If you read books with your child you have probably noticed they like to read the same ones again and again (…and again and again). Repetition is beneficial to helping children learn; however, it can get boring for the adults in their life. There are many activities you can do that are related to your child’s favorite books. Not only will these activities further develop your child’s language skills, critical thinking abilities and concept knowledge, it can also help maintain your sanity and put a new spin on things. This post is specifically for the book Harry the Dirty Dog (don’t worry, we’ll have other books coming up in future posts).
Questions you can ask as you read with your child: Asking your child questions during or after a book is important to help build and strengthen comprehension skills, as well as, work on responding to different types of questions. Depending on the type of questions you ask your child, you can also work on their critical thinking skills as well.
WHAT questions (e.g., “What did Harry hide?”; “What did Harry do to try and get his family to recognize him?”)
WHO questions (e.g., “Who doesn’t want to take a bath?”; “Who will give Harry a bath?”)
WHERE questions (e.g., “Where did Harry bury his brush?”; “Where did Harry go when he ran away?”)
WHY questions (e.g., “Why doesn’t Harry’s family recognize him?”; “Why did Harry run away?”)
HOW questions (e.g., “How did Harry get so dirty?”; “How did Harry get his family to recognize him again?”)
PREDICTION questions (e.g., “Will his family recognize him?”; “What might happen because Harry looks so different?”, “Harry’s feeling hungry now. What might he do?”)
INFERENCING questions (e.g., “How does the Harry feel?”; “How would you feel if someone you know didn’t recognize you?”)
When your child works on answering questions about a story, it means they are building vocabulary and connections, as well as, critical thinking skills!Fun activities to do after the book: Doing activities related to a book you have read with your child is a great way to continue strengthening language skills. Incorporating activities related to a story help further build your child’s ability to make connections and associations, increase their vocabulary skills, and can also help with their ability to recall and sequence information they have learned or been exposed to. You do not need to do all of these activities in one day. Feel free to spread them out over many days or weeks and even repeat them.
Bake Cookies: Bake your favorite cookies (or just some that are simple) together and make them into different shapes from the story– dogs, brushes, dog bones. You can even decorate the dog shapes to make some look dirty and some clean! This activity is good for recalling details of the story, using vocabulary and focusing on similarities and differences when decorating the cookies
Play Hide-and-Seek with a Brush: Hide a brush or scrubbing brush in your house and give your child clues to help them find where you hid the brush. You can take turns and have your child hide the brush and give you clues to find it as well. This activity is good for working on building vocabulary and concepts because of the need to use descriptions and preposition (location) vocabulary (under, above, in between, next to, etc)
As we’ve talked about before, at The Speech Space we are huge fans of books! Not only are books a wonderful way to engage and spend time with your child, but they are also a great means for building language skills like vocabulary, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Adding or incorporating fun activities related to books you read with your child can double the impact (and fun!). If you missed our other recent book posts, you can read them here and here.
Check back on the blog for more ideas and activities you can do with your child to help encourage their communication development. If you have questions or concerns about your child’s s development, contact us at The Speech Space. We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
If you read books with your child you have probably noticed they like to read the same ones again and again (…and again and again). Repetition is beneficial to helping children learn; however, it can get boring for the adults in their life. There are many activities you can do that are related to your child’s favorite books. Not only will these activities further develop your child’s language skills, critical thinking abilities and concept knowledge, it can also help maintain your sanity and put a new spin on things. This post is specifically for the book Caps For Sale (don’t worry, we’ll have other books coming up in future posts!).
What you can do while you read the book with your child: Take advantage of this book’s repetitive nature with these ideas, which help build your child’s recall and sequencing skills:
Once your child is more familiar with the book you can encourage them to participate in saying with you, “Caps! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!” You can also see if when you start the sentence, can your child finish it? Can they eventually repeat the whole sentence on their own each time it comes up in the book?
There are a lot of actions in this book. For example the peddler shakes his finger and fist and even stamps his feet. Act these actions out and encourage your child to imitate you.
The monkeys have a part to play too! Have your child act like a monkey in the book when they are imitating the peddler’s actions.
When you finish the story work on sequencing skills by having your child tell you the order in which the peddler stacks the caps. Go back through the book and use pictures if needed to help your child recall details in order to correctly sequence.
Questions you can ask as you read with your child: Asking your child questions during or after a book is important to help build and strengthen comprehension skills, as well as, work on responding to different types of questions.
WHAT questions (e.g., “What is the peddler doing?”; “What is the peddler’s job?”)
WHO questions (e.g., “Who is selling caps?”; “Who took the caps?”)
WHERE questions (e.g., “Where did the peddler rest?”; “Where are the caps?”)
WHY questions (e.g., “Why did the peddler sit down?”; “Why is the peddler upset?”)
HOW questions (e.g., “How do the monkeys get the caps?”; “How does the peddler get his caps back?”)
PREDICTION questions (e.g., “What might happen while the peddler rests?”; “What will the peddler do next time he wants to rest?”)
INFERENCING questions (e.g., “How does the peddler feel?”; “How can you tell the peddler is upset?”)
When your child works on answering questions about a story, it means they are building vocabulary and connections, as well as, critical thinking skills! Fun activities to do after the book: Doing activities related to a book you have read with your child is a great way to continue strengthening language skills. Incorporating activities related to a story help further build your child’s ability to make connections and associations, increase their vocabulary skills, and can also help with ability to recall and sequence information they have learned or been exposed to. You do not need to do all of these activities in one day. Feel free to spread them out over many days or weeks and even repeat them.
Make a picture with the peddler and his caps: You can trace or copy a picture of the peddler with the caps on his head out of the book. Remove or omit the caps on his head. You can make caps (using colored paper) or cut them out if you made a copy of the page. Work on having your child glue the caps back on in the correct order. You can even try this with play-doh to change it up. ** (this activity is good for working on recall of details, sequencing, colors, counting, vocabulary of actions and nouns from the picture)
Instead of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, play Pin the Cap on the Monkey: Make a monkey and some caps (or copy and enlarge pictures from the book) and play away. **(this activity is good for colors, counting and prepositions, i.e., locations, for where the caps end up– “The checkered cap is next to the monkey”, “A blue cap is under the monkey”, “Where is this red cap?”, “Can you find a cap that is below the monkey?”, etc)
Pretend play: make a cap store and pretend to buy and sell hats. You can use dress-up clothes to be the seller and/or the buyer, pretend or real money, and any other accessories you can think of! **(this activity is good for working on pretend play skills, ideation, turn-taking, sharing, problem solving, and also can help reinforce vocabulary and concepts from the book)
As we discussed in this post, at The Speech Space we are huge fans of books. Not only are books a wonderful way to engage and spend time with your child, but they are also a great means for building language skills like vocabulary, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Adding or incorporating fun activities related to books you read with your child can double the impact (and fun!).
Check back on the blog for more ideas and activities you can do with your child to help encourage their communication development. If you have questions or concerns about your child’s s development, contact us at The Speech Space. We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
Did you know that books are a great way to work on your child’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills? At The Speech Space we are huge fans of books. The choices for books are endless and these days there are SO MANY great ones! Here is a list of current kid-favorites that are great for working on critical thinking and problem solving skills:
Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers: When a penguin shows up at his door, a boy decides to find out where the penguin came from and get him home. The journey back to the South Pole is difficult and the boy tells the penguin stories to pass the time. When they get to the South Pole, the penguin looks sad and the boy realizes that the penguin wasn’t lost, he was just lonely. This book is great for working on inferences, predictions, sequencing, and emotions.
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson: As a mouse is walking in the forest, he meets a fox, an owl, and then a snake, who all want to eat him for dinner. Instead of being eaten, the smart mouse invents The Gruffalo, who happens to enjoy eating each of these animals for dinner to scare them away. Turns out that The Gruffalo is real! This book is great for ‘wh’ questions (e.g., who, what, where), predictions, inferences, and sequencing.
Gilbert Goldfish Wants a Pet by Kelly DiPucchio: Gilbert is a goldfish who has a pretty awesome life. But, the one thing he wants and the one thing he doesn’t have is a pet. Gilbert goes on a long journey to find a pet, experiencing different situations and emotions. In the end, thank goodness, he gets his wish! This book is great for working on “why” questions, inferences, emotions, and sequencing.
The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear by Don & Audrey Wood: In this story a little mouse finds a delicious, ripe strawberry. As he’s going to get the strawberry he is told about a big, hungry bear that can smell a ripe strawberry miles away! The mouse goes into a panic trying to figure out ways to protect his ripe strawberry (don’t worry, in the end he figures out a way!). This book is great for working on WH- questions (what, where, why, etc), inferencing, predictions, emotions, and sequencing.
Books are not only great for comprehension and vocabulary, but also for critical thinking and problem solving. As you read books to your child, try to use personal connections to help them relate to the story (e.g.,”He wants a pet. What pet do we have?”, “If you could have a pet, what would you chose?”).
If your child is able to answer simple WH questions (e.g., who, what, where, when), work on asking questions that require them to apply the knowledge they have to make inferences (e.g., “Why is the mouse trying to hide the strawberry?”, “How might he feel if the bear got his strawberry? How would you feel?”) and predictions (e.g., “The boy seems to miss the penguin. What might he do?”). After you finish the story see if your child can sequence and retell the story back to you (feel free to flip through the pages together again while they are sequencing and retelling the story).
These are just a few kid-favorite books (and frankly The Speech Space therapists’ favorites too). Check back on the blog for more ideas to help encourage your child’s speech and language development.
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s s development, contact us at The Speech Space. We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
Holidays and seasons are a great way to incorporate new vocabulary and build your child’s language and understanding of traditions or routines! Read more below about a few Valentine’s Day themed books for different ages and the fun ways you can interactively read with your child. We’ve also shared a few of our professionally-recommended easy and inexpensive themed-activities for you and your child to do at home!
For younger children (Toddlers & Preschoolers:18 months to 3 years)
Where is Baby’s Valentine? In this book Baby has lost her Valentine’s Day card and you have to help her find it! This book is great for working on everyday, common vocabulary (e.g., things around your home), yes/no questions, simple WH-questions (what, where, who) and also prepositions (e.g., “Is it under the table?” or “Show me what is on the table.” or “What is next to the table?”, etc).
Llama Llama I love you This book is good for simple sequencing of events (the steps to making the cards, giving the cards, sending the cards, etc), for verbs or action vocabulary (e.g., cutting, glueing, walking, etc), simple WH-questions and yes/no questions. There are also some rhyming words in this book (though your toddler or preschooler is still a little young for pre-reading and phonemic awareness skills, it’s still beneficial to read books with a variety of concepts!).
For children around Pre-K (4-5 years old)
Happy Valentine’s Day Curious George! We love Curious George books! They are great for WH-questions (who, what, where, when, why), inferences (“Why is the man upset?”, “Why does George looked worried?”), predictions (“Uh oh. What might George do?”, “What might happen?”) and recalling details and events of the story after the book
Lily’s Chocolate Heart This is a simple, but very cute book which is great for prepositions (e.g., under, next to, on, above, etc.) and vocabulary, as well as, WH-questions and recalling details about the story.
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose There are a lot of different “Old Lady Who Swallowed a….” books. These books are silly and fun and good for recalling details in sequential order (e.g., the items she swallows) and vocabulary.
For children who are a little older (Kindergarten, First Grade)
Franklin’s Valentines Franklin worked so hard on his Valentine’s Day cards, but something happens to them! This book is great for sequencing the events of the story, recalling details of the story, inferencing (e.g., “How do you think Franklin feels?”, “Why is Franklin sad?”, etc.) predicting (e.g., “Uh oh! His backpack is open! What might happen?” , “What might they do next?”, etc.) and problem-solving (“What is the problem?”, “What could he do to fix the problem?”, etc).
The Day It Rained Hearts In this book the main character, Cornelia Augusta, is very thoughtful with how she makes her Valentine’s Day cards and who will receive them! This book is also great for sequencing, recalling details, retelling events, making inferences and predictions.
Activities You & Your Child can do at home!
You can also do short, fun, holiday-themed activities at home with your child to work on ways to build their vocabulary and language skills. Here are a few easy and inexpensive ideas:
getting a box of valentine’s for their class and looking at what is the same or different with each valentine (e.g., they both have superheroes; one has iron man and the other has spider man)
describing what is on the valentine
sorting a box full of candy conversation hearts into colors
These are just a few ideas, but maybe you have some other ideas or activities you already do with your child. Feel free to leave your ideas in the comments section for others to try out too!
If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s development you can always reach out to us at The Speech Space!
