READING & LITERACY SERVICES

Reading and Literacy for Kids

“Print awareness, phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle, competency with phonics, and exercises to promote automaticity and fluency for reading are among the major elements which produce competent readers (Snow, Burns, and Griffin, 1998).”

As Speech-Language Pathologists, we know a rich vocabulary and fluency are significant but children also need to be able to go beyond simple literal ‘comprehension’ of a text. They need to be able to make inferences and evaluate the importance of words within a text.

Reading Development and Phonemic Awareness in Children

• At 18 months, children add one NEW word to their vocabulary every 2 hours.
• By age 2, most children have close to 2,000 words and combine two words to form simple phrases such as: "Mommy up" and "All done."
• By 30 months, children speak in longer sentences.
• From approximately 36 months, children begin following rules for expressing tense and number as well as use words such as who, some, and would.

How Speech Associates develops Pre-literacy skills in children

• We teach the sounds of the letters before the names of the letters. Knowing that the name of the letter is M is irrelevant.
• We teach the child fun ways of writing and reading at the same time.
• We teach the short vowel sounds first!
• We help train your child's ear to the sounds of language.
• We Incorporate all the senses whenever possible!

How Speech Associates Help First and Second Graders Learn to Read

• We improve children's comprehension while developing language.
• We help children apply word-analysis skills while reading.
• We help children understand elements of literature.
• We help children learn the characteristics of various simple genres such as fables and humorous stories.
• Help children use correct conventions of language when responding to written text.

From Jolly Phonics, a child entered multi-sensory approach to teaching literacy to Orion-Gillingham , known as the “gold standard” program for teaching reading to kids with dyslexia, at Speech Associates we help combine visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile approaches, allowing children to proceed at a pace that suits them and their ability.

No two students will ever learn to read in exactly the same way - Speech Associates integrates methods, teaches strategies and provides accomodations particularly for students who have specific learning differences.

For more information contact our main office at: 416 800 4259 for a consultation with a speech-pathologist or email us at: info@speechassociates.ca