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As a speech-language pathologist, Hilltown Families contributing writer, Kathy Puckett, is a big believer is building a culture of reading for children at home! With the new year upon us with thoughts towards New Year’s Resolutions, Kathy encourages our readers to resolve to carving out time to read more to on your children. Quality time spent reading together is universally acknowledged as being crucial to any level of child development while creating memories and bonds between parent and child. At the end of the day it all comes back to reading…
We’re all fighting the same battle: the clock. So much to get done. Always. Even kids are facing it through things such as a challenging curriculum at kindergarten level, which chews up play-time. If we’re not pushing, pushing, pushing, we’re not achieving. What has suffered has been the ability to listen because, as you’ve guessed it, it takes time. But listening allows us to give ourselves over and relieve stress a little and work smarter. Kathy really outlines the power of listening this month in “Time to Talk,” which you will really enjoy reading. Because we’re all in the same boat, right?
Conversations with kids can be a mazy roller coaster of a ride. Sometimes the lack of perspective taking can turn the conversation very one-sided and block any real chance of a meaningful connection being made. This month in “time to Talk: Supporting Children’s Language Skills,” Kathy shares her approach to organized thinking… something we can all perhaps plug into!
Creating an environment for your kid’s speech development is key to their growth. Parents naturally want to help their child and therefore can sometimes assist a child too much in, for example, finishing a sentence. It’s great to monitor your kid’s speech and let them figure out the power of sound manipulation. In “Time to Talk” this month, Kathy lays out some great guidelines in keeping that balance to drive your kid’s speech development.
Summertime requires a lot of organization. Some kids flourish with the structure of schedules, while others enjoy that bit of looseness in planning in order for some creativity to bud and grow. It’s never a bad thing to just take a time out and to do something a bit different on a consistent basis. It freshens things up and adds a constructive brand of spontaneity.
This month in “Time to Talk: Supporting Children’s Language Skills,” Hilltown Families Contributing Writer, speech-language pathologist Kahy Puckett has some great suggestions for introducing innovative language activities that require just a few minutes of commitment daily. Read on to learn how to harness this with some clever language activities that are completely manageable while maintaining a hectic schedule.
Being a newcomer to the world requires a lot of guidance, development and mentorship. In this month’s column, “Time to Talk: Supporting Children’s Language Skills,” Kathy looks and how she works with her new puppy, Cricket, and how handling her behavior takes the same kind of patience and caring she finds when working with young children.
How to build sustainable summer plans? Having buy-in at the summer planning phase from your children leads to a smoother and more enriching experience for everyone. By letting your children into the decision-making process you empower them and give them part-ownership in family activities. This month in “Time to Talk: Supporting Children’s Language Skills,” Kathy encourages families to allow children to contribute to their summer plans so they feel invested in outings and trips. In return, you just might be rewarded with their engagement and sweeter summer memories!
“We don’t learn in a straight ascending line,” writes Kathy this month in her column, “Time to Talk: Supporting Children’s Language Skills.” As the end of the school year looms on the horizon and emotions intensify with students, Kathy recommends trying to bring learning to a deep level with learned language skills in many setting beyond the therapy room. Patience and encouragement is key as kids move forward, slide back, and then move forward again.
“Memory effects every aspect of our learning,” writes Kathy this month in “Time to Talk: Supporting Children’s Language Skills.” “When working with children with memory difficulties, I tend to think about two aspects of long term memory: the information going in and getting stored, and the process of finding it and retrieving it so it can be used. Some things that help storage and recall include…
Writing Skills: Putting Language Down on Paper I’m not an expert on writing skills, but I often find myself working with children who have difficulty getting ideas on paper. I start by reviewing the variety of skills and processes involved in writing. First, a writer must gather ideas, take notes from readings, and make choices about which ideas are important enough to include in the writing. Then they need to organize these… Read More
Apps that Increase Children’s Vocabulary I once had a teen client who had the most amazing ideas and insights. He was one of those kids who really cared about people and thought about things deeply. I always considered it a gift to work with him. So why did he need speech and language services? Unfortunately, he had a very small repertoire of vocabulary words and he couldn’t access the very reading material… Read More
Narratives: What did you do today? Have you ever tried to find out about your children’s daily experiences? Well, of course, teenagers rarely want to share their day with an adult, but younger children do. For some kids this is one of the hardest things to do. Why is that? It seems like such a simple thing to do! Well, let’s think about it. Telling a story pulls all kinds of language… Read More
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