I love books. Which is why, here at Rollins Speech Therapy,
it is 📚BOOK WEEK📚!
As I have mentioned in my Instagram account (which you can
follow by clicking HERE), each day I will share one of my favorite books
to read with kiddos, and then at the end of Book Week (Sunday, March 26, 2017)
I will be giving away a book and a literacy unit to go along with it!!! YAHOO!
Don’t you love💜 book week too?!
As I’ve discussed in early 🌟Wonder Wednesdays🌟, reading with
your kiddos is super important. Don’t take it from me though, there are plenty of resources that talk about this very thing! (I have some listed at the bottom of this blog post).
Here are just a FEW reasons why reading is so important:
📕Imagination- listening to stories read aloud increases
imagination skills. Imagination is so important for our little ones. Listening
to stories and then being able to tell stories are the fundamental components
of imagination. To find out more ways imagination is helpful, check this Link from Speech Buddies.
📕Vocabulary- Listening and reading along to stories actually
gives your children access to a variety of vocabulary that they might not hear
in their day-to-day lives. Glen, from LifeDev stated that one actually gains
better vocabulary from reading than from direct teaching or talking. He also
explained that children’s books are “more sophisticated than (our) average
conversations!”
📕Literacy skills- When you read to your children, you are
showing them how to hold a book, that you read from left to right, that those
symbols on the pages mean something. You might tell them that all the letters
on that page actually make a word, and when there are many words together they
make a sentence.
Not only does reading do all sorts of great things to your
child’s mind, it creates a bonding experience for the two (or 3, or 4…) of you.
Some of my most favorite memories as a child are when my mom read stories to me
at bedtime. You are making those memories each time you open a book!
Give yourself a pat on the back- you deserve it! 👍 You’re
making memories AND making your kiddo smarter- you ROCK.
So, now that we know that reading is awesome and we should
do it every day (or as often as we can), lets talk about some ways we can
actually help increase speech and language skills in our children.
💥Encourage them to read the book WITH you. I really love
‘There Was An Old Lady…” books for this. (You can find a plethora of those
books HERE). Really, any repetitive books can serve this purpose. ‘Brown BearBrown Bear,’ ( I see a _____ looking at me!) ‘Dooly and the Snortsnoot,’(FEE FI
FO FUM) ‘Go Away Big Green Monster,’ (Go away _____!)…
Basically, any way that you can leave a PAUSE while reading
for your kiddos to chime in, is perfect!
💥While reading, if there are any words that jump out at you
for being able to explain- DO IT! While this shouldn’t be done throughout the
whole book (no one wants to be quizzed every single page), you could pick one
or two words a story that could provide wonderful teaching moments.
For example… ‘The Day the Crayons Quit,’. There you go, a
great teaching moment has presented itself before you have even begun reading.
You could start out by saying, “The day the crayons QUIT. I wonder what this
story will be about. Quit means to ‘stop’. What do you think it will be about?”
And there you have it! Teaching moment has come, been
discussed, and now they will be thinking about how the crayons are QUITTING, or
stopping, throughout the whole story! You could even say at the end, “You were
right! The crayons wanted to stop doing their jobs; they wanted to quit!”
💥Whenever I receive new clients (and of course with my
present ones), I like to go through books, and take note on how I could target
that child’s particular challenges within that story. Teaching is typically not
achieved by been talked AT, but rather talked WITH. Basically, I am providing
therapy without the kiddo even knowing that I am!
I consistently change the words to target their specific
goals, make up names for the characters within the book for the child’s target
sound… You really have a plethora of ways to use books to encourage speech and
language.
Be looking for the opportunity to subscripe to Rollins
Speech Therapy’s blog, where you can get updates on my posts as well as
resources that can be used to encourage speech and language therapy!
Thanks for reading! Signing out, Kassi, the speech therapist
in Phoenix.
F., Holly. (May 9, 2013). Speech Buddies. Using Imaginative Play in Speech Therapy. https://www.speechbuddy.com/blog/speech-therapy-techniques/using-imaginative-play-in-speech-therapy/
Glen. (December 17, 2014. ‘8 Benefits of Reading (or Ways Reading Makes You Better at Life). LifeDev.
https://lifedev.net/2009/06/01/reading-makes-you-better/
Felicity. Best Books
for Kids. http://www.best-books-for-kids.com/benefits-of-reading.html
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