Falling For Speech and Language
Great Seasonal Activities for Improving and Enriching Speech and Language Skills
by Kim Knight
October 28, 2011
It was great getting to talk with several of my students’ parents on Thursday. Always know that you can call or stop in with any questions or concerns at any time. What a wonderful Fall we have had again this year. This is a great time of the year to use things from your natural environment to work with your children on speech sounds and language concepts. The first thing that I notice right now is the color of the leaves and how they are falling. A number of plants, such as mums, are colorful right now too. On your drive to Wal-Mart, Grandma’s house, or home for the evening, talk with your children about the beautiful different colors; play a game where they have to find five things with their sound in it; or talk about things like how the leaves used to be way up high and now they are falling down to the ground, how they are under the tree, or about which pile of leaves has the most or least amount. This is also a great time to talk about the names of the different seasons and about how nature is so different in each one (e.g. leaves are just small and trees are budding in the Spring, trees are full of green leaves in the Summer, leaves change colors and fall off the trees in the Fall/Autumn, and trees have no leaves and rest for the Winter). You can also talk about the month that is ending (October) and everything that goes with it (Halloween, etc.) and the month coming up (November) and the activities and holidays that go with it (election day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, hunting season, etc.). You can go through the mounds of candy that you child gets and help them identify candy that has their sound in it or talk about a variety of language concepts such as hard/soft, long/short, big/little, etc. Your children are so much like sponges, soaking up a lot of information that you may never even realize you are teaching them. Use these everyday opportunities to fill your children’s imagination and knowledge base, and help enrich and improve their speech and language skills. Thanks again for the privilege of working with your children—it is truly an honor, and they are a blessing to me!
Your Speech-Language Pathologist,
Kimberly S. Knight, M.A., CCC-SLP
