Information for Parents
- Visit Caroline Bowen’s website for information and resources on speech and language development and interventions.
- Visit the American Speech Language Hearing Association website for up to date information about a wide range of different speech and language delays and disorders.
- Visit Super Duper Publications for free, easy to read, handouts on almost any topic to do with Speech and Language Therapy.
- Visit Lifting Literacy Aotearoa for information on literacy instruction in New Zealand.
Links to Resources
- Speech Language Illustrated is my own website of hand drawn resources.
- Boom Learning is a website full of interactive tasks to support learning of different targets.
- SPELD provides free decodable readers to support literacy development. A short video on the importance of decodable readers can be found here.
- Letters and Sounds is a free high quality phonics program.
- Phonics Hero provides games and worksheets to support the Letters and Sounds program.
- Tarheel Reader is an online library of free books for beginning readers. You can write your own books, or simply search almost any topic you like. Tarheel reader is great for shared reading around topics that interest the child. Tarheel reader is also ideal for teenagers and young adults who are beginning readers, given the broad range of topics.
- The Measured Mom provides many fantastic free resources for early reading and writing.
- Mommy Speech Therapy provides free speech sound worksheets. The worksheets are also broken down to each level of practice (e.g. words, sentences etc).
- The Toy Library is a great way to give your child to access to all sorts of exciting toys to extend their play skills and learning at home – without needing to buy anything!
- Teachers Pay Teachers is a website of resources for all things teaching. Some items are free and some are paid
- Oxford Owl is a website which provides a range of eBooks which range from preschool to later primary school-aged levels.
- Bildstod is a website which allows you to create visual schedules, picture cards and boards using a range of symbols for free. Just make sure you set the language to English before you start!
Recommended Apps
Educational apps can be hugely motivating and beneficial for kids when used correctly. Please do remember that you are your child’s greatest teacher, and it is recommended that all of the following apps are used with adult assistance (talk while you play).
- Hamaguchi creates excellent and engaging apps for language development. First Phrases is great if your child is learning to put words together. The level above this is Fun with Verbs and Sentences, which teaches simple sentence construction. Hamaguchi also provides apps which work on understanding and following directions.
- Little Bee Speech creates a range of apps for speech and language development. Articulation Station is highly recommended for any children who are working on speech sounds. Download the lite version, and then purchase the individual sound your child is working on.
- Splingo’s Language Universe is a fantastic app for learning concepts and following directions. The level of difficulty can be broken down in many ways (by the content of the direction, to the level of information carrying words to follow). As the child progresses through the levels, they are given pieces to build a rocket, this keeps them engaged, and they get a kick out of the rocket taking off at the end! This developer also creates additional apps which target various language skills. Ask your Speech-Language Therapist which apps would be beneficial for your child.
- Toca Boca creates fantastic children’s game apps. They are simple to use, highly interactive, and great for language development. I am yet to meet a child who is not intrigued by Toca Boca apps. Talk about what is happening as you play, this is how your child will learn e.g. when playing the Toca Kitchen app, you can say things such as “mmm, the monster likes the apple” “Time to cook the fish” “Hot oven”.
- Eric X. Raj is a self-described “cool dude Speech Pathologist” and his apps are a reflection of this. He creates interesting and fun apps for speech sounds which are great for older kids. Wacky Selfie Articulation is a personal favourite.
- Choiceboard Creator is a DIY app, which allows you to create custom activities relevant to the child. Activities include boards of options (choices) a child can make (e.g. you could have a board of the snacks available for morning tea time). You can also create educational activities which work on various targets (e.g. you ask a question, and the child points to the correct choice). Ask your Speech Therapist how this could be used with your child.
- Sounds-Write Initial Code makes literacy carryover tasks much easier.
- The Nessy apps are fantastic for early literacy skills, and are recommended over other applications such as reading eggs.
- Wordchain is a great app for phonemic awareness and literacy skills, even better that it is made for our New Zealand accent!