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It's Summer, Now What?
by Stephanie Barry, M.S., CCC-SLP of Independent Speech, LLC.You child is out of school for the summer and thrilled about it. You are concerned that since they are not receiving therapy, they may lose some of the skills they learned during this past school year. This is a very valid concern, felt by many parents. There are many things you can do to help your child maintain the skills they acquired. Here are just a few ideas:
1) Look at your child's IEP. Read over the speech therapy goals and objectives. These will tell you what they were working on. Think of ways to incorporate these objectives into your everyday activities.2) If possible, speak to your child's school speech therapist. They may have specific areas they think your child should work on over the summer and may have resources to help you. 3) Go to a teaching store. They will have games, books, etc. that you can purchase that relate to your child's goals. For example, if your child is working on plurals you can buy: "Learning Resources Fold-up Flashcards: Plurals" seen here (picture from Amazon.com). For a fun, new way to practice plurals.
4) Read to your child; have your child read to you. Set up a routine where you read everyday such as reading a story before bed or after dinner each night. Books are a wonderful way to expose your children to language, practice speech sounds and expand their imagination!
5) Set aside time each day or week to work on their speech and a reasonable amount of time (30 min to 1 hour is usually good). Knowing they are going to practice every day after lunch or every Thursday morning helps to avoid complaints (such as "I don't want to, let's do it later or it's summer - I don't want to do work.) as they know this is when speech gets worked on and they know how long they will be there. When speech is finished they can go do something they want.
6) Consider summer therapy. There are many programs you can enroll in for the summer term only. We offer a variety of programs that are suited for the summer. Since we are web-based you can take us wherever you go and do the activities when you have time.
Stephanie Barry, M.S., CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist and Educational Consultant
Tel: 602-793-2958
stephanie@independentspeech.com
www.independentspeech.com