a great time to work on some predicting by asking, "Who do you think this book is about?" or, "What is this animal?" You'll love some of the responses.  The predicting skills used here are great.  You can help your students talk about who they think the characters will be, where will the story take place, and even, what might happen in the story.

2. Respond

This is an opportunity to expand on the child’s responses. Respond to the student’s answers by saying, “Yes, I think it’s about a dog too.” or, “That’s’ right, it’s a dog.” You could then expand the sentence by saying, “I see a dog in a tree.”  

Teacher reading book with preschool boy


3. Ask Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions allow the child to attend to details on the page. An example may be, “What is happening in this picture?” or “What do you see here?” It is amazing to see what the child will point out in the book. They have so many great ideas when talking about what they see.

Man pointing up with an idea
 

4. Think Aloud

Another great way to encourage talk about the book is to think aloud.  An example would be, “I wonder what the dog will find on the treasure hunt?” Some of the ideas will be very creative!

Teacher reading book with preschool girl

5. Continue Prompts Throughout the Book

Use prompts such as open-ended questions, wh-questions, completion prompts, and recall with the rest of the pages.

Most of all, have fun! You will be sure to instill a love of reading and books in your students if you are both having fun with it!

Want a copy of these tips? Here is a link for a FREE handout that you can save for yourself or share with parents:

If you are looking to have more fun with your preschool speech and language students check out this post for Playing with Preschoolers.

Have fun!


19 November 2021

Fun Turkey Time in the Speech and Language Room

Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in your speech room? If not, you may want to try it! There are so many fun activities and books that you can use to target speech and language goals at Thanksgiving. Your students will love this craft! 

Try this easy turkey craft. It requires a little bit of prep work but really pays off.

Thanksgiving Speech Craft

You'll need to cut:

  • brown circles
  • multiple colors of feathers
  • turkey legs
  • beaks (add a piece of red tissue for a wattle)
You'll also need my all-time favorite craft item: GOOGLY EYES! Googly eyes make everything better, right?
Turkey Pieces
I cut my students pieces for them, but if you have older students they may be able to do this quickly. When I am doing crafts like this I like to have everything prepped ahead of time so that the focus of our session can still be on speech and not just creating something.


Language
We were able to target so many language concepts while working on this craft! I used five different colors of feathers that the students named and requested. We worked on the prepositions on and under while constructing the turkeys. We also worked on following directions and using first, next, then vocabulary.
Following directions to put glue on the turkey

Direction words to Make Turkey Craft
Articulation

You can use this craft to target articulation by either writing articulation words on each feather or by gluing pictures of your words. If you need words, I have a set of great little pictures organized by sound as part of my Glue and Say Bundle.
Turkey Craft with Articulation Words

Finished Turkey Craft with Articulation words
This little turkey turns out so cute! My preschool students have loved taking these out to their parents and showing them off!

If you don't have time to make this turkey craft and need something quick for your articulation students, you can also try this easy to prep packet of Thanksgiving Glue and Say Articulation. These sheets are super easy to just print and use. This is just what you are looking for right before a holiday, right?
Thanksgiving Glue and Say Articulation pages



26 July 2021

Ideas for Playing With Preschoolers in Speech Therapy and Home While Increasing Language

Great ideas for playing with preschoolers while working on language skills

Are you looking for ways to play with preschool-age children? It can be tricky to know what to do to encourage play and language while you are with small children. I know that when I started working with preschool students it took some time to really learn how important play was in their learning. 

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers.

Play is really the work of childhood.


I learned quickly how much language learning happens during play with preschoolers. Here are some tips that you can use today to start playing with your preschoolers while encouraging tons of language! You can also grab this freebie Tips for Playing with Preschoolers that is great for giving to parents to play at home.

playing with preschoolers parent handout
JOIN IN!

  • Start by noticing what the child is interested in. It could be something they are playing with like some blocks or something they are doing, like jumping on cracks in the sidewalk.
  • Ask if you can join in with them.
  • Go along with what the child is doing.
  • Imitate what they are doing, then try adding your own ideas and see how they react to that addition or imitate. If they are interested, they may imitate you and add on. If they are not interested in that idea, they may move on to something else.

NARRATE YOUR PLAY

  • Use Self-Talk. Talk about what you are seeing, hearing, or doing using short, simple sentences. "I'm jumping!" or "I'm stacking the blocks. The tower is getting tall!" "Uh-oh, the tower fell."
  • Use Parallel-Talk. Talk about what the child is seeing, hearing, or doing. "You're jumping in the puddle." or "Wow! Your tower is getting tall!"
  • Remember that when you are using self-talk or parallel-talk, you are not requiring the child to repeat you. You are simply exposing the child to rich language.

USE WHAT YOU HAVE

Man and children playing with box

You don't need flashy toys or games to play with preschoolers. You can have simple staples that work great like blocks, dolls, pretend food items, etc. You can also have things like empty boxes, fabrics, or other items around the house. My favorite toys are tried and true. They have not changed much over the years I have been working with preschoolers. 

PLAY EVERY TIME

children playing at table
With the way I structure my sessions, when students first come into my room I use the first 5 minutes of every session for play. Every time. Never fail. My students love that time to transition into my room. You will gain so much from having your preschoolers play during each session. For your students struggling with their articulation skills, you'll have an opportunity to hear how their intelligibility is improving and which errors are truly impacting that intelligibility over time. For your students working on language skills, you'll have great opportunities to listen to where they are and to also encourage language skills from the above tips. You can incorporate so many language goals into your play, and may not even need to move anywhere else during your session!

I hope these tips help you to become more comfortable with playing with purpose with your preschool students! If you would like a great FREE handout with great tips for parents, sign up for my emails and it will be sent to your inbox.



18 August 2020

Apples in the Speech and Language Room

 

Apples in the Speech Room


Next to summer, fall is definitely my favorite season. I love when you can start to wear sweatshirts and jeans outside, and I love to spend time outdoors with my family. One thing we love to do is go to the apple orchard that is right down the street from us and go apple picking. I decided to bring the apples into the speech room, and it was a big hit with my preschoolers!

Books:
Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington

Song:

Way Up High in the Apple Tree by the Learning Station

Craft:

This craft was so much fun to do! We cut apples in half and had the students paint them with green or red paint and then press them on the paper. Sometimes the hidden star from the seeds appeared in our paintings, and sometimes they were just a messy glob of green or red paint, but nobody cared! They all had so much fun smearing the paint on the apples and pressing them down. Everyone was very proud of their work. I used a communication board to help my students have the words they needed to request the different items. You can get this board for free by clicking here.


Toys:

We pulled out the green and red bingo chips to use on this free mat. We also used Learning Resources Attribute Apples to describe and put into buckets as reinforcers for our articulation work.

Speech and Language Resources:

I love to use this Preschool Language Theme Kit for Apples. The books and activities were a big success. 
preschool language kit apples
Sometimes you may need digital versions of activities with your students. So, I converted all of my Apple Interactive Books into interactive PDFs. These Apples No-Print Preschool Language Speech Therapy Kit have been a hit with my students. They are great because they are no prep and are easy to transport from site to site.


My articulation students loved these Apple Picking Articulation BOOM Cards. They love "picking" the apples and putting them in the basket. I love all of the opportunities for articulation practice!

Things may continue to look different this year in your speech room, but you can still have fun with themes! Stick with me to see how I adapt all of my themes throughout this year.

Have fun!
Jen

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29 June 2020

Ice Cream Articulation for Distance Learning and In-Person Speech Therapy

Articulation activities for speech therapy in teletherapy using an ice cream theme


Are you looking for some fun activities that target articulation for distance learning this summer that your students will love? Well, who doesn't love a little ice cream?!?! My own kids have been loving ice cream this summer. They've definitely been eating more than I care to admit. Ok, I might be indulging a bit too. But, who doesn't love ice cream? I'll bet your speech therapy students do! Here are some ideas you can use to incorporate ice cream into your in-person or teletherapy speech sessions.
SONG
I love to start sessions with a song to get moving and get some wiggles out.  This Ice Cream Song by Bounce Patrol is a quick, fun song to get started with.
ice cream song for speech therapy

GAME
Right before we ended in person therapy for the school year, I found this cute ice cream game.  My 3-5 year old friends LOVED it!  This Balancing Ice Cream Tower Game was a huge hit.  I used it as a reinforcer to target a variety of goals, including articulation. Students would say their target words and then get to pick a scoop. I was also able to use it to target some colors and prepositions.  I loved that you could put the ice cream on the cone or in the cup.  The scoops got a little wobbly on the cone, but my kids didn't care.  They just put them in some bowls from our kitchen and were completely happy.  I think the most we stacked was 6 scoops.
Ice cream articulation reinforcing activities

BOOK
I found this book Just One More by Jennifer Hansen Rolli when I was working with students on some core vocabulary words.  This book is really cute and simple, making it easy to use in your speech therapy sessions.  There are some great target words that have VC, CV, CVCV, and CVC combinations as well as some consonant blends.
ice cream book using core word more

DIGITAL ACTIVITY
Late this spring during the time when I was doing teletherapy sessions, I decided to try to make a game that would simulate stacking the scoops of ice cream like we did in the game. From that idea, I created an interactive pdf called Ice Cream Articulation. This set has all of the sounds you need to target in all positions of words in isolation.  I also used the activity to target simple sentences just by having students state a sentence using a sentence starter or making up their own.  
You can grab this FREE version here to see how it works. 
The bundle version contains the following sounds: 
B- all positions

Ch- all positions

D- all positions

F- all positions

G- all positions

H- initial position

J- all positions

K- all positions

L- all positions

L-Blends (bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl, mixed)

M- all positions

N- all positions

P- all positions

R- prevocalic and vocalic

R- Blends (br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr, mixed)

S- all positions

S- Blends (sc/sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, sw, mixed)

SH- all positions

T- all positions

Th- all positions

V- all positions

W- initial position

Y- initial position

Z- all positions

No print articulation ice cream

You can also grab one of 14 different individual sound sets that contain one or two different sounds.

There you go! Some quick, simple ways to incorporate ice cream into targeting articulation in your speech therapy sessions without all of the sugar or lactose!  

-Jen

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29 May 2020

On the Farm in Speech Therapy


I don't know about you, but digital learning with my 3-5 year olds is making me tired!  For the first few weeks, I felt like I was really scrambling, but now I've gotten into kind of a groove and decided to bring back something that I used in my in-person therapy- THEMES!  I don't have any of my toys at home, so I've had to improvise and use more digital learning activities.

This week, we've been using a farm theme.  Most everything I've done can be used in person or via teletherapy.  Here's what we've been using:

Song: All Around the Farm by (my favorite) Jack Hartmann-  I've used the song for my students who have a case of the wiggles or are working on some prepositions.



Book: Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown- this is a great book full of pictures of all of the animals you would expect to find on a farm.  I've been recording myself reading these books to the students with lots of pauses for questions (I feel a bit like Dora the Explorer).  I send these recordings home to all students once a week along with a one page book companion for them to work on with their parents.  I don't know how I didn't know about this book before, but it is GREAT!  So simple and clear.  My students and their parents have loved this one!

Apps: Peekaboo Barn by Night & Day Studios available on iTunes and Android.  My students love to listen to the sounds and guess who is in the barn.  This app is great for working on expanding utterances, making requests, and naming animals.

Interactive Books:  I've been really busy getting all of these activities ready for this week!  I had the print versions done, printed, and put together actually before this shut down, but hadn't posted them on TpT yet.  I realized that I really wanted a digital version that was similar to my Spring interactive books.  So, I made a new set of NO PRINT Interactive Preschool Language Books for the Farm theme.
no print interactive books for the farm theme




You can also find my print version of these interactive books in the bundle that is available.  This is great for in person therapy, as well as pages to send home with families. 
You can find my Preschool Language Kit: Farm BUNDLE (Print & NO Print) at TpT.

Articulation Activities:  I loved how my Ice Cream NO PRINT Articulation activity came out and wanted to do something similar for this farm theme.  NO PRINT On the Farm Articulation is available at TpT.  My students loved seeing where the animals ended up in the scene!




I also sent home some pages from my Glue and Say Articulation: On the Farm packet.


During this shut down, I give permission for you to send home pages to parents via email.  Did you know you can send home just the pages you want?  Simply select print and then instead of selecting a printer, select 'print to pdf.'  You can select just the pages you want and rename the file so that you can save and send it.

Auditory Memory: This is an older activity packet of mine, but I still love using it.  It is made for in person therapy, but can be adapted.  Auditory Farm is full of sentences, riddles, and stories.  These are better for your elementary students, but can be used with some of your older preschool students too.

Phew! That was a lot of activities!  I forgot how much I loved using the farm theme, but man do I miss my toys!  Hopefully the next time I work on this theme it will be in person!  I hope you can use some of these activities and enjoy them with your students too.