Speech & Language Milestone Chart
Child’s Communication Development: K-5
Pragmatic Language & Social Skills
What is a Speech Language Pathologist
Contact Our Speech Therapists:
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For Teachers:
Language Interventions:
- Provide an approriate language model.
- Allow extra time for the student to respond to questions and to request. Students need additional time for rocessing and formulating language.
- Listen to the student, note grammar errors and model correct grammatical form.
- Request repetition of correct grammatical form after a model.
- Request a repetition of classroom directions.
- Reduce teacher verbal output when giving instructions or presenting new topics.
- Rephrase direction if comprehension is not evident.
- Require the student to outline key ideas prior to oral presentations.
- Present main idea and key words prior to any comprehension activity.
- Give verbal and tactile cues to students to listen to auditory information.
- Introduce new vocabulary to student prior to the activity.
- Provide semantic cues (attributes, synonyms or sentence completion) when a student experiences difficulty recalling information.
- Pair semantic clues with phonemic cues (give the first sound in a word) to encourage word recall.
- Encourage students to use descriptive language.
- Provide gestural cues (use fingers for 1, 2, 3) to assist with relating stories or events in sequence.
- Show how nonverbal signal are important to communication.
- Role play conversations that might occur with different people in different situations.
Articulation/Phonology Interventions:
- Provide a good speech model.
- Reinforce placement cues for sounds in error (SLP can give you suggestions for a particular sound).
- Model correct production by emphasizing target sounds.
- Emphasize the correct sound production during reading/language arts activities.
- Use auditory discrimination skills to enhance speech sound awareness (Won/Run, are they the same? Run/Run, are they the same?).
- Model correct production of target sounds during reading.
- Model correct production of target sounds during all classroom activities.
- If the problem is mispronunciation of specific speech sounds, have student practice sound with the teacher. Identify one or two sounds the student is mispronouncing and create a list of 10 words containing the focus sound. (Sounds at the beginnings of words may be easiest.) Each day, ask the student to say the words with strong sound pronunciation. If a student does not correct the sound, provide a model. If the student still does not correct the sound, don’t require repetition; move on to the next word. If the student easily corrects the sounds, ask him or her to use some words in phrases or sentences, using strong sound pronunciation.
- If the problem is mispronunciation of specific speech sounds, have the student practice sound with a peer or parent partner.
- If the problem is mispronunciation of specific speech sounds, highlight speech sounds in classroom listening activities such as phonics and phonemic awareness instruction activities. Assign students to listen for and give a hand signal or tally each time they hear the focus sound in a story, lesson, or song.
- If the problem is mispronunciation of specific speech sounds, use reading as a context for speech sound practice. Ask the student (help younger students) to find words containing the focus sound in short reading passages or picture books and to practice saying those words with a peer or adult.
- If the problem is lack of general clarity of speech, give the student regular feedback that emphasizes listener needs for specific strong speech skills. e.g. ‘I didn’t understand, but I am interested. It will help me if you move your mouth and speak clearly, speak more slowly, etc.. Can you tell me again?’
- If the problem is lack of general clarity of speech, each day (at least 3 times per week, have the student practice speaking slowly and clearly (moving the mouth) while saying sentences, reading or having a 1 minute conversation.
Phonological Awareness Interventions:
- Demonstrate the relationships of parts to whole.
- Model correct production of target sounds during all classroom activities.
- Segment short sentences into individual words.
- Segment multi-syllable words into syllables.
- Model and have the student manipulate sounds in words: Phoneme deletion (What do you get if you take the /s/out of sit?), Word to word match (Do big and boy begin with the same sound?), Blending (What word does it make if you blend the sounds /p/ /a/ /t/ together?), Phoneme segmentation (What sounds do you hear in top?), Phoneme counting (How many sounds do you hear in home?), Rhyming (What rhymes with me?)
Fluency (Stuttering) Interventions:
- Respond to what the student says, not how he/she says it.
- Talk slowly to the student in order to reinforce easy, relaxed speech.
- Do not call attention to the stuttering.
- Reinforce the student’s fluent speech.
- Encourage conversation during periods of smooth talking.
Voice Interventions:
- Provide a good vocal model.
- Use discrimination activities to illustrate indoor versus outdoor voice production.
- Praise the student for the appropriate use of his/her voice.
- Respond to what the student says, not how he/she say it.
- Minimize prolonged verbalizations.
- Establish a cuing system with student to assist with monitoring vocal production within the classroom.
- Encourage the student to relax while speaking.
- Reduce talking time when student’s vocal quality is noticeably deviant.