Extra Practice OVERVIEW FOR SPEECH & LANGUAGE STUDENTS 

On this page you will find ways to help practice and maintain your child's speech/language skills. These ideas will provide a general guide as to how to target your child's specific speech/language goals. Please refer to your child's individualized education program (IEP) and/or progress reports to familiarize yourself with the exact goals that are being worked on in speech/language therapy. This will help you select activities that best meet your child's needs. This page has many ideas and resouces. To avoid feeling overwhelemed by the amount of information and resources, I recommend you review the "General" section and then skip right to what is applicable to your child. 

Remember, anything you do to foster communication in the home will benefit your child! If you have specific questions about work for your child, please do not hesitate to email me.

Elina Goldburd

egoldburd@cbsd.org

GENERAL - FOR EVERYONE:

IDEAS FOR EMBEDDING SPEECH AND LANGUAGE PRACTICE AND ENRICHMENT THROUGHOUT THE DAY:

• Some general tips for embedding speech and language practice into your every-day lives through conversation, books, and play can be found here.
• Here are some more ideas and activities:
  • Quick Car Activities - Driving is the perfect time to work on speech/language skills naturally - without taking time out of your day. 
  • Speech/Language Suggestions - Here are some ideas that you can implement during this distance learning time AND always! 

ARTICULATION:

IF YOUR CHILD IS WORKING ON ARTICULATION OF SPEECH SOUNDS...  

• What we usually focus on in speech-language therapy is increasing awareness of the target sound in words and getting a high number of correct productions
• You can use the worksheets in your child's speech/language folder for extra practice of speech sound production, or you could use these pre-made word lists.
• You can make things fun by using some of the ideas provided above in (Quick Car activities and Speech/language suggestions). 
• This articulation calendar gives ideas of ways to practice your speech sounds for each day of the week in which we are not in school. 
• Here are some additional activities:
  • 100 Trials: Here are some worksheets that your child can color as they say each correct sound in words/sentences/while reading/or in conversation (depending on their current level).
    • Dinosaur Themed 100 Trials
    • Gummy Bear Themed 100 Trials
  • Get outside! Search for things that have your child's speech sounds outside and use this worksheet to make it a fun scavenger hunt! 
    • Outdoor Speech
  • Specific Sound Activities:
    • K and G
      • Velar Fronting
      • K and G Ice cream game 
      • K and G matching game
    • L
      • L story
      • Lion story
    • S and Z
      • S sentence flashcards
      • S Silly Sentences
    • S-Blends
      • Butterfly - quick project
      • S blends Slides visual practice
    • SH and CH
      • SH sentences
      • CH sentences
    • R
      • R Bingo
      • Final R game
  • Carryover practice! If your child has surpassed the word and sentence levels, they can participate in the following activities to help them generalize their skills to the conversational level. 
    • Read aloud using their best sounds - any book on their reading level or easier will do!
    • Structured Conversation Practice
    • Self-Monitoring Sheet - This helps students learn to become more aware of their sounds as they participate in a conversation 
    • Tongue Twisters - Fun way to practice sounds! 

Language:

IF YOUR CHILD IS WORKING ON RECEPTIVE / EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE...

• Exact language skills targeted in your child’s IEP will vary, but may include things like increasing overall understanding & use of vocabulary words, answering & asking WH questions, understanding how items go together in categories, understanding how two things are similar and different, using correct verb tenses, expanding the length of sentences, describing, and more.
• You can use the worksheets in your child's speech/language folder for extra practice or review of language skills. 
• You can embed language skills into daily activities like reading, conversation and games (see the link provided in the speech and language overview above).
• This language calendar (geared toward k-2 students) gives ways to practice receptive and language skills for each day of the week for which we are not in school. 
• This language calendar (geared toward grade 2-4 students) gives ways to practice receptive and language skills for each day of the week for which we are not in school. 
• This March language calendar (geared toward grade 3-6 students) gives ways to practice receptive and language skills for each day of the week for which we are not in school. 
• Here are some additional activities:
  • Vooks - https://www.vooks.com/ This is a wonderful resource - Think of it as netflix for children's books! Your child's favorite books are brought to life with animation while still maintaing a "book-like" feel. I LOVE this resource as both a speech therapist and a parent (best way to do screen time). Vooks is currently providing parents with a free month subscription. If you choose to sign-up for the free month, here are some at-home lesson plans you might choose to do with your child:
    • Vooks - Week 1
    • Vooks - Week 2
    • WH- QUESTIONS:
      • If your child is working on simple WH- questions (who, what, where) or higher-level WH- questions (when, why, how), then this is the perfect way to keep your child engaged while working on various questions. Feel free to pause the video as often as you need to talk about the characters, ask questions, comment, and discuss. 
  • Scholastic - Is providing parents with free access to books and lesson plans. The books/lessons are categorized by grade level and provide day-by-day activities. https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html
  • Sequencing
    • 4-step sequence book, 4-step sequence cards
  • Categorizing 
    • Categories, Category cards, What does not belong game
  • Describing, Compare and Contrast, and Analogies:
    • Describing Activities: Color meaning chart for describing,  Describe Me, Describe a chick, Describing basic nouns
    • Compare and Contrast: Venn Diagram, Snowball compare/contrast, Compare/Contrast Concrete items
    • Analogies: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4
  • WH- Questions
    • Mixed WH- questions, Answering WH- questions
  • Prepositions
    • Preposition practice - frog book, preposition practice , preposition visual
  • Grammar:
    • Pronouns:Matching Pronoun Game, Simple pronoun stories, finish the sentence with a pronoun
    • Irregular Past:Irregular verbs worksheet
  • Vocabulary:
    • Synonyms/Antonyms: Syn/Ant sentences, Synonyms
    • Multiple Meanings: List of multiple meaning words, Multiple Meaning Worksheet
    • Vocab-in-Context: Word detective, How to be a word detective, Context clues sheet 1, Context clues sheet 2

Fluency:

IF YOUR CHILD IS WORKING ON FLUENCY...

• Times of change, excitement or lack of structure can be especially trying on people who stutter. You may notice an increase in disfluency during this school closure. The most important thing to do over this time of distance learning is provide your child a fluency-enhancing environment. This includes reducing your own rate of speech, providing wait-time to allow your child to think and communicate his or her thoughts, maintain eye contact with your child- even through a moment of stuttering, and establish conversational turn-taking for your child, especially if he or she has siblings who compete for speaking time.
• Allow your child the opportunity to practice his or her fluency skills using their strategies once per day. You can have them summarize a book movie or tv show, talk about their day, or read aloud from a book of choice. The specific strategies that your child is learning about in speech therapy may be found in his or her speech folder.  
• This fluency calendar provides an activity to practice fluency skills for each day of the month. 
• Here are some additional activities:
  • Sometimes I Just Stutter - Book
  • Fluency tips for parents - This is a great resource for parents. 
  • https://www.stutteringhelp.org/ - this site has many resource and great information for parents and children. 

Social Language:

IF YOUR CHILD IS WORKING ON PRAGMATIC (SOCIAL) LANGUAGE...

• Pragmatic language skills typically focus on asking and answering questions, topic maintenance, taking turns in conversation, making predictions, and inferring others' thoughts and feelings.
• Some of my favorite ways to target social language skills is through the use of wordless books and movies. Check out these silent Simon's Cat videos, or this list of wordless books. You can also use books from your own home library, or can even find books on epic youtube! When reading wordless books or playing wordless videos, pause and direct your child's attention to the character's body language and facial expressions. Ask him or her what they think the character may be feeling. Describe what their body and face is doing that helps lead you to that conclusion. Ask your child to make a prediction about why the character feels that way, or what they think the character may do next. 
• This social communication activity calendar also provides daily ideas to foster social communication throughout the month. 
• Here are some additional activities:
  • What Would You Rather  - This is a fun and quick activity to start conversations, ask/answer questions, and discuss "why" each person picked what they did. 
  • Social Stories:
    • Your child may be having a difficult time being out of their normal routine. They might have difficulty understanding why they are being asked to wash their hands to often or why they can't go to their usual favorite places. You may want to look through these social stories and decide which one would be most appropriate for your child's linguistic level/needs.
      • https://www.flipsnack.com/KeshetChicago/coronavirus-social-story/full-view.html
      • Quick social story 1 
      • Quick social story 2
      • https://theautismeducator.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/The-Corona-Virus-Free-Printable-Updated-2-The-Autism-Educator-.pdf
      • Social Story - virus
      • Social Story  - Russian and Spanish Versions!
        • Russian - Social Story
        • Spanish - Social Story

Final Thoughts:

Please know that this is not an exhaustive list of activities. While there is something for everyone, not every goal is reflected in these activities. If you would like to work on something specific that you do not see listed here, please e-mail me and let me know. I would be happy to supply you with more activities and options. With that said, this time at home is a great opportunity to enrich and expand general speech and language skills. Working on specific goals is great, but incorporating language-rich activities and strategies into routines is ideal. 

Thank you for helping your child maintain their speech and language skills!

Elina Goldburd, MA CCC-SLP

egoldburd@cbsd.org

The Resources on this page were provided with permission by:

@Speech Rocks

@SpeechiePeep

@Miss V's Speech World

And other FREE resources from TPT