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#1 Speech Therapist from Dynamics Singapore

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#1 Speech Therapist from Dynamics Singapore

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Children develop language at different rates. So, comparing your child to other children of the same age might not help you to know whether your child has a language delay. A speech therapist is educated in the study of human communication, its development, and its disorders (Mayberry et al., 2002). They assess speech, language, cognitive communication, and oral/feeding/swallowing skills, allowing them to identify a problem and the best way to treat it. Ms. Abigail Chan who works with multiple children in my centre is proactive in communicating with stakeholders to ensure improvement of their condition.

Ms. Abigail Chan believes that parents are key to the success of a child's progress in speech or language therapy. Children who finish the program the quickest and with the longest-lasting results are those whose parents were involved (Dynamics Therapy, n.d). For instance, you can help your child do the at-home activities that the speech therapist suggests. This ensures the continued progress and carry-over of new skills.

Website Link to Abigail Chan: https://www.dynamics.com.sg/our-team/speech-therapists-abigail-chan.html

Poster for registration: https://www.dynamics.com.sg/our-team/speech-therapists-abigail-chan.html
https://m.facebook.com/speech.therapy.singapore/photos/a.10150760016234658/10158529428389658/?type=3&source=57&__tn__=EH-R

Video for Dynamic SG: https://www.facebook.com/speech.therapy.singapore/videos/474761043504933/?__so__=channel_tab&__rv__=all_videos_card

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AHPC Registered

Abigail is a speech therapist who graduated from the University of Sydney, Australia, with a Bachelor of Applied Science (Speech Pathology). Abigail is passionate about working collaboratively with her clients and their significant others to achieve her client's communicative best.

In Australia, Abigail was able to gain experience working with children with speech and language delays/disorders, stuttering, feeding difficulties, and social communication difficulties. She also worked with children with other conditions including Autism Spectrum Disorder, Intellectual Disability, Global Developmental Delay, and Hearing Impairment. She has conducted therapy for children from multicultural backgrounds, and across various settings including schools, communities, and private clinics.

Abigail believes in developing an individualised therapy program for each of her clients as they are all special and unique in their own ways. She is an advocate of family-centred practice and aims to ensure that therapy goals are aligned with the family's desire and concerns for their child. Abigail is also committed to providing intervention in a fun and enjoyable manner to create a positive environment for her clients to learn in.

Get to know our Speech Therapists
10 questions with Abigail Chan

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Abigail Chan | Speech Therapist | Singapore

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Abigail believes in developing an individualised therapy program for each of her clients as they are all special and unique in their own ways. She is an advocate of family-centred practice and aims to ensure that therapy goals are aligned with the family's desire and concerns for their child.

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#2 Video Resource: Phonological Awareness in the Early Years

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#2 Video Resource: Phonological Awareness in the Early Years

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This video offers strategies for parents to develop the children's ability to hear and identify rhythm to help with their phonological awareness. The teacher started with two- and three-syllable words and slowly moving onto four-syllable words through questions and scaffolding (Queensland Department of Education, 2019). The video is supported by the Australian Curriculum in the Early Years to recognise and practice rhymes, syllables, and sounds- phonemes in spoken words (Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority, 2018).

Additionally, according to the National Literacy Learning Progression, the main element in this video is speaking and listening and the sub-element is the interaction (Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority, 2018).

Similarly, the Ministry of Education (2013) agrees that adults are facilitators of learning by guiding children through challenging but achievable activities. The adult asks open-ended questions at the start and adds more directive questions such as "how many beats are there?". This stimulates children to have critical thinking, comprehension, and listening skills (Ministry of Education, 2013). Furthermore, strongly advocated by Lev Vygotsky, cognitive language development stems from social interactions from guided learning within the zone of proximal development as children and their partner's co-construct knowledge (Hoff, 2020).

Youtube Resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W7bfX8JkxA

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0:00 / 7:44•Watch full video

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Word building exercises benefit phonetic reading skills, especially when taught simultaneously with phonetic reading instruction. This activity relates to the reading and viewing, where the sub-element is phonic knowledge and word recognition according to the Literacy continuum Process (Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority, 2018). Similarly, this activity is supported by the Ministry of Education Learning Goal 3 sub-disposition is where recognise familiar/ sight/high-frequency words in preschool is a practice in Singapore.

High-frequency words are the stepping stone to reading skills (Tomasello, 2003). According to Emergent Literacy Theory, Marie Clay believes children's ability to recreate words and distinguish between words and letters important skill that needs to be considered when determining whether students can read and write (Hoff, 2020). Therefore, it is important that we provide children with opportunities to be exposed to letters and practice forming words in school and at home.

I love how you can customize the resource in so many different ways such as creating it into a CVC phonics activity. The container is also perfect for storing magnetic letters and sight words on the go. As you can sense this is my favourite resource!

Link to Resource Activity: https://iheartcraftythings.com/word-building-activity-travel-kit.html

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My family has a few long road trips planned this summer and let's face it... the kids get bored! Although we allow the luxury of some electronics during long car rides, I also try to come prepared with a few fun learning activities to keep them entertained.

This Word Building Activity Travel Kit is one of my favorite ways to incorporate learning into travel with young children.

The best part is you can customize it with sight words, color words, word families, or whatever your child is currently learning!

Making the Word Building Activity Travel Kit
This post contains affiliate links to the products mentioned. Read our disclosure policy for more information.
Supplies Needed for this Kit:

Instructions for Word Building Travel Activity:

1. Start by gathering all of your supplies. We found our metal pencil box at Walmart. I've included a link above where you can buy them on Amazon, but a metal lunch box will work as well.
Feel like something different? Learn how to draw a heart!
2. Use permanent markers to write words on the jumbo craft sticks. I made a few different sets of words for this word building activity. I started with basic sight words and CVC words, as well as word families for -at, -ig and og, but you can literally customize it however you like... number words, animals, days of the week, etc. This is a great way for early readers to build vocabulary and improve spelling.

3. Use a hot glue gun to attach a small piece of magnetic tape to the back of each stick. Even though the magnetic tape has adhesion on the back, I recommend using a hot glue gun as an extra precaution. Magnets are extremely dangerous for children if swallowed, so using the hot glue will help reduce the risk of them falling off.

4. Place the finished words in the metal pencil box, along with a set of lowercase magnetic alphabet letters. Now the Word Building Activity Travel Kit is all ready for play!

Playing with the Word Building Activity Travel Kit:

There are lots of different variations of this word building activity. The simplest way is to choose a word out of the pile that you want to build. Place the craft stick onto the top section of the metal pencil box. Then build the word by finding each of the corresponding magnetic letters and place them in order above the word.

Spend some time saying each letter sound and blending them together to sound out the word if you are able. If not, simply name the letters and any corresponding alphabet sounds you do know! Continue working your way through the craft sticks, building all of the words.

This travel kit can also be used with a pair of children as a Reading Guessing Game. One person holds the craft stick covering up the letters and reads the word aloud. The other person spells the word secretly inside the metal box. When they finish, each person reveals their word to see if they match!

Another alternative word building activity is to have one person read the letters slowly, one at a time, off of a craft stick. The other person builds the word in the metal box, letter by letter. As soon as they think they know what word they are spelling, they can shout it out. The person with the word stick should show them if they guessed correctly.

The great thing about this Word Building Activity Travel Kit is that it can be used in so many ways, with a variety of ages and stages, in pairs or independently!

It's a great way to get in some hands-on word work and it isn't even limited to road trips! Try bringing it along to a doctor's appointment or a restaurant to keep the children entertained and learning while you wait!

A quick organization tip- if you make multiple sets of words, try keeping all of the different word types in different sandwich baggy. Label them clearly and then each time you pull out this travel kit, your child can choose a different bag to work with for a little variety!
What fun activities do your children love during long road trips? Looking for more fun summer crafts and activities to make with your children this year? You might enjoy this list of over 50 zoo animal crafts for kids.

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Word Building Activity Travel Kit - I Heart Crafty Things

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My family has a few long road trips planned this summer and let's face it... the kids get bored! Although we allow the luxury of some electronics during long car rides, I also try to come prepared with a few fun learning activities to keep them entertained.

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#4 Meal Time Activity: Sound the Letters 

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#4 Meal Time Activity: Sound the Letters 

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This activity encourages children to focus on the letter sounds to read the word expanding their vocabulary and hone their reading skills. In phonetic reading, we see a word, break it down into its individual sounds, and then blend the sounds together to figure out the whole word (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). This play activity relates to phonological awareness, phonic knowledge, and word recognition in the  Literacy Continuum Process (Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority, 2018).

Furthermore, it is supported by Tomasello (2003) states the most effective way to teach reading was with explicit, systematic phonics. Teaching reading with systematic phonics ensures that all students learn this written code in a systematic way starting from simple and advancing to complex (Tomasello, 2003). Furthermore, it is a hands-on and tactile activity that invokes their sense of touch on the playdough. According to Hoff (2020), hands-on learning boosts engagement and retention of language concepts.

Link to the resource: (Please turn up the volume for this video) https://www.pinterest.com/pin/281543717744123/sent/?invite_code=d1285c09327b43cdbc0aeeb6f405e931&sender=707839403841709978&sfo=1

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ABCDee Learning - Where Learning Is Fun and Active

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May 12, 2021 - This Pin was discovered by Ashleigh Stinson. Discover (and save!) your own Pins on Pinterest

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This activity reinforced the concept of letter-shape knowledge with children in the Alphabet Stage. This is all about learning the alphabet letters together with the family in a fun way! According to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority (2018), the element of this activity is creating text, such as text formations and unique features through fun activities.

In Singapore's Early Childhood framework, engaging children in language learning through purposeful play is important as play is essential in children’s learning (Ministry of Education, 2013). Moreover, Dean Piaget agrees that constructive play encourages further cognitive and language development (Hoff, 2020).

Linked for Family Game Night: Build a Letter
https://growingbookbybook.com/family-game-night-build-a-letter/#_a5y_p=3199177

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Today I have a super fun indoor literacy activity that would be perfect for a Family Game Night! It's an active game for the hands and mind.

This is game is perfect because it works for a variety of ages, uses materials you already have on hand and promotes family literacy. Win, win, win!

Build a Letter Game

Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Game Set-Up
Materials needed: odds and ends from your junk drawer or art supply stash, a tray to hold your supplies, playdough, alphabet letter cards (we made ours with envelopes and a marker), 9 colored paper fish or other shape, timer (optional)
1. Collect a variety of objects from around the house and place them in a large tray. We used pipe cleaners, buttons, pom pom balls, caps from yogurt pouches, craft sticks and wikki stix. This will be a community tray that everyone playing will use to build.

2. Each player will also need a tennis ball size amount of playdough. We like to make our playdough, but you could also buy it.

3. You will need a set of alphabet cards. You could use a set of flashcards that you have on hand. We recycled a set we had made for our Polar Bear Paw Walk. You can use uppercase letters, lowercase letters or both for this game.

4. You will also need 9 colored paper shapes. Again, we reused fish we had made for our Polar Bear Paw Walk. You could use 9 of any object.

5. This game works best if you play at a table. Set your tray of parts in the middle of the table. Alphabet cards are placed faced down. Colored shapes also get placed near the middle of the table. Each player gets a ball of playdough.

Game Play

The oldest player goes first. He or she is the judge for the round and turns over the first letter card and names the letter.

The other players quickly build the most creative version of the letter that they can using their playdough and parts. For added fun, you could time each round.

When time is up, the judge chooses the letter creation that they think is most creative and awards the winner of the round with a colored shape.

Play continues clockwise until a player has earned three colored shapes.

Enjoy your Family Game Night!

For more fun active indoor games check out these ideas from great bloggers participating in today's blog hop of indoor games.

Active indoor game: land, sea and air from What Do We Do All Day?

Balloons! 10 Easy Indoor Activity Ideas from Betsy's Photogarphy

LEGO rockets math activity from Creekside Learningm

Reading Readiness Games from Sight and Sound Reading

Mini Trampoline & Jumping Activities from Bare Feet on the Dashboard

Bean Bag Toss from The Gingerbread House

Igloo Building from Study at Home Mama

Run & Find Syllables Game from This Reading Mama
Related Posts 8 Magnetic Letter Games
P.S. Never miss a great idea from Growing Book by Book. Sign up for our FREE newsletter!

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Today I have a super fun indoor literacy activity that would be perfect for a Family Game Night! It's an active game for the hands and mind. This is game is perfect because it works for a variety of ages, uses materials you already have on hand and promotes family literacy.