Back to School

Posted on by : Kasey Wade Tags: ,

Well hello again everyone! We hope everyone had a great first month back to school, and are getting into a consistent rhythm and routine of schedules and activities. I am writing this blog to inspire some creativity and help you figure out how to build more intentional speech and language into daily life and incorporate it into the busy schedules everyone has. I have heard many families tell me this is a challenge *especially for those littles who transitioned from preschool to Kindergarten…what a huge change*!! Below are a few quick bullet points to get those creative juices flowing! 

 

  1. Find a daily routine and incorporate a speech/language component
    • This could be anything! Riding in the car, eating breakfast, getting dressed, unpacking the backpack at the end of the day, brushing your teeth, WHATEVER!  
    • Then decide what speech/language target you’d like to add into that activity: 
      • Riding in the car – retelling a story/event that happened at school 
      • Eating breakfast – describing the different aspects of each food (the eggs are soft, the bacon is crispy, the orange juice is sweet!) 
      • Getting dressed – following directions (first put on your pants, you’re your shirt) 
      • Unpacking the backpack – working on a specific speech sound like “K” at the end of words (Take it out) 
      • Brushing your teeth – working on vocabulary/categorizing you could talk about the different items you find in the bathroom and classify them as “hygiene” or “things in the bathroom”. 

2.  Recasting

    • Another way to easily build speech/language into your daily routines is through Recasting. Recast is when you take an utterance that your child produced and repeat it back to them in the shortest way possible with the appropriate articulation/grammar. Here are some real life examples from some of my kiddos this past week…. 
      • Kiddo – “I do corn now”  
        • Recast –  “I like corn” 
      • Kiddo – “What is the toys” 
        • Recast – “Where are the toys?” 
      • Kiddo – “I Goed there”
        • Recast – “I went there” 

3.  Expansion

    • Another great way to incorporate speech/language into everyday communication during any time of day is expansion. Expansion is when you take the utterance your child already produced and add 1-2 words/ideas to it. Here are some examples of how we could expand the sentences that we recasted above! 
      • “I like corn” = “I tried corn and now I like it” 
      • “Where are the toys” = “Where are the PJ Mask toys” 
      • “I went there” = “I went there with daddy” 

Whatever you are doing this school year, I am confident speech and language can have a role! Stumped on how to include more speech-language targets into your routines? Give us a call or reach out via Instagram, email, or messenger and we’d love to help you out! Until next time, Happy Fall!! 

-Kasey-