Oak National Academy January 2021 Update

The Oak National Academy website has some Speech and Language resources which may be useful for your child. The specialist area of the website now includes units for:

Attention and Listening

Interaction and Communication

Understanding Language

Using Language

Verbal Reasoning

Emotional Regulation and self esteem

Each unit contains several video lessons to help you support your child.

You can find these resources at the following address:

https://classroom.thenational.academy/specialist/therapies/speech-and-language-therapy

Puzzles and Jigsaws

Playing puzzles with your child can help them to develop their receptive and expressive language (what they understand and what they say).

Playing a simple jigsaw or puzzle can develop many different communication skills, for example attention and listening, turn taking, verbal reasoning, description and positional language.

This website contains a number of different jigsaws ranging from easy to hard. You can use these puzzles as a starting point for a discussion.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/curations/cbeebies-jigsaw-puzzles

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/puzzles/type/puzzles-and-jigsaws#filter

Concepts

Below are links to different concept resources. They have been organised according to the concept that is being targeted.

First, last, before, after.

https://speechandlanguage.info/parents/activities/language

Scroll down to ‘Language Resources’ and click on the purple, pink, dark blue or gold section to find an activity appropriate for your child’s target.

Size.

https://www.leedscommunityhealthcare.nhs.uk/our-services-a-z/child-speech-and-language-therapy/speech-and-language-therapy-toolkit-new-/understanding-language/

Click on ‘Big and Little.’

https://www.humber.nhs.uk/services/childrens-language-resources.htm

‘Pack for Size.’

Same and different.

https://www.leedscommunityhealthcare.nhs.uk/our-services-a-z/child-speech-and-language-therapy/speech-and-language-therapy-toolkit-new-/understanding-language/

Comparatives and Superlatives.

https://www.humber.nhs.uk/services/childrens-language-resources.htm

‘Pack for comparatives superlatives.’

Oak National Academy also has video lessons explaining concepts (lessons 9 and 10).

https://classroom.thenational.academy/specialist/therapies/speech-and-language-therapy/units/understanding-language-e885

Prepositions

Prepositions are words that describe where an object is in relation to a person or another object. Lots of children find prepositions tricky and regular practise is needed to help children not only understand what they mean but to also use them in sentences.

When working on prepositions we normally start with ‘on’, ‘in’ and ‘under’. Once children have mastered these prepositions we can then move on to ‘in front of’ ‘behind’ and ‘next to.’

Prepositions can be really difficult to understand because the preposition that we use may change depending on the shape of the object or where we’re sitting or standing.

Children need to undertand what prepositions mean before they can use them in their talking.

Start off by using prepositions with toys or everyday objects. The video below demonstrates how you can do this at home.

Once your child understands what the preposition means you can then encourage them to use it in their everyday speech. If your child uses the wrong preposition then model the correct preposition to them. Give lots of praise when your child uses the correct word.

Below is a link that offers more advice on using prepositions:

https://www.leedscommunityhealthcare.nhs.uk/our-services-a-z/child-speech-and-language-therapy/speech-and-language-therapy-toolkit-new-/understanding-language/

Click on the ‘Understanding Language’ tab and then select the appropriate preposition pdf.

There’s also a link to a preposition song on YouTube: