Practicing at Home
Practicing speech and language skills at home can be easy and fun. Playing games with your children is a great way to develop strong language skills. There are several games that are especially effective.
They include:
Buzz Blast (my personal favorite, requires some reading)
The Cat in the Hat's I Can Do That! (preschool)
Hedbandz (and Hedbandz Act Out)
TriBond Jr.
Spot It!
Apples to Apples Jr (or Big Picture)
Story Cubes (there are several sets - all great)
Don't Say It!
Buzzword Jr.
Blurt
S'match (preschool)
Guess Who?
Outburst Jr.
Scattegories Jr.
Buzz Word Jr.
Guess What I Am?
Old favorites like "I Spy", and "20 Questions" are also great for enriching a child's language. They can also be tweaked to fit specific skills like playing "I Spy" while looking for a certain category, shape or beginning letter sound.
You can also easily adapt ANY game to target articulation or phonological skills. For instance, if your child works on the /k/ sound, he could say five words starting with /k/ like "can, keep, car, cool, cat" before he takes his turn. For even better results, everyone should say words or sentences with the target sound(s) - this is what speech therapists call "auditory bombardment".
Try this with Hi Ho Cherry-O, Jenga, Candyland, Trouble, Connect Four or Crocodile Dentist just to name a few.
Please contact me if you would like me to recommend any games specific to your child's language goals.
They include:
Buzz Blast (my personal favorite, requires some reading)
The Cat in the Hat's I Can Do That! (preschool)
Hedbandz (and Hedbandz Act Out)
TriBond Jr.
Spot It!
Apples to Apples Jr (or Big Picture)
Story Cubes (there are several sets - all great)
Don't Say It!
Buzzword Jr.
Blurt
S'match (preschool)
Guess Who?
Outburst Jr.
Scattegories Jr.
Buzz Word Jr.
Guess What I Am?
Old favorites like "I Spy", and "20 Questions" are also great for enriching a child's language. They can also be tweaked to fit specific skills like playing "I Spy" while looking for a certain category, shape or beginning letter sound.
You can also easily adapt ANY game to target articulation or phonological skills. For instance, if your child works on the /k/ sound, he could say five words starting with /k/ like "can, keep, car, cool, cat" before he takes his turn. For even better results, everyone should say words or sentences with the target sound(s) - this is what speech therapists call "auditory bombardment".
Try this with Hi Ho Cherry-O, Jenga, Candyland, Trouble, Connect Four or Crocodile Dentist just to name a few.
Please contact me if you would like me to recommend any games specific to your child's language goals.