laundry load-in language

Everyday life is full of language opportunities - "teachable moments" some call them.  

But as parents, we often feel overwhelmed with all the daily duties of work, home and child-rearing.  Having your child's Speech Therapist give you activities and language lessons to review during the week just seems to add to the TO-DO list.

BUT here's a great activity that is a part of your home routine that is loaded with good language:

LAUNDRY

I HATE TO DO LAUNDRY.

BUT I LOVE TO DO LAUNDRY when my little boys help me out.

My 6 year old is a champ at taking the wet clothes I hand to him and toss them into the dryer.  Today, my 2 year old joined in the fun.

Here's some of the language that I modeled for him while we completed this task:

-Requesting: every time he reached toward me for another piece, I modeled "please" and "thank you."

-Vocabulary: names of the articles of clothing

-Category: "clothes"

-Description: "wet" and "dry" - "empty" and "full"

-Position: "open" and "shut" for the dryer door as well as "in" to the dryer and "out" of the washer.

So it sounded something like this:

"Okay, let's OPEN the door to the dryer.  The dryer is EMPTY... Let's make it FULL... Here's a SHIRT to put IN the dryer.  You want another one?  Okay say PLEASE [hand him one]... say THANK YOU.... do you feel how it's WET?  When we put it IN the dryer it gets DRY!  Look here's your PANTS... let's put them IN the dryer. UH-OH... that one fell on the floor... PICK it up PLEASE... Good job!!!" and REPEAT until the washer is emptied.

He not only had a chance to learn some new language-  he is learning a life-skill of doing laundry!  We had a chance to spend some time together!  And he was occupied so he wasn't climbing on the table!  Win-win!

"in a world where..."- narrating your child's day

Ever hear a movie trailer start out with "in a world where..."?  Well, this narration technique is kind of like that.

When children are learning language, its best learned in a natural context.  That's why your Speech Therapist will send you home with activities so that you can take what's happening in therapy to home and why we work hard to make our therapy room like it's another room at your house.  

But, like I said in my last blog, there's a lot happening in life and maybe you worry you aren't doing enough...

That's where this technique comes in...  Because it's easy.  You may feel silly at first, but it's a super useful technique once you get in the habit.

All you have to do is describe what you are doing or what your child is doing during a particular activity.

Here's an example- dressing your child: this activity could sound like this-

"Let's put CLOTHES ON- here is your shirt - it goes OVER your head and OVER your belly- put your arms THROUGH the sleeves.  Now put your pants on- put your legs IN..." 

This way, your child is exposed to clothing vocabulary and spatial concepts during this every day (or every hour) activity!

So the next few blog posts will be Language Ideas for you in case you feel at a loss for specific language to say during these everyday activities!  Stay tuned!

categories - same/different

Categories seem to give my kiddos are hard time... the concepts of "same" and "different" do too...  So here's a technique I used today with my 4th graders that seemed to help a lot:
1.  I had the kids color and cut out pictures that belonged in the same category.
2.  After they cut and grouped the pictures, I had them turn the card over and write out the name of the category.
3.  Then I said, "see how they are all the same?  They are in the same category.  Now flip them over.  Let's talk about what's different."

A light bulb came on!  I love "ah-ha" moments!

the many uses of an Original Memory Game

A beloved history teacher used to tell us “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”  And this is probably true with the field of Speech-Language Pathology in some respects… but the atmosphere is changing… we’ve got more kids to serve than ever before… we’ve got more regulations than ever before… and we’ve got a new generation of kids with unique challenges facing them.  So we’ve got to get creative in how we serve our kids.  And that’s the reason for my starting this blog- I need a place to organize and document my ideas so I don’t get bogged down under all the pressures!  But we can do this, right?!  For we are Speech-Language Pathologists!!

The Memory Game is a classic game with endless possibilities in Speech Therapy.  When I played this game with one of my groups today, I found myself going through the following language areas:

• vocabulary naming
• naming functions of objects
• Naming categories and items in a category
• Naming similarities and differences of the pictures that each child flipped over during a turn
• Naming attributes of the pictures
• Turn-taking & social language 
• Even articulation skills!  And fluency skills!

I felt so smart!  What a discovery!  Happy Speech Therapy, everyone!