Helping Hands

After a messier-than-usual peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I explained to M, our three year old, that E's hands needed to be washed, she took it upon herself to help him, just like Mommy sometimes needs to help her.  

"Suds, suds, suds."  She even dried his hands!

We use an adult two-step stool in our powder room for easy access to the children.  It was not until today that learned two children fit on it though!  If you have a short toddler, I highly recommend a bit sturdy stool!  (It's great for M when I "need" help in the kitchen, too.)

If you are curious why M uses the words "suds" instead of "soap," it's because of a little book that we have that she enjoys called Rub-a-Dub Suds.  It's a First Start Easy Reader.  We like it because it has simple words that M has been able to say for quite a while.  She loves it because it's all about Tammy, a pig, who loves suds during bath time.  M can relate!

The Big Book of Exclamations

A number of books help to encourage speech in young children (click for my recent recommendations) and many, many books can be used to help a child make sounds, but The Big Book of Exclamations is an incredible book with the soul purpose of encouraging and facilitating speech!  Author Teri Kaminski-Peterson is a practicing board-certified speech pathologist, and her love for her work shows in this book.  It's not just for children with speech problems, but for all children who are learning to talk and talkers, too!

If you have have been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably already know that my 3 year old has a speech disorder called apraxia.  She now speaks in short sentences, but she was nearly 2 1/2 before she could really communicate much with words.  I share this to let you know that I speak as an experienced mom in the speech world.  Like many other parents who have concerns for their child, we have learned (from great SLP and special education teacher) how to help our daughter and have our own therapy at home.  

The Big Book of Exclamations is purposefully designed to promote speech and language through imitations of sounds, gestures, and words.  The description from The Big Book of Exclamations website says it best, "The Big Book of Exclamations is an educational children's book designed to promote speech sound development, and imitation of gestures, sounds, and words. Unlike most books, it doesn't have a story to read. Instead, along the bottom of each page, there are prompts which teach parents/caregivers how to act out the illustrations and interact with children using gestures, sounds, and words. This twenty-four page book is also filled with information intended to help parents understand speech and language development, and also provides resources for those seeking advice."  

Each set of pages is beautifully illustrated with the highest detail.  A child who likes to examine picture books will really enjoy this book!  From the missing sock to the steaming tea kettle to the overflowing tub, the pictures illustrate familiar objects in familiar settings like home and the park.  On each set of pages there are exclamations written (stop, sh-sh-shhh!, oh oh, up up up, whoops!,  bzzzz, weeee! and many more), but the paragraph is not to be read to the child.  Instead, the adult uses it as a guide to use motions, sounds, and words to encourage your child to do the same.  You can view a set of pages and the guide for yourself.  

The Big Book of Exclamations begins with waking up in the child's bedroom, goes to a scene at the breakfast table, preparing to leave, the park, bath time, bedtime, and ends with the family saying good bye to the reader.  You get a good feel for this family...and the fun and craziness they experience in their day to day lives.

I definitely recommend this book.  It provides a child lots of detailed illustrations and gives parents a "script" to help them encourage their young child to talk.  I wish we had had it a year ago for our daughter.  She enjoys it now, but doesn't "need" it now.  We do use it with our son, age 1, though he does not sit for the whole book.  I also want to add that this book is designed for children who are just beginning to speak, as evidenced in the words cited above.  Children of various ages will have fun with this book, but a regular developing 2 year old may not be able to use this for speech needs the way that a delayed or younger child would. 

Thank you, Teri, for providing our family with this book to review!

Encouraging Simple Speech Through Books

ANY book can encourage speech, and highly repetitive ones are great for filling in the blanks.  (Brown bear, brown ____, what do you ___?  I see a red bird looking at ___.)   We also use books to label objects and characters.  Colors and shapes.  Counting and rhyming.  Books have been a great help in helping M learn to talk, but not all children respond to books the same way.  Though our daughter has always enjoyed books, she did not respond to them with sounds (the way I spoke of above) until quite recently...the last six months or so.

We have a few books that M returns to over and over again that encourage speech...simple words and phrases that are enticing to her as a 3 year old with a speech disorder.  These books are great books, but especially good for anyone who wants to increase sounds and words from a child.

Zip!  Pop!  Hop! ($1.29 at Amazon!) actually talks about fun words.  It begins, "Elmo likes fun words.  Would you like to say some fun words with Elmo?  Say zipper.  Now stretch it out: z-z-z-z-ZIPPER.  Words with z's make your mouth feel fizzy."    M really likes this book, and did long before she could say any of the words (other than pop).  It's fun and cute.  Most importantly, it encourages speech.

Richard Scarry's Splish-Splash Sounds  is a great book.  It goes around Busytown and you see all sorts of labeled illustrations with their sounds.  You see things like "bang," "owww-ee," "ring," and tons more.  M really likes this book!  She labels the objects in the pictures and tells me the sounds.

Oink, Moo, How Do You Do? is a rhyming book of animal sounds.  It's quite cute.  It taught M the word "shoo!" when the farmer says, "Scat, shoo!  Away with you!"

You might remember quite some time ago when I was all excited to learn about the Speak With Me books.  (Click to see more of what I said and where to find them.)  These were the first books that I was aware of that were designed for speech development

We also the book Grandma Rabbitty's Visit that had a lot of fun words for M to say in it.  (Click the link to read my review.)

I have another book to share with you called The Big Book of Exclamations; it is a truly unique book, and it deserves its own post.  It is designed and written by a speech pathologist and is specifically designed to promote speech development and the imitation of sounds, gestures, and words!  I will share about this book soon.  We just got it, and I already think it's a great resource for young children or those who have a speech delay/disorder.