During a speech-language therapy session, we use many play-based activities that are also familiar in the home environment. With some clever – or maybe even obvious – enhancements to these activities, you can be using the same strategies at home to support your child in their speech, language, and overall communication development. In this Activity Feature series, we bring you tips and tricks on turning the activities you already know and love into fantastic (and fun!) learning opportunities.
Activity: Shared Book Reading
Reading a book aloud can be a simple activity, but may take on many iterations depending on the interests of your child. To read a book together in an enjoyable and productive way does not always require reading a book cover-to-cover, word-for-word. If your child enjoys this more straightforward, traditional approach to reading a book, try deepening their understanding and language skills by asking questions about the story or the pictures. This can include comprehension questions about what has already happened in the story, or questions that exercise the skills of prediction and inference by asking about their thoughts and opinions on what might happen next, why characters feel and respond in certain ways, or what the main idea or lesson of the story might be.
On the other hand, if your child is very young or has difficulty focusing on structured activities for prolonged periods of time, you may find that other ways of sharing book reading may be more beneficial and enjoyable for both of you. Instead of reading every word on a page, try summarizing the page in a few words or focusing on talking about the pictures. Point out items of high interest to your child, or notice details in the images they may have missed. Play iSpy and see if they can flip through the pages to find specific objects or characters. Lastly, don’t feel pressured to finish the book or even read the pages in order. Although these are great early literacy skills, engagement and enjoyment of the activity are the first and most important step in developing a love of reading.
Skills Addressed
Reading with your child is not only a great way to encourage early literacy development, but also provides opportunities for improvement in articulation, expressive language, and receptive language.
Articulation: look for words in the story or images that include your child’s speech targets. Point out the spelling of these words, specifically the presence of their target sound. Help them practice these words 1-3 times, encouraging successes and moving past any frustrations.
Expressive Language: ask your child to describe the images, or focus on expressive skills they are working to improve. This may include pronouns, location words, action words, and many more concepts! Ask questions directed at these ideas, such as “who” questions, “where” questions, or “what doing” questions, respectively.
Receptive Language: see if your child can identify items in the illustrations as you describe them. Depending on their age and skill level, it may be as simple as asking them to locate various nouns (e.g., bird, flower, ball), looking for specific concepts (e.g., colors, shapes, actions, locations), and progressing to more complex skills like describing objects based on several attributes (e.g., small, yellow flower), functions (e.g., something you wear on your foot), or following multi-step directions (e.g., find the flower, turn the page, then give me a thumbs up).
While these are only a few examples, with practice you can use shared book reading to address many other skills. To discover more ways to support your child’s growth using shared book reading and other activities – for the skills listed above as well as pragmatics, voice, resonance, fluency, AAC, and feeding – reach out to our pediatric speech-language therapy clinic located in Tukwila by calling (206) 458-5360.