Speech and Language Tips for Summer Vacations
Hi Friends!
It's that time of year when many of our speech kiddos are off on vacation, living their best lives, while we are left wondering if their goal progress will take a steep nose dive on their return 🤪
But fear not! There's tons of activities that are easy to implement by caregivers while they are on vacation too. Read on to see what I'm talking about 👇🏼
Here are a few of my favorite vacation strategies to pass onto families at their child's last session before they jet off!
Because working on speech and language skills while on vacation can be both fun and effective for children!
📔 Create a Vacation Journal: Encourage the child to keep a journal or scrapbook of their vacation experiences. They can write or draw about what they did each day, helping to strengthen both writing skills and memory recall.
💭 Engage in Conversations: Take advantage of relaxed vacation settings to have meaningful conversations centered around the vacation. Talk about what you see, hear, and experience together. Encourage children to describe their surroundings or share their thoughts and feelings. Provide gentle reminders and cues for accurate placement for articulation targets as needed.
🃏 Play Language Games: Use travel time or downtime to play word games like "I Spy," rhyming games, scavenger hunts, or memory games. These games promote vocabulary development, phonological awareness, and memory skills in a playful manner.
🗣️ Narrate and Describe: Encourage children to describe their new experiences. Ask open-ended questions that require detailed answers, such as "What did you like best about today?" or "Can you tell me about what we did?"
📖 Encourage Storytelling: Invite the child to create stories or retell events from your vacation to family members and friends (and your speech therapist!). This fosters creativity, sequencing skills, and the ability to organize thoughts coherently.
With the use of these strategies, your students are sure to maintain the growth you've accomplished with them during your time together!
Parents Need a Visual?
Looking to increase carryover of language skills but the parents need something concrete to refer back to? Check out the Language and Articulation Handouts! They are the perfect for homework and carryover, plus accountability pages!
Happy Speeching!
👇🏼 Save this image to Pinterest so you can refer back to it later! 👇🏼
