Welcome back! Hope you all had a wonderful, fun and restful summer! We are here again for another school year.  I am Alexcia Wheeler, the Speech Language Pathologists who will be providing speech language therapy to your student at Tri-Community. I am excited to begin services again! I will provide your child with a folder for home communication purposes as well as homework to help facilitate the carryover of skills to different environments. Please feel free to communicate by email if that works better for you! I am very flexible and will return a response to you within 24-48 hours, so don’t worry I will get back to you. I will mark the time on your child’s folder so you both will know when speech is for the week. I hope to keep the lines of communication open to maximize the progress for your child and carryover of skills. I am looking forward to a positive and productive school year.

Sincerely,

                                                                                    Alexcia Wheeler

                                                                                    Alexcia Wheeler

                                                                                    Speech/Language Pathologist

                                                                                    M.A.CCC-SLP

                                                                                    awheeler@cdschools.org

More information about Speech/Language support services

Homework Activities for Articulation

Your child is working on: _______________________________________________________

• Target speech sound can be at the beginning of words, middle of words, or end of words

1. Find 5-10 items in your home, outside, bedroom, etc. that have your speech sound; practice saying the words, then use the words in sentences
2. Find 5-10 pictures of items with your speech sounds from a magazine, online, etc.; practice saying the word, then use the words in sentences
3. Read a book out loud using your good speech sounds
4. Describe the pictures in a book or what happened in the book after reading one
5. Talk about your day using your good speech sounds
6. Make flashcards with pictures/words with your sounds; use them to play Go Fish, Memory/Matching, hide and seek, etc. with the cards
7. Using words with your targeted sounds, make your own word search
8. Make a list of words with your targeted sounds that are hard for you to say; practice those words 5 times each
9. Make your own bingo game with words with your targeted sounds on the bingo card; play with a friend or family member and take turns being the bingo caller

• Go on a walk or scavenger hunt and find items with your targeted sounds

11. Play 20 questions using words with your target sounds as the words being guessed
12. Play a game like HeadBandz (describe an item with your target sound/s that the other player has to guess)

Homework Activities for Grammar

Your child is working on: ____________________________________.

1. Describe a picture using good grammar targets
2. Talk about your day using good grammar targets
3. Go on a walk and describe what you are seeing using good grammar
4. Write a sentence or a paragraph to answer a question your parent asked using good grammar
5. If working on past tense, describe pictures or something that happened in the past using past tense
6. Play 20 questions using good grammar when asking questions
7. Play a game like HeadBandz where you describe the item using good grammar
8. Have a conversation with someone using your good grammar
9. Describe what happened on a TV show using your good grammar

Homework Activities for Language Skills

Your child is working on: _______________________________________.

1. Read something out loud, talk about what you’ve read by describing what happened, describing the characters, setting, problem and solution
2. Pick out a book you haven’t read before and make a prediction about what the book will be about
3. Tell about something that happened that day, be sure to include when & where it happened (setting), who was involved (characters), and what happened in order
4. Read something out loud to or with an adult, have the adult ask you questions about what you read
5. Read something out loud to or with an adult and have the adult ask you “why” questions about what you read (ex. Why do you think that happened? Why did the character miss her family?)
6. Pick 5 items and describe them to someone, giving specific details
7. Make a list of 10 items. How would you group or categorize them?  Explain how you grouped them the way you did

Homework Activities for Social Skills

1. Play a game with a friend, sibling, or adult. Be sure to take turns, follow the rules, and find a fair way to decide who goes first
2. Role play showing different emotions and have someone guess which emotions you are showing
3. Role play using different tones of voices and have someone guess which emotion you are showing
4. Think of different problem situations; decide if the problem is a big deal or little deal then think of possible solutions to solve the problem
5. While watching a TV show or movie, or reading a book, make smart guesses about what someone is thinking or going to do based on what you saw/read and what you already know
6. Talk about ways you can calm yourself when upset; practice using one of the strategies
7. Talk about ways you can cheer yourself up when sad; practice using one of the strategies
8. Have a conversation with someone; do your best to stay on topic and to ask at least 3 questions
9. While watching TV or movie, or talking about something that happened, talk about what the expected and unexpected behaviors were
10. Do something nice for someone; explain why it made them feel good

Homework Activities for Fluency (Smooth Speech)

1. Use your tapping strategy to talk about your day
2. Read out loud using your smooth speech strategies
3. Play 20 questions or I spy using your smooth speech to ask questions or describe items
4. Think about a time when you had difficulty using smooth speech. What was going on?  Why do you think it was difficult?
5. Think about a time during the day when you used your smooth speech strategies. Did they work?  How did you feel when you used them?

Possible Strategies:

• Tapping: tap the table or your leg as you talk to keep your rate of speech in check
• Think first before answering questions
• Ease into it: when stuck on a word, pause, release the tension and gently say the word