I’ve received many calls within the past two weeks from panicky parents about kindergarten test prep.  Applications, tours and interviews are in full swing for NYC kindergarten admission for the fall of 2012.  A child takes kindergarten admission tests by a required date to complete the application process. 

Some parents who have not yet provided kindergarten test prep are wondering what the best last minute activities are to prepare their child for kindergarten tests.

The skills required for kindergarten tests and the activities completed in my kindergarten prep sessions are best taught over a six to twelve month period.  If its crunch time for your child, here are a few important kindergarten games to play and skills to build:

1. Help your child to sit and attend to books and games he or she will happily enjoy for about 60 minutes.

2. Teach your son or daughter to define everyday words.  For example, “What is a cup?”  or “What is a blanket?”  Sometimes task directions require practice.  Playing a vocabulary and word reasoning game such as Hedbanz can be motivating and make kindergarten test prep fun! 

3. Block play - create a design or pattern with colored blocks or tiles.  Have your child copy your design and you can copy your child’s.  As bicolored blocks are used during testing, choose two colors of construction paper and cut out two triangles from at least  eight 4×4 squares.   Tape the triangles together to form bi-colored squares.   Practice making larger triangles, stripes and larger squares with the bicolored squares.  Try Pixy Cubes too.

4. Help your child understand analogies by talking about how and why things go together.  Check out this analogy puzzle.

5. Make your child think!  Ask open ended questions for your child to formulate meaningful verbal responses.  For example, “Why is it important to brush your teeth?”   “Why should you eat healthy food?” 

As a parent myself, I know how it can be difficult to work with your own child.  If you’re looking for guidance in helping your child get ready for kindergarten or for kindergarten test prep, please feel free to contact me and we can make a plan that’s a good fit for you and your child.

Stephanie Sigal works with children in their Upper East Side, Manhattan homes.  sayandplay@yahoo.com or 646-295-4473.

Wordless picture books encourage language development. Below, I’ve complied previously blogs and added more suggestions. Wordless picture books and funny pictures are excellent tools to address vocabulary, word finding, grammar, articulation, attention and pre-reading skills. Goals to improve each of these naturally fall into place when “reading” wordless picture books and describing funny pictures. Even better, the variety of wordless picture books and funny pictures available allows for activities to remain fun and fresh. You can use wordless picture books and funny pictures for…

 Articulation

Sometimes a child can say a sound (e.g., /s/) in sentences, but needs extra practice in conversation. Wordless books and funny pictures can bridge the gap between sentence level and conversation.

 Language

Take turns with your child describing the pictures in the wordless books. If your child leaves out important information when describing scenes in books or pictures, you can ask an open ended question (e.g., “Hmmm – What’s happening over here?”). If he can’t describe what’s happening, describe it for him. Perhaps your description will improve his awareness to be more specific next time.

Pre-Reading With Wordless Picture Books

When appropriate, before turning the page, excitedly ask “What’s going to happen next?” When given the opportunity to make a prediction (a pre-reading skill), children combine verbal and critical thinking skills.

With Funny Pictures

Describing funny pictures is entertaining! An instant smile appears when a child is shown a picture of the Statue of Liberty holding an ice cream sundae. This task allows your child to link visual and cognitive skills, which is crucial for pre-reading. Funny pictures need to be carefully examined, just as words need to be looked at closely to notice blends. What’s more, when a child focuses and attends to a funny picture and can explain why it is crazy a polar bear is on the beach, he is using attention and reasoning skills and making inferences.

 Social-Emotional Awareness

A child may better appreciate the feelings of others if he can interpret and describe feelings. When the opportunity presents itself, ask your child how a main character feels. You may need to be more specific: “How does Jack the dog feel after his family left him without breakfast?” Provide explanations as necessary.

Looking for some wordless picture books and funny pictures?

“Jack” Books

The “Jack” books by Pat Schories are a great introduction to wordless picture books. While the Jack books do not need to be read in any particular order, the following order works nicely:

Breakfast for Jack

Jack Wants a Snack

Jack and the Missing Piece

Jack and the Night Visitors

When Jack Goes Out

Children are interested in the characters in Jack’s life. Searching the detailed pictures for surprises is motivating, facilitates attention and assists in developing visual scanning skills.

Frog Series

The Frog Series by Mercer Mayer (and sometimes Marianna Mayer as well) is an appropriate series to try next. Again, the books don’t need to be read in any particular order, but given the language skills required within each book, this order may be preferable:

Frog, Where Are You?

A Boy, A Dog and A Frog

One Frog Too Many

A Boy, A Dog, A Frog and A Friend

Frog on His Own

Frog Goes To Dinner

I was first introduced to The Frog Series in my graduate school clinic. School-age children described scenes in a Frog book chosen for them during an evaluation so we could obtain a narrative sample.

More Favorite Wordless Picture Books

Changes, Changes by Pat Hutchins

Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie DePaola

Carl Goes Shopping by Alexandra Day

Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann

Hug by Jez Alborough

Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins

Chalk by Bill Thomson

Window by Jeannie Baker (best for older children, purchase a used copy)

No, David! by David Shannon (My favorite, essentially wordless book, also a Caldecott*)

You can also use picture books with text, as long as the pictures are detailed. This is generally more difficult than using wordless picture books, but if you try, it will work best with *Caldecott Medal / Honor Books. One of the criteria for the Caldecott Award is that a child can interpret the story directly from the pictures. A child doesn’t need to know how to read the text, in fact, cover text if your child can read, so he can freely choose his own words.

Caldecott Favorites

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willem

Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems

Flotsam (This is also a wordless picture book) by David Wiesner (Tuesday and Sector 7 are good for school age children)

The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster, Illustrated by Chris Raschka

When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang

The Paperboy by Dav Pilkey

Rumpelstiltskin by Paul Zelinsky

King Bidgood’s In the Bathtub by Don and Audrey Wood

A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams

One Fine Day by Nonny Hogrogian

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Umbrella by Taro Yashima A Tree Is Nice by Marc Simont

Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

The pictures in books by Leo Lionni and Ezra Jack Keats also allow for great descriptions.

 Funny Pictures

I often provide What’s Wrong coloring books to children I work with so they can discuss one page a day with a parent as part of their homework. I often leave the wordless picture book that we read together in therapy for homework as well.  What’s Wrong by Anna Pomaska is good to start with. Then try What’s Wrong with this Picture? also by Pomaska.

Try this incredible set of silly photographs. Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss is fun to read together. Practicing describing a worksheet or two each day from Super Duper’s 150 “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” Scenes can also help carryover speech and language skills.

By Becca Jarzynski, M.S. CCC-SLP

Making photo books with your kids is a fabulous way to help increase their language skills. It matters not if you are a mom simply looking for creative ways to provide your toddler with a language-rich environment or a dad looking for ways to help your kindergartener learn to tell stories– photo books are a flexible tool than can be used in a huge variety of ways.

How to use picture books? The general idea goes a little something like this:

Take pictures during a fun event such as a trip to the zoo or the beach,

Capture key moments in the pictures,

Print the pictures that highlight the key moments from the event,

Spend a few afternoons gluing the pictures onto construction paper, letting your children help cut, glue and color around the pictures; if your child is old enough, help him to write captions for the pictures, and

Laminate the pages and have them bound into a book that can be read over and over.

One you’ve done this, you’re all set up to use the books to help increase language. Kids love these books because they are based in experiences that they had; this makes the books both meaningful and fun. And children usually want to read the books over and over again– as annoying as this can be, it makes picture books the perfect vehicle for developing language.

With toddlers, you can use the pictures to build on language. Most toddlers love to start looking at pictures of themselves around 12-24 months, right when they are starting to rapidly increase their vocabulary and move from one-word phrases to two-word phrases. Photo books create excellent opportunities for using parallel talk, description, and expansion to help children develop new vocabulary and help them make the jump from one to two words.

Check out this video. I use expansion with my daughter, who is looking at a picture of herself riding a toy motorcycle with her brother, James. First, I wait for her to say something (“ride!”). Then I build on her words by putting them into short phrases, two different times. As a result, she comes back with a two-word phrase of her own (“James riding”)! No, it doesn’t always work this quickly….I’ve been using parallel talk, description and expansion with her for the past year and it’s only really starting to pay off now.

Toddlers aren’t the only ones who benefit from photo books, though. Using these books with preschoolers and early elementary age children can be great way to work on a whole variety of language-related skills. You can:

Work on sequencing by having your child lay out the pictures in the right order as you make the book,

Work on pre-writing and writing skills by having your child trace words you write or write his own words and sentences as you make the book,

Work on vocabulary by defining new words and integrating those words into the story and by using time words such as first, next, then and finally,

Work on language by using indirect correction, in which you correct errors in your child’s grammar by restating what he said, correctly and conversationally (e.g. Your child: “I runned really fast!” You: “You did. You ran so fast!”), and

Work on memory by having your child practice telling the story with and without the picture book in front of him.

Finally, photo books are a fantastic way to work on narrative (story) development. Developing an understanding of narrative structure (the typical flow of stories) is essential to being able to engage in conversations, tell others about things that have happened, and understand academic texts later in the elementary years. Enhancing narrative development is an asset for any child; I work on it with my son, often. It’s also a skill that can be very hard for children with language delays and specific diagnoses such as autism, so working on it with these children is essential. Using photo books to visually show stories in which children actually participated helps make narrative structure more concrete and easier to understand. At first, you can use photo books to help your child understand that the story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Later, during the early elementary age years, you can help your child form a story that has the following elements:

Setting (“We were at the zoo”)

Goal (“We wanted to see the animals,”)

Problem (“But Sally was scared of the lion.”)

Feelings (“I was so mad, because I wanted to see the lion.”)

Attempt to solve the problem (“So we went to see the owls instead. Then Sally was ready to see the lion. Mom just covered her eyes.”)

Conclusion (“After that, we had a really fun day.”)

It doesn’t have to be perfect, of course. Stories are messy, just like life. They won’t fit perfectly into those elements, nor should they. But telling stories in a way that wraps loosely around those story elements, over and over and over again, will help your child begin to internalize the flow of stories.

There is so much to do with picture books that the possibilities seem endless. What’s more, at the end of the day, you also have a book full of memories that your children will cherish for years to come. And that’s just priceless.

Becca Jarzynski, M.S., CCC-SLP is a pediatric speech-language pathologist in Wisconsin. Check out her blog Child Talk and follow her on facebook at facebook.com/ChildTalk.  Becca publishes with Stephanie Sigal M.A., CCC-SLP on ASHAsphere, the blog for The American Speech-Language and Hearing Association.

Children find describing What’s Wrong pictures to be a fun carryover activity for articulation, grammar and vocabulary.  An instant smile appears when a child is shown a picture of the Statue of Liberty holding an ice cream sundae!

This speech and language task also allows a child to demonstrate the ability to link visual and cognitive skills, which is crucial for pre-reading.  A child has to carefully examine a What’s Wrong picture, just as he needs to look closely at printed words to notice blends.

When a child focuses and attends to a silly picture and can explain why it is crazy a polar bear is on the beach, he is using reasoning skills and making inferences. 

Picture completion (pictures that have something missing) subtests appear on intelligence tests, such as the WPPSI (Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence), the WISC-IV (Wechsler Intelligence Scale For Children) and the Stanford Binet (Picture Absurdities).  A child’s visual acuity and reasoning skills are measured when asked to identify a missing part of a familiar pictured object. 

Try What’s Wrong coloring books.  What’s Wrong? by Anna Pomaska is good to start with.  Then try What’s Wrong with this Picture? also by Pomaska.  I often provide these coloring books to children I work with so they can discuss one page a day with a parent as part of their homework.

An incredible set of silly photographs is a great informal activity / ice breaker at an evaluation.  You can read Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss as a therapy activity or provide a few worksheets for homework from Super Duper’s 150 “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” Scenes.

Stephanie is a pediatric speech therapist in Manhattan.

Parents often read to their two year old and four year old simultaneously. Early childhood teachers read to their students every school day. When reading to a group of children, it is vital that you are familiar with the text. You may wish to take a moment to think about open-ended questions you can ask children before you begin a story. For example, if you were to be reading Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson, you could ask “Does anyone know what bears do all winter long?” If you get a response such as “sleep” or “hibernate,” great! If you do not get a response, inform the children. Giving them a glimpse into the story will enhance their understanding and appreciation.

Ask questions during the story. Perhaps there is a vocabulary word the children might not be familiar with. In the book Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay up Late by Mo Willems, the pigeon insists the children listening to the book let him stay up so he can watch an educational program on television. You can ask, “What does educational mean?” You can also explain to the children how the pigeon is trying to “trick” (manipulate) them into letting him stay up late. Then, ask the children “How have you tried to trick your parents?”

At the conclusion of a story, ask children to carry over a main theme from a book into their daily lives. For example, after reading My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann, ask the children “What does it mean to be a good friend?”

Adding props and puppets to group story time can engage kids with various levels of attention. In Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina, the peddler walks around carrying many caps on his head. The children can do the same with caps that you have previously collected for story time, or they can use their winter hats, or caps that they make as an art project to accompany the theme of the book.

Using different voices and revealing the characters’ emotions while acting out the story can also help children attend and relate more effectively. The mother dog in Bark, George by Jules Feiffer gets frustrated with her son, while he makes great animal sounds. The children will laugh when you over-act the role of George, his mother and especially the veterinarian reaching deep down into George’s mouth to pull out all the animals he has consumed.

Children are inspired to verbally participate when their peers say the repetitive line in a story together. In Tikki Tikki Tembo retold by Arlene Mosel, the older brother’s name is Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo. Opportunities to say this long name come up numerous times, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and children listening will want to try to say the name along with you.

Always read the title, author and illustrator’s names. Ask the children “What is an author?” “What is an illustrator?” Provide the information accordingly. If the author has written other books the children may be familiar with, ask them “What other books has this author written?” If necessary, name one or two of the books and you may notice how excited the children become when they realize they have shared a previous experience with you.

If you need help choosing the right books based on your child’s needs, you can ask your speech therapist, child’s teacher or librarian.

This article was written by Stephanie Sigal M.A. CCC-SLP.  It appeared today on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) blog, ASHAspere.

Stephanie Sigal, M.A. CCC-SLP, is a speech language therapist practicing on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, NYC. She works with babies, toddlers and school age children with expressive language delay and articulation disorders. Stephanie provides home based speech therapy and encourages parents to facilitate their children’s speech and language skills. To learn more about Stephanie, please visit sayandplayfamily.

Reading books with your child can provide experiences and vocabulary that he or she may not be exposed to on a daily basis. Experience allows children to gain understanding. When a child understands vocabulary and situations, he or she has the foundation to use these words in verbal language.

Always read with your child face to face with the book next to your face, not in front of your mouth. This will allow your child to see how you move your mouth when you say words, see your facial expressions and engage in eye contact. With a baby, you can create this opportunity while he or she is on the change table, floor, car seat, bouncy chair or on your thighs facing you.

Reading with your child everyday should start from birth. At this time, you can read anything to your son or daughter, even The New York Times. What matters is HOW you read it. Read with feeling, show emotion and pause to allow your baby to vocalize back to you.

Initially, choose books with a story and meaning. Vocabulary board books (e.g., books by Roger Priddy or select DK Publishing books) will be boring for you and not provide much benefit for your baby. Reading longer stories during the first months will help to build your child’s attention. Books like The Three Bears by Byron Barton, Summer by Alice Low and Chewy Louie by Howie Schneider will be fun for you and your baby.

If your toddler has trouble paying attention to a book, try reading when he or she is “trapped” (e.g., in the highchair eating, in the car seat while traveling, just waking up from a nap in the stroller). I once worked with a two year old boy who would only happily pay attention to an unfamiliar book while standing in his crib facing me. Once he became familiar with a book, we could read the book elsewhere.

Choosing the right books can help target speech and language skills you want to develop.

If your child is not talking, choose books that contain words that begin with bilabial sounds. These are sounds where your upper and lower lips come together (/m/, /b/ and /p/). Bilabial sounds are generally early sounds produced by children because they can see how an adult is moving their lips, which is helpful for imitation. Favorite books that include bilabial sounds are It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny (Marilyn Sadlow), The Berenstains’ B Book (Stanley and Jan Berenstain) and any book that contains animal sounds (moo, baa, maa). Overemphasize /m/, /b/ and /p/ and make eye contact with your child when saying bilabial sounds in any book.

Selecting books with repetitive phrases may allow your child to participate during story time. Great examples include: Dear Zoo (Rod Campbell), The Very Busy Spider (Eric Carle) and The Gingerbread Boy (Richard Egielski). Give your child the opportunity to complete the repetitive line, or if he or she is ready, the whole line. Hopefully, these words will carry over into daily vocabulary.

Rhyming books help children with word prediction, which is crucial for reading development. Once familiar with a rhyming book, have your child try to fill-in the rhyming word. Dr. Seuss’ The Foot Book begins: Left foot, Left foot, Right foot, Right – Feet in the morning, Feet at _____ (child should say “night”).

If your child’s speech therapist has determined that understanding and using prepositions is an important goal for your child, use books to reinforce what occurs in therapy. Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha, Up Above and Down Below by Sue Redding and Around the House the Fox Chased the Mouse by Rick Walton are all loaded with prepositions.

A child with more developed language who has difficulty providing details and descriptions may benefit from “reading” wordless picture books to you. Pictures in the story should be described so that the story makes sense. You can use picture books with text, as long as the pictures are detailed themselves. (You may cover the text with your hand if your child can read.) This works best with Caldecott Medal / Honor Books. Excellent examples include Knuffle Bunny books (Mo Willems), No, David! (David Shannon) and Where The Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak).

Other favorite wordless picture books include A Boy, a Dog and a Frog Series by Mercer Mayer, Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie DePaola and The Jack Series by Pat Schories. If you feel your child leaves out important information, ask an open-ended question (e.g., “Ooo – What’s happening over here?”). Provide a description if you feel this is too challenging. Perhaps this will increase your child’s awareness to be more specific and when you sit down to read the book again, the new information will be included.

Sometimes it is helpful if you “read” a wordless picture book to your child first. Describe what you see or make-up the story-line. For example, when David, the main character in the book No, David! is about to fall off the chair while reaching for a cookie, you can say: “Be careful David, you’re going to get hurt!” or “No cookies before dinner!!”

Look for Part Two Coming Soon:  Encouraging Speech and Language Skills while Sharing Books with a Group of Children
 
This article was written by Stephanie Sigal M.A. CCC-SLP.  It appeared today on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) blog, ASHAsphere.

Wordless picture books are an essential part of a speech therapists bag of tricks.  Please read my previous blog entry about encouraging details in conversation for background information.

I recently began using the “Jack” books by Pat Schories with 3 and 4 year-old children.  They are great for addressing vocabulary, grammar, word finding, sentence building, describing scenes and feelings and predicting what will happen next. 

These books are also an excellent tool to bridge the gap in articulation therapy between sentence level and conversation.  Sometimes a child can say a target sound (e.g., “S”) in sentences, but can not say the sound correctly in conversational speech.  Wordless picture books are an in-between step because children will describe the scenes with consecutive sentences using the picture scenes for support. 

While the Jack books do not need to be read in any particular order, the following order works nicely: 

Breakfast for Jack
Jack Wants a Snack
Jack and the Missing Piece
Jack and the Night Visitors
When Jack Goes Out

Children learn and become excited about the characters in Jack’s life that appear in at least two books each in the series – the boy, his sister and the night visitors!  It is fun to search the detailed pictures and the search helps with visual scanning too.

Stephanie Sigal, M.A. CCC-SLP is a speech language therapist practicing on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, NYC.  She works with babies, toddlers and school age children with expressive language delay and articulation disorders.  Stephanie provides home based speech therapy and encourages parents to facilitate their children’s speech and language skills.  To learn more about Stephanie, please visit http://www.sayandplayfamily.com/.

Encourage your child’s first words through simple songs!

Fingerplay or hand movements incorporated during a song allows for visual movement and sometimes enhances meaning of a song.  Presenting hand movements near your face, but not in front of your mouth brings attention to your mouth.  This will help your son or daughter attend and observe how you are moving your lips to form words.

Singing predictable, repetitive, rhyming songs are optimal.  Pausing may help your child anticipate that it is his / her turn to “converse”.  Allow time for your child to attempt to say the target word, but not too much time that you lose his or her attention. 

Below are fantastic fingerplay songs.  Lyrics can be found on the internet.  This website offers lyrics and lists the specific fingerplay movements.  Sing slowly!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
The Wheels on the Bus
If You’re Happy and You Know It
London Bridge
Row, Row, Row your Boat
This Old Man
Pat-a-Cake
This Little Piggy Went to Market
Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
I’m a Little Teapot
Open, Shut Them
Two Little Blackbirds
Where is Thumbkin?
We’re Going to Kentucky (We’re going to the fair)
Ring Around the Rosie
Hokey Pokey

Always sing face to face.

If your child is too young or has difficulty imitating your fingerplay movements, move your child’s hands and body to mimic the movements of the song.

Sing fingerplay songs throughout the day.  When you are dressing your child, changing a diaper and mealtime are great opportunities.

Stephanie Sigal is a speech therapist who helps babies and toddlers with language delay.  Stephanie provides parents with tools to help their children thrive.  Stephanie visits children in their Upper East Side of Manhattan homes.  If you have questions about your child’s language development, please contact Stephanie at sayandplay@yahoo.com or 646-295-4473.

New York City kindergarten admission tests require children to have a versatile vocabulary.

Reading books, excursions to Manhattan museums and routine walks around the city provide opportunities to expand your child’s vocabulary.  But, what if you’re not exactly sure about effective ways of doing so?  

Practice labeling similarities and category naming!  Once you start you’ll see how easy it can be to periodically ask your child these types of vocabulary questions.  

Category Naming Cards or Category Naming Objects

Place two or more related pictures or objects in front of your child one at a time and encourage him or her to label each one (e.g., cow, pig, chicken).  

Then, prompt: “They are all _____”.  If your child says “animals,” respond “Yes!  They are all animals – what kind of animals are they?”  

If your son or daughter doesn’t come up with “farm animals,” provide another cue: “Where do these animals live?”  

If the “where” question is too difficult, provide choices (e.g., Does the cow, pig and chicken live on a farm or in the ocean?).

Always provide positive reinforcement.  Provide enough hints to allow your child feel successful. 

When these games are mastered, try category labeling / similarities without props.  You can make up the questions, or try the reference list below.  

For motivation, have your child take a turn at a board game (e.g., Candyland) or place two Perfection pieces (with the timer off) after attempting to answer a question.  (To celebrate your child’s success, allow the pieces to pop when all the spaces have been filled.)  

For a child that would appreciate movement, allow a turn at Twister or make up your own narrative to Hullabaloo (the recording will go too fast to answer your category questions simultaneously).  Hullabaloo is a category game in itself!

You can engage your child in category naming / similarities two ways – the first is to list items like: “Trumpet, flute, piano they are all_____.”  

The second is to label the category and have your child name three items that fit into the category (e.g., Tell me three things you do in the summer.)

More to try - Name three:

1. Things that are sweet
2. Vegetables
3. Parts of your body
4. Holidays
5. Fruits
6. Things you can read
7. Things you can eat with a spoon
8. Things that are salty
9. Sports
10. Things you can write with

or

1. brush your teeth, eat breakfast, get dressed (things you do in the morning)
2. car, boat, bike (things that go, things you can take a ride on, vehicles)
3. nose, ears, mouth (parts of the face)
4. grass, spinach, frog (things that are green)
5. Monday, Thursday, Friday (days of the week)
6. chair, bed, desk (furniture)
7. circle, triangle, square (shapes)
8. slide, swing, jungle gym (things you find at the playground)
9. shirt, shorts, jacket (things you wear)
10. rainy, snowy, sunny (types of weather)

Stephanie Sigal provides private: 

• Language therapy for babies, toddlers and preschoolers
• Speech therapy for toddlers through school age children  
• Kindergarten Prep for three to five year old children in their Upper East Side, Manhattan homes.  You can contact Stephanie at sayandplay@yahoo.com or 646-295-4473

If your child attends well to books at age four, he or she may be ready to listen to short, simple chapter books.  Occasional black and white pictures help ease the transition from picture books.

Below are chapter books that I have shared with my own children, beginning at age four (working up to some of the more complex books on the list). There are so many opportunities in each book to ask thought provoking and prediction questions.  For example, “What do you think is going to happen next?”, ”How do you think the boy is feeling?”,  ”Why do you think he is angry?” and ”What do you think (vocabulary word) means?”.  

Authors of these books usually explain meanings of more complex vocabulary words within the text, but asking your child what he or she thinks a word means and providing feedback as necessary, is a great opportunity to learn new words.  Learning new words within the context of a story they are enjoying will help retain meaning.

Series chapter books make it easy to decide what to read next.  Favorite character’s future adventures are exciting to look forward to.

Recommended Early Chapter Books

Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne – Books #1 through 28 are shorter than Magic Tree House Merlin Mission Books #29 through 44.  Reading these books in order is fun, or have your child select favorite topics.

Judy Blume – These three chapter books can be read in one sitting each (and easily re-read):
The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo
Freckle Juice
The Pain and the Great One

The Pain and the Great One have their own series:
Soupy Saturdays with the Pain and the Great One
Cool Zone with the Pain and the Great One
Going, Going, Gone! with the Pain and the Great One
Friend or Fiend? with the Pain and the Great One

If you and your child enjoy these books, you may want to try The Fudge Books.

Mercy Watson books by Kate DiCamillo – There are six of these simple chapter books that are colorfully illustrated by Chris Van Dusen.  Kate DiCamillo also writes longer, wonderful novels.  Our favorite is The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  

Roald Dahl’s unique books range in length.  The Enormous Crocodile and Fantastic Mr. Fox are on the shorter side.  As a number of Dahl’s books have been made into movies, it can be motivating to watch the corresponding movie after reading the book.

The last few books we read aloud were Charlie and The Chocolate Factory by Dahl, Toys Go Out by Emily Jenkins (you’ll joke about the “submarine” (subliminal) messages) and sure to not only be a Manhattan favorite, but an adventure for all – Walls Within Walls by Maureen Sherry.

The later has taken us on our own adventures to check out the sites in the book – Grant’s Tomb, the whisper gallery at Grand Central Terminal, The Staten Island Ferry and the abandoned City Hall subway stop.  

Continue to read chapter books aloud even when your child begins to read independently.  Choose books above his or her personal reading level to expand interests, knowledge, vocabulary and critical thinking.  You and your child will enjoy this special time together.

Stephanie Sigal M.A. CCC-SLP is a speech language therapist in Manhattan.  She works with children with articulation delay and language delay in their upper east side homes.  You can contact Stephanie at sayandplay@yahoo.com or 646.295.4473. 

I’m sure you’ve been on both sides of this conversation:


Parent: How was school?  

My toddler has three words: Mommy, Daddy and “this”.  How can I help her be more verbal?


Parents often report to me that their child uses the word “this” in their limited vocabulary.  These children may walk around their apartment consistently saying “this, this, this” or an approximation of the word: ”dis, dis dis”.


When a toddler wants something and she gestures or points towards the item (and maybe grunts too), parents often respond, “Which do you want – this or this?” or “Oh, you want this – Here you go!”  


There is a better way to communicate with your child. Provide more effective models!


You already have your child’s attention, so take the opportunity to provide her with the actual word of the item she wants (e.g., “cookie”) instead of “this”.  


If you’re not sure which item she was pointing to, offer her a choice: “Do you want a cookie or a cracker?”


Hold the object up toward your mouth, but not in front of your face so she can observe the movements of your mouth while you say the word.


Maybe not the next time, but soon after, you may find your child asks for “cookie!”  


When she says “cookie,” expand her thought: “Yummy Cookie! MMMMM!” 


Don’t feel obligated to keep rewarding your child with cookies every time she says the word.


I provide private pediatric speech therapy in Manhattan on the Upper East Side in children’s homes.  You can contact me, Stephanie Sigal, M.A. CCC-SLP, at sayandplay@yahoo.com / 646-295-4473.

Children develop language skills at their own pace, and there is a wide range of normal development. For example, it is considered normal to have two 18 month old toddlers, one of whom says 9 words and another who says 50. This is similar to how children develop skills to crawl, walk and read. Also, at 18 months, you should notice that your child is talking more than using gestures.


Two-word utterances should start to emerge just before age 2, and should become consistent at the 2 year mark. By this time, children should have at least a 50 word vocabulary and always be using new words.


Between 2 and 3 years old, sentence length should increase and you should notice more of a variety of words (verbs, pronouns, adjectives, prepositions, etc.).


If you notice your child has difficulty answering questions, “finding” words, following directions, or repeats what others say, it is appropriate to seek out a speech therapist for a speech – language evaluation.


Sometimes pediatricians don’t know your child as you do, and to calm your fears and possibly help your child’s progress, it is advisable to seek out a speech and language evaluation with a licensed, ASHA certified speech-language pathologist.


If you live on the Upper East Side of New York City, please contact Stephanie Sigal, speech therapist, at sayandplay@yahoo.com or 646-295-4473 for an appointment. 

My daughter is almost three and she is having trouble sharing.  What can I do to help her learn to share?

Parents often ask me this question, but as I work with children individually, I have not had the opportunity to hone my ability to teach sharing skills.  When my own daughter had trouble sharing, it was her nursery school teacher Susan Hoffman, M.A. that taught me what I needed to know. 

McFarlane Toys
Rhyming is an early phonological awareness (listening) skill children use to distinguish units of speech.  Recognizing rhymes is crucial to reading development.


Understanding how we have syllables within words and the ability to discern phonemes (sounds) in syllables are also phonological awareness skills that facilitate literacy.


If you would like to encourage your child’s rhyming skills, here are some fun activities to practice:

• Read rhyming books – Once your child is familiar with one of the books listed below (or similar level rhyming book), have her try to fill-in the rhyming word.  For example, Dr. Seuss’ The Foot Book begins:  Left foot, Left foot, Right foot, Right – Feet in the morning, Feet at _____ (child should say “night”).  For a rhyming challenge, read an unfamiliar rhyming book with your child in the same manner.

• Songs and Nursery Rhymes – Use the same technique – leave off the rhyming word to encourage your child to fill it in.  As a challenge, alter the rhymes (e.g., Twinkle Twinkle Little Car).

Motown – I Heard It Through The Grapevine, My Girl, Good Lovin’, Joy To The World, The Tracks Of My Tears, Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, I Want You Back, ABC

Barenaked Ladies and James Taylor have many songs with rhyming lyrics.

• Play “I Spy” with rhymes – For example, “I spy with my little eye something that rhymes with bear!”

• Try a rhyming puzzle.

• Try a rhyming game with objects.

My son is almost three and I’m nervous about Manhattan kindergarten admission tests.  Is there anything I can do to start to prepare?

The overflowing toy bin in your apartment may not be much fun for your child because he can probably only play with what is on the top.  How can you maximize your toy selection for fun and learning?

I always encourage parents to have only a few classic-type toys (e.g., toy food and kitchen equipment, blocks, vehicles, animals, little people, puzzles, string beads, etc.) available for everyday independent play, which should be rotated on a weekly basis to maintain interest.

There should also be additional toys and games that are saved exclusively for playtime with you.  While pretend play is a priority for you to engage in with your toddler, some early structured play could be helpful for building attention, language and thinking skills.

The recommended tools below should be used with supervision because of potential choking hazards, but more importantly to help your child be successful and have fun.

1. To encourage visuospatial skills, start with a two large cube animal puzzle.  Once this is easy for your child, you can try a vehicle puzzle with four cubes.  Or jump to a six piece vehicle cube puzzle, or six piece farm animal puzzle.  
2. Things That Go Together Puzzle - While your puzzle-savvy toddler may put these puzzle pieces together with ease, be sure to always ask him why the items go together.  No need to expect a complete answer at first, you may initially need to help provide the rationale.
3. Category Sorting - This game is helpful for vocabulary, thinking and organizing.   Talk about why the items belong in the same category. 
4. Matching and Patterning - A tool like this is helpful, but you can also make your own patterns.  Use pieces of different cereal, stickers or color your own patterns together.
5. What’s Different –  Rip the two pictures you will be comparing out of this little book.  Search for the differences together.  You can have your child color, circle, point and / or label the differences.
6. Vocabulary – Go beyond labeling items and provide descriptions.  Encourage your child to give you more details.  For example, when buying milk in the grocery store, point out that the milk is in the dairy section.  Here you can also find cheese, butter, eggs, juice…this helps with category naming.  You can ask questions like “Where does milk come from?” or “What can we make with milk?” to get your child thinking.

Everyday errands and chores can be transformed into learning.  Trips to Manhattan museums (The American Museum of Natural History and The Metropolitan Museum of Art are the best for vocabulary) and reading the right children’s books can make the time you spend together invaluable.  Your toddler will love you more for spending quality time together and he will perhaps become a precocious, cultured child in the process…reasons why you are ready to give the rigorous private school admissions process a try and why you live in Manhattan in the first place.

If your child has difficulty in any of these areas, or you would like to supplement your kindergarten prep with weekly sessions, please contact me: 

Stephanie Sigal
Speech-Language Pathologist
646-295-4473
sayandplay@yahoo.com.  

Sessions are provided in the comfort of your Upper East Side home.  Please explore my speech language blog for more parent friendly ideas.

Your child is off to a NYC kindergarten next fall – Congratulations!  

Here are some ways to feel less overwhelmed:

1. For kindergarten admission tests, try playing these fun thinking games with your child:

• Clever Castle
• Connect Four
• Mighty Mind
• Ruckus
• Perfection
• Melissa and Doug Puzzle Cubes
• Jumbo Geo-Design Cubes (scroll down to V1746)

Growing up, I had a hard time sitting through a Passover Seder. It was LONG and not particularly child friendly.  I would have loved: My Haggadah: Made It Myself by NYC parents Francine Hermelin Levite and Adam Levite.  This fun learning tool will help create meaningful conversation through simple art activities (which can be completed with basic equipment: crayons, scissors, glue stick) and thought provoking questions which will engage your child.  Four through ten year olds will love coloring the pictures of the wise, wicked, simple and silent “children”, making an envelope to hide afikomen from you, and following directions to hide their private wishes for the next year.  


Stimulating questions may be simple: “If you had to pack in a hurry what would you take?” Or more complex: “We’re free, but a lot of people are in trouble.  Who or what would you like to help?”  


The 15 steps of the Seder are included.  The book can be used as a supplement or in place of any Passover Haggadah.


Even if you feel your child learned about Passover at school, this Haggadah will enhance their Passover experience and help you get to know your child better.


For more information, contact: francine@madeitmyselfbooks.com.


Happy Passover!