4 Activities (other than reading) to do with Books
Here at Early Start Speech Pathology we love giving you tips on how to work on your child’s goals with activities that are already part of your routine as we know multi-tasking can make life easier. Today we are going to look at just how much you can get out of books and give you some ideas about different ways you can use them to work on your child’s language goals.
TIP #1: DON’T READ THE WORDS
We know this sounds funny, but one of the best parts about books are their pictures! Instead of reading the book, ask your child to tell you what is happening and make their own story using the pictures in the book. This is a great way to practice their storytelling skills!
TIP #2 PLAY GUESSING GAMES
This is a turn-taking game where one of you will give clues to a picture on the page and the other person has to find it such as “It’s round, crunchy and grows on trees”. This activity is great for our little Owls who are working on their listening and comprehension skills when they are the finder and their sentences and vocabulary when they are the one giving clues.
TIP #3 GIVE DIRECTIONS
This is another great turn-taking game to work on both listening and spoken language. If you have read our previous post, you will know that following directions and instructions are important skills for comprehension, independence and self-confidence. Sometimes we like to use a timer for friendly competition and see if the child can ‘point to the black kitten, little chair and the basket’. Use ‘where’ or location words (in, under, next to), sequence words (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and concepts ‘before’ and ‘after’.
TIP #4 DEVELOP EARLY LITERACY SKILLS
We love integrating language with early literacy goals to try to give our Owls a boost for school so this next one is inspired by Early Start’s School Readiness program. A great to work on this to look for things on the pages that start with a certain sound “Can you find 3 things that start with ‘s’”, ask questions about rhyme “Look at this cat, can you think of something else that rhymes with cat?” and getting your child to blend sound together and find a picture you are saying “Can you find the m-oo-n?”.
We know that showing you how to do these activities can make more sense, so don’t hesitate to ask your Early Start Speech Pathologist if they can help guide you through what to say and how to say it… even better is to bring your child’s favourite book into your next session!
