Speech-Language Newsletter
Sarah Magnolia, SLP
Theme:
The speech theme is Pumpkins and
Spooky Creatures. These activities will be
practiced with the speech-language
therapist and sent home to maximize your
child’s speech and language progress.
General Target Areas:
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Increasing Vocabulary
Following Directions
Answering Yes/No and WhQuestions
Increasing Sentence Length
Speech Sounds
Play Skills
Activities:
Instructions: Spend 2-5 minutes completing one activity per day. These activities are meant to be
used multiple times to reinforce concepts. Follow the list of strategies on the back page while
completing these activities. Contact the speech therapist with any questions!
Songs: Sing the song and watch the video with your child.
“Go Away Big Green Monster”- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roTGYZIP92c
“Five Creepy Spiders”- http://supersimplelearning.com/songs/themes-series/halloween/fivecreepy-spiders/
“Can You Make a Happy Face”-http://supersimplelearning.com/songs/themesseries/halloween/can-you-make-a-happy-face/
Coloring Sheets: While coloring or looking at the sheets with your child, model target vocabulary
words and short phrases listed below. For example, say, “Big green monster has sharp teeth!” or “I
see four pumpkins sitting on the gate!” “What color is this pumpkin?” Be creative J
Recommended Books: A Very Busy Spider, Pete the Cat: Five Little Pumpkins, Touch and Feel
Spooky, Boo Who?, The Little Old Lady. While reading these stories, highlight different
characters, colors, objects, etc., by pointing and raising the inflection in your voice. You don’t need
to read the story word for word. These books can be found at the Library.
Vocabulary/ Phrase Examples:
Pumpkins, spider, monster, different colors, spider legs, big green monster, big/small pumpkin, gate,
sitting, rolling, spinning, web, spider web, ghost, cat, owl, bat, skeleton, different barn animal names
and sounds (from the spider book), “Big green monster has…,” “There are five pumpkins sitting on
the gate,” “The pumpkins are orange,” “The spider has eight legs,” The spider is spinning a web,”
“The monster is silly,” The cats are running,” “The spiders are crawling,” etc.
How to Increase Speech and Language Skills
v Use Toy Talk: Start your sentence with the toy/object’s name,
then use a verb followed by additional details. This is a great
technique to use because you’re modeling vocabulary words and
sounds, and using sentences containing a variety of details (nouns,
verbs, adjectives, etc.).
o Example:
§ Adult: “The monster has funny purple hair!”
§ Adult: “This spider is spinning a web”
§ Adult: “The pumpkins are sitting on the gate”
§ Adult: “The big green monster has two yellow eyes”
v Language Expansion/Recasts: Model correct grammatical
sentences. This helps your child develop their vocabulary and
begin to use sentences. This also corrects an error, such as a
grammatical or sound error.
o Example:
§ Child: “Monster sad”
§ Adult: “That’s right. The monster is sad.”
Tips:
• Your child does not need to repeat what you say, but can. What is
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most important is that you’re being a language model for your
child. You are modeling vocabulary and sentence structure.
Provide the language model immediately after they say something.
Your tone of voice and facial expressions should sound and look
happy, encouraging, and interested. Not like you are correcting
them!
Stay at eye level as much as reasonably possible.
Let the child take the conversational lead whenever possible. Talk
about what they are interested in.
Wait with anticipation for a response (2-10 seconds…maybe
longer!)