School Readiness: A Speech-Language Pathologist’s Perspective

It’s coming…’big school’! School registration was last month for our local school board. Children turning 5 years old before December 31, 2015 will be heading off to ‘big school’ in September. Success, happiness, achievement, a nurtured love for learning, and new friends are among the many wishes and hopes for next year’s Primary students.

For professionals in speech-language pathology, we emphasize strongly (and yes, a little perseveratively) that a young child’s learning up to this point has been laying the foundation for next year’s success… and success for the year after that, and the one after that. There are a few good reasons for our enthusiastic advocacy:

Spoken Vocabulary

A number of spoken vocabulary skills are strongly connected to reading success. Children with deeper spoken vocabulary skills have a stronger base of language learning to draw from when they are learning to read. Listen to your children describe what they see/hear/touch/taste/smell and monitor if they have more than one word to describe their observations. For example, is something always beautiful? Or do you also hear words such as pretty, glittery, sparkly, nice, wonderful etc. During construction play, do you hear words such as strong, steady, stable, wobbly, weak, balanced etc. ?

Rhyming Skills

Children who can detect rhymes and generate their own rhymes are demonstrating early language manipulation skills. Most children enjoy rhymes, and if they do not, it’s important to teach children how to listen for rhymes and how to make up their own rhymes. Playful interactions with books, songs, nursery rhymes, and silly/nonsense words can naturally highlight the fun side of rhymes and encourage children to start playing with words and sounds. It’s a process so encourage these types of games gradually and over a variety of different games and activities.

Language Comprehension

By the time children enter school, they should be able to listen to and understand short conversations, listen to stories then retell the general idea & events, and ask questions about stories. Being able to hear and understand what is being said are important skills for school success.

Resources

There are many sources of information that can help parents and caregivers better prepare children for school. A few we are happy to recommend include:

ASHA’s Literacy Gateway – they have some great resources on getting children ready for reading and writing, as well as for building children’s listening and talking skills

Reading Rockets is a wealth of resources on many topics related to reading and writing skills. They also have a nice section on choosing books for young children, as well as recommended books lists.

The Hanen Centre has a Helpful Info tab and there you can find great links to play ideas for strengthening communication skills, a Preliteracy Corner, and a Technology Corner, in addition to more.

As always, feel welcome to contact us with any questions or concerns you might have about your child’s listening, speaking, reading, writing, or general communication skill development.

 Talk soon!

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *