Tips for educations to enhance speech and language skills in preschools  

Tips for Educators

 

SUGGESTIONS FOR ENHANCEMENT OF
SPEECH & LANGUAGE SKILLS IN THE
PRESCHOOL CLASSROOM


    Playing games in therapy
  1. Practice describing likenesses and differences of objects.

  2. Re-tell stories, using visual aids (flannel board figures, etc.).

  3. Pull objects from bag or box to describe. You may want to use visual aids, such as a chart with ideas about which child can talk — including shape, size, color, material made of, where used — a great vocabulary expander, as well as "crutch" for the child who does not know what to say! After child gets really good at this task, have child describe an object "in secret" (behind a barrier from rest of group) and see if other children can guess what he is describing! (requires critical listening on the part of the other children)

  4. Lotto games — good for vocabulary building

  5. Memory games (concentration) — good for vocabulary building, as well as building visual focus and memory

  6. Animal Dominoes -- good for vocabulary building and visual matching

  7. When asking questions about stories which have been read to children, ask for specific information, details; this shows the children you expect close auditory attention during the story and that you expect them to pay close attention to your questions. When reading stories, ask children to predict what happens next.

  8. Have children practice "thinking in categories" by dividing objects and/or pictures into basic groups. May want to begin with gathering objects or pictures of "things I like"; then, later, "things I don't like". They may also wish to cut pictures from magazines and make collages along certain themes — such as, "today is toy day; find all the pictures of toys that you can."

  9. Have fun in speech therapy To increase auditory memory, play game in which you and children list related items, such as making a grocery list or making a packing list for a trip. You begin by naming an item; then child adds an item after repeating previously stated item(s). As each person adds an item, he/she must repeat all the previously contributed items. See how far the children can go with this. If child forgets an item, rather than telling him the item, give him clues about it (such as, "You wear them on your feet in the snow."), and let him guess.

  10. Auditory memory fun: Have children reproduce a series of movements presented auditorially — various rhythm patterns. You can use snapping fingers, clapping, knocking on a table, etc.

  11. Play games involving "spatial terms" (i.e. prepositions), using whole body placements in relation to objects in room, objects in relation to each other (e.g., "put the firetruck above your head"), gradually working toward (by Kdgn) 2-dimensional spatial terms on paper ("draw a star below the kitten").

  12. Play "guess what" without objects. Say "I'm thinking of something" — give children one clue at a time. Children must recall the clues and use verbal reasoning to guess.

  13. Children like to play "bigger kid" games; change the rules, and let them manipulate the tokens, etc. according to your new set of rules.

  14. For 2-year-olds: Body parts vocabulary: assemble pre-cut parts of animals, with directions such as "Put the ear on the rabbit's head".

  15. Use snack-time and meal-time to increase vocabulary by talking about how things taste (hot, cold, sour, sweet...) and using verbs (eat, sip, gobble, suck...).

 

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