The five most overlooked skills your child needs before starting school
Are you wondering if your child is ready for school next year? This is an important article that could make the world of difference to your child’s schooling success.
“Children who know numbers, can write their name and read letters before starting school are no more successful than those who can’t. You need to know the critical skills children must have before school to be successful.”
If children have not developed these critical skills and have not received effective intervention from a passionate health professional then they will struggle to learn at school, lack self-confidence and as they get older the gap won’t be able to be reversed.
When your child sees a health professional, someone who lives and breathes treating delays in development every day, someone who is passionate and celebrates your child’s wins, you’ll finally be in the right hands. Your child will then develop the critical skills they need and in doing so gain confidence, make friends and succeed at school.
“Forget about your child knowing numbers, letters and colours and the plethora of ‘school readiness’ programs out there. There is NO evidence to show these make a difference to a child’s academic, social or emotional success”
If you want to set your child up for success at school then keep reading. Knowing about these next five skills might just change your child’s life.
#1 Language skills
These skills are proven by research to impact on a child’s academic achievement. Children need to be able to put sentences together, ask and answer questions, tell short stories, use correct grammar and more in order to thrive at school.
#2 Resilience
This is all about being able to ‘bounce back’ after a challenge and research has also shown this is a critical skills for schooling success. Children need to be able turn around their thoughts and self-talk when the going gets tough and think positively.
#3 Fine motor skills
Another set of skills proven to have an effect on a child’s learning is their fine motor skills. They need them to do up buttons, unzip their jumper and write with a pencil. All incredibly important things to be able to do at school.
#4 Concentration
Concentration is another key skill children must have for success both at school and in life. They’ve got to able to focus and pay attention to learn new things and complete tasks. And this includes being able to concentrate on story books.
#5 Social skills
Both in and out of the classroom, school days are filled with taking turns, solving problems, negotiating and understanding other people’s points of view. These social skills are essential for children to achieve success at school.
If you want to check your child has all the critical skills for schooling success then you’ll be glad to learn that we’ve developed the ‘Get Set for School’ checklist. It’s an easy to follow checklist to help you set your child up for success. It covers the critical skills proven to improve your child’s academic, social and emotional success at school as well as ways you can help your child develop these critical skills at home. To get it, simply click here and you’ll get access to your FREE download.
Book Central - Sharing a Shell
No doubt you’ve heard the message “read books with your child” but what they don’t tell you is what books to read and how to read them. Did you know it’s actually these two things – the what and how - that makes the difference to your child’s development?
We know from research that children who are not read to have poorer understanding of language, their vocabularies are smaller and their thinking skills are less advanced. And this means they go on to have trouble learning to read themselves. So, reading the right books in the right way to your child is critical to their development.
To help you out we’re going to answer the what and how or book reading with one fantastic book and our top three tips to make sure the way you’re reading is improving your child’s listening, talking and thinking skills.
Sharing a Shell – Julia Donaldson
What’s it about?
This story is about a little hermit crab who doesn’t want to share his shiny new shell. However, circumstances may change Crab’s mind as new dangers occur. Will Crab accept a blobby purple anemone and a fuzzy bristle worm?
This book is suitable for children aged 3 years+. The story is easy to follow and prompts the children to consider themes of friendship and sharing. The clever rhymes and bright illustrations will keep children engaged. Repetition of phrases in the book will also allow children to read along as they become familiar with the story.
Our top 3 tips
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Look at the illustrations as you are reading.
The illustrations in the book are a useful way for children to comprehend the story and start to link pictures to words. They will be able to draw on emotions depicted on faces and what they can see in the foreground and background to help inform what they are reading. By showing children the illustrations and pages in the book, you are also modelling how a book is to be read, how it should be held, what direction they read in and when to turn pages.
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Ask questions about the story.
Asking questions about what you are reading is a great way to ensure children are comprehending the story. You can ask them questions about what they can see, what might happen next, how characters are feeling and why they might be feeling that. These questions promote predicting and inferencing skills and keep the child engaged in the story.
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Use rhyme and repetition.
This book is full of rhyme and repetition which can be emphasised with expression and character voices to make the story exciting. Rhyme will help in the development of phonological awareness skills as children can start to recognise and identify words that have the same sounds. Once the child is familiar with the story, pausing and allowing the child to finish the repetitive sentences will keep them engaged and excited as they are able to help tell the story.
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Toy Central- Hedbanz for kids
No doubt you’ve heard the message “play with your child” but what they don’t tell you is what games are good to play and how to play them. Did you know it’s these two things – the what and how - that makes the difference to your child’s development?
So why take the time to play with your child? Well, research shows us play allows children to use their creativity as they develop their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and social and emotional skills. Phew! That’s a lot of areas play can influence. Play is also so important for healthy brain development. Most of all play is fun and simple joy that children love and by playing with your child, you are giving them time when they feel special.
To help you out we’re going to answer the what and how for playing with your child by telling you about a game we like to use in clinic and sharing our top three tips on how to play the game to encourage your child’s listening, talking and thinking skills.
Hedbanz for kids!
What’s it about?
Hedbanz is a fun, interactive game that is known as the quick question game of what am I? The aim of the game is to ask questions until you figure out if the cartoon on your head is an animal, food or household item. Everybody else knows your cartoon but you! The winner is the first person to guess their cartoon before the timer run out!
Our top 3 tips
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With younger children, this is a great game to develop basic vocabulary and simple categories. You can use the nicely illustrated playing cards that contain pictures of familiar foods, animals and household items which can be used to teach simple vocabulary or turned into a category sorting task.
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For older children, this game encourages item descriptions and the use of adjectives. Ensure all questions asked contain an adjective whether that be focusing on the colour, size, feature or category. This helps promote sentence complexity as well as vocabulary development.
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Get your child to focus on the previous questions they have asked to ensure they are not repeating the same questions. This helps target auditory recall as your child needs to recall the answers to previous questions and comprehend the answers to begin creating a mental picture in their minds.
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Book Central - Where is the Green Sheep?
No doubt you’ve heard the message “read books with your child” but what they don’t tell you is what books to read and how to read them. Did you know it’s actually these two things – the what and how - that makes the difference to your child’s development?
We know from research that children who are not read to have poorer understanding of language, their vocabularies are smaller and their thinking skills are less advanced. And this means they go on to have trouble learning to read themselves. So, reading the right books in the right way to your child is critical to their development.
To help you out we’re going to answer the what and how or book reading with one fantastic book and our top three tips to make sure the way you’re reading is improving your child’s listening, talking and thinking skills.
Where is the Green Sheep? – Mem Fox and Judy Horacek
What’s it about?
This is a story is simply about finding the green sheep seeing what he’s been doing. As you go though each page, you will find lots of different sheep of different colours and with different interests. But will you find the green sheep?
This book is suitable for children as young as 2. It is colourful book that is quirky and easy to follow. The pictures and rhyme are sure to keep your child engaged, while the story will keep your child guessing about the whereabouts of the mysterious green sheep. This book will help your child develop language and pre literacy skills.
Our top 3 tips
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Make the most out of the rhyme and repetition.
Mem Fox always does a great job of incorporating rhyme and repetition. Add in some expression, character voices and even gestures to make the story even more exciting. Emphasising and identifying the rhyme can help your child develop their phonological awareness, and the repetition will help familiarise them with words. It’s important that story time is fun, so why not make it fun and educational when you can?
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Have fun with the pictures.
Storytime is meant to be fun and colourful pictures really help bring a story to life. Embrace the pictures and use them as a stimulus to ask lots of questions before you read the words “what’s that?” or “what is he doing?”. This will help your child gain a better understanding of the words when you read them.
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Ask questions.
It’s great to ask about what’s happening in the story to hear their ideas about what’s going on in the book and make sure they’re understanding. But it’s just as important to ask about what they think might happen next, or in this case “where do you think the green sheep is going to be?”. This is a great way to build your child’s inferencing skills, helping them formulate ideas based on what they know already.
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Book Central - The Best Birthday Present Ever
No doubt you’ve heard the message “read books with your child” but what they don’t tell you is what books to read and how to read them. Did you know it’s actually these two things – the what and how - that makes the difference to your child’s development?
We know from research that children who are not read to have poorer understanding of language, their vocabularies are smaller and their thinking skills are less advanced. And this means they go on to have trouble learning to read themselves. So, reading the right books in the right way to your child is critical to their development.
To help you out we’re going to answer the what and how or book reading with one fantastic book and our top three tips to make sure the way you’re reading is improving your child’s listening, talking and thinking skills.
The Best Birthday Present Ever! By Ben Mantle
What’s it about?
This book is about a squirrel who tries very hard to find his bear friend the very best birthday present ever! The squirrel decides a stick would be the best gift, and so he scours the entire woods to find the perfect one. At the bear’s birthday party, the squirrel finds that all of the bear’s presents are extravagant and just keep getting bigger and better with each one he unwraps! But the squirrel’s worries are all for naught, as the bear beams with glee, for he has always wanted a stick.
Our top 3 tips
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Follow the story along with your finger.
Following the story along with your finger helps children understand where you are looking to read the words within the book. From here, children can get their first glimpse into the relationship between printed letters and the sounds these letters make. This is the first important step of learning how to read.
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Get into a solid routine of reading a book every day.
Setting time aside every day to read helps children get into the habit of reading and practising their reading skills. Pick a time that is normally quiet so that distractions are limited and both you and your child can focus on what is happening in the books.
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Talk about the moral of the story.
Talking about the moral of the story can help sum up what the book is about. This skill is for older children, but is useful for them as they can use their higher-level language skills to look between the lines of what the story says to get a deeper understanding of what the book was really about.
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Book Central - The Rainbow Fish
No doubt you’ve heard the message “read books with your child” but what they don’t tell you is what books to read and how to read them. Did you know it’s actually these two things – the what and how - that makes the difference to your child’s development?
We know from research that children who are not read to have poorer understanding of language, their vocabularies are smaller and their thinking skills are less advanced. And this means they go on to have trouble learning to read themselves. So, reading the right books in the right way to your child is critical to their development.
To help you out we’re going to answer the what and how or book reading with one fantastic book and our top three tips to make sure the way you’re reading is improving your child’s listening, talking and thinking skills.
The Rainbow Fish – Marcus Pfister
What’s it about?
This is a story about a rainbow fish with shimmering scales that is referred to as the most beautiful fish in the ocean. Other fish want shimmering scales too, but the rainbow fish does not want to share them. His choice not to share makes him a lonely and unhappy fish so he seeks help in finding what might make him happy.
Children will start to understand this story line at 4-5 years of age. The touching moral of the story will challenge children to think about how their actions and behaviour can impact other people around them. The story line helps children think about the concept of feelings and we can impact other people and the way they feel. This story is accompanied by shimmering pictures and a beautiful ending that is sure to keep your child entertained.
Our top 3 tips
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Use expression when you’re reading
Always add expression into your voice when reading a story. Adding expression keeps your child more engaged. You can do this by using different voices for different characters and by adding emotion to your voice to suit what is happening.
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Talk about feelings and putting yourself in another person’s shoes
Ask questions about how the characters might be feeling. “How do you think the rainbow fish feels now that no one wants to be his friend?” or “How do the other fish feel now that they have shimmering scales too?”. You can also ask questions about how they would feel if someone didn’t want to share with them, or when someone does share with them.
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Ask questions about what might happen
It’s great to ask your child questions about what they think might happen next. This helps build their predicting and inferencing skills. Its great to ask questions “what would happen if...” or “what would you do if...”. These questions will challenge your child to think about the moral of the story and how it relates to their own life.
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If your child is stuttering you need to read this
Is your child stuttering? Are they repeating sounds, words or phrases? Are they stretching out words or getting stuck before talking?
“Around 12% of children begin to stutter by 4 years of age. Children who begin to stutter in their preschool years need therapy immediately to prevent its negative impacts and possibility of lifelong stuttering”
If left without treatment your child’s stuttering can get worse or be with them for life. The impact of stuttering on a child’s life is varied however it’s absolutely certain that it will interfere with their ability to communicate. Stuttering can lead to your child feeling embarrassed to speak in front of others, they can become frustrated with it and they may develop social anxiety which significantly affects their ability to interact and build relationships with people. This social anxiety can begin to emerge by just seven years of age.
With the right treatment in the preschool years stuttering can be eliminated. Your child can become an excellent communicator who can confidently answer questions in class, stand up and give a speech and build strong relationships with those around them.
“It’s so important that you get the right treatment for your child. There are specific programs that must be used to treat childhood stuttering. There is NO evidence to back up some of the approaches that are out there.”
So, if you want to get your child’s speech stutter-free here are the two programs that work in the preschool years:
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The Lidcombe Program
This program was developed in Australia and has the strongest evidence supporting its effectiveness. It involves you and your child attending weekly sessions with a qualified Speech Pathologist. These sessions involve training you in how to give your child feedback on the stutter every day at home as well as how to rate the severity of the stutter. You being present and participating in the sessions is essential for success.
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RESTART-DCM
This program was developed in the Netherlands and also had strong evidence supporting it use. It also involves you and your child attending sessions with a qualified Speech Pathologist however the focus of your parent training will be on helping you to reduce the communication demands on your child. As with the Lidcombe Program, your must be present in sessions for the treatment to work.
Do you see the one common element in both programs? It's the involvement of a parent or carer in the therapy. Without your involvement your child will not become stutter free.
Now with these programs in mind, if your child is stuttering it’s time to get help. Our Speech Pathologists see children who stutter every day. We can do treatment to stop your child stuttering and build confidence in their communication. Simply send us an email info@jennih.sg-host.com or call us on 9653 9955.
Book Central - Possum Magic
No doubt you’ve heard the message “read books with your child” but what they don’t tell you is what books to read and how to read them. Did you know it’s actually these two things – the what and how - that makes the difference to your child’s development?
We know from research that children who are not read to have poorer understanding of language, their vocabularies are smaller and their thinking skills are less advanced. And this means they go on to have trouble learning to read themselves. So, reading the right books in the right way to your child is critical to their development.
To help you out we’re going to answer the what and how or book reading with one fantastic book and our top three tips to make sure the way you’re reading is improving your child’s listening, talking and thinking skills.
Possum Magic by Mem Fox
What’s it about?
Set in the Australian bush, this iconic story follows the adventures of two possums, Hush and Grandma Poss. The story begins with magic, as all good books do. Grandma Poss sprinkles some bush magic on Hush and turns him invisible! Hush enjoys bush life mischief as an invisible possum, but problems arise when Grandma Poss can’t make Hush visible again. The story continues as Grandma Poss figures out that the key to reversing the spell is human food!
Thus begins Hush’s and Grandma Poss’ adventure to eat human food. They travel far and wide across Australia to nibble on the country’s delicacies including Vegemite sandwiches, pavlova, and lamingtons. With each nibble on these Aussie treats, Hush returns to her visible self.
The book is aimed for children from the age of four years, which is when they start to enjoy actively partaking in story-telling. This book explores all the elements of a great narrative while using a pattern of rhythm and rhyme that children enjoy.
Our top 3 tips
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Make the most of the story’s rhyme and rhythm
Books with rhymes, rhythm, and repeated words are helpful for getting your child to join in and get familiar with the words in the story. Read the books with animation as it shows your child that you are engaged with reading to them. This helps make reading time a positive experience for your child and encourages them to become engaged with reading themselves. In the year before school start getting your child to tell you which words rhyme. It's a skill which they'll need for later literacy development.
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Let your child hold the book and turn the pages
Awareness of how to hold a book upright and when to turn pages is a useful skill for early-reading. In addition, you can expand on your child’s print awareness by getting them to show you where the title is, where the author’s and illustrator’s names are and where the words of the story are written. Use your finger to follow along with the text in the story as you read it out loud.
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Reread the books that your child loves
Rereading books helps children to recall details of the story and practise using the different parts of a story. You can start off by describing the beginning of the story, then ask them to tell you the next part of the story while following along with the pages. You can then expand on their version of the story with other details.
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Book Central - We're Going on a Bear Hunt
No doubt you’ve heard the message “read books with your child” and you know reading with children is important but what they don’t tell you is what books to read and how to read them. Did you know it’s actually these two things – the what and how - that makes the difference to your child’s development?
We know from research that children who are not read to have poorer understanding of language, their vocabularies are smaller and their thinking skills are less advanced. And this means they go on to have trouble learning to read themselves. Clearly reading the right books in the right way to your child is critical to their development.
So, to help you out we’re going to answer the what and how of book reading with one fantastic book and our top three tips to make sure the way you’re reading it is improving your child’s listening, talking and thinking skills.
We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
What’s it about?
This is a story about a father and his four children who all go on a bear hunt together and embark on an exciting adventure. The story sees the family slide down a grassy slope, wade through a river, trudge through mud, to mention a few things until they, finally come to the bear’s cave. The bear then chases them all back to their home. Is this great adventure real or imagined?
The book targets children from the age of four years when they are beginning to recognise rhythm and rhyme and enjoy actively being part of the story telling. Together, you can explore the plausibility of it being a real or imagined adventure. Asking questions such as ‘Would we really go looking for a bear?’ ‘What could we look for if we went on an adventure together?’.
The descriptive and repetitive language makes this story easy and fun for everyone to participate in.
Our top 3 tips
If you want your child to develop their listening, talking and thinking skills whilst having loads of fun then try these when you’re reading with them:
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Choose a time when you and your child are relaxed and can enjoy the story-time together
Being able to put the time aside to enjoy reading together will let your child know they have your full attention and this in turn will encourage their attention and listening skills.
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After the reading the story through once go over it again
This will encourage your child’s ability to recall details of the story. Without retelling the story word for word, consider asking them to tell you the story, turning the pages as they go along. You can then add information and descriptive words as they tell you their version. Children love being ‘teacher’.
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Try using gestures
Using gestures and facial expressions add interest and excitement to story telling which will encourage your child to develop their listening and participation. Your child will not be able to resist joining in!
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The skill your child must have to learn to read
What does your child do when they read and come across a word they don’t know? Do they look at the picture or the first letter and guess what the word might be? Then keep reading to find out the most important tool they must have in their reading toolbox to become a skilled reader…it’s not guessing.
Children are not wired to learn to read the multitude of different spellings for the sounds in the English language. They need EFFECTIVE literacy instruction in their early schooling years to become skilled readers.
Without the literacy instruction that research has proven to work children can struggle to learn to read. Combine this with the “let’s give them some more time” recommendation that is often suggested and it’s a recipe for disaster. It creates a child who not only struggles to read but also lacks self confidence and motivation and is at risk for lifelong social and economic difficulties.
When children are taught to read the right way they are set up for success! They go on to become skilled, fluent readers bursting with confidence in their abilities and they have far greater learning, employment and earning opportunities.
We are fed up with children being taught to read in a way that creates struggling readers. Teaching children to use pictures, other words in the sentence or the first letter to guess an unknown word will NOT make them a skilled reader.
Think about this for a moment. What happens when they’re expected to read more challenging books? The ones with no pictures and with more complex words and sentences. Suddenly they have no tools left to use and they're trying to build their literacy house on a shaky foundation.
So, here’s the one tool your child must have to become a skilled reader who is able to tackle unknown words with ease.
They must be able to decode words.
This means they use the letters in the word to work out what it says. To do this they will:
- Pay close attention to the sequence of letters in a word
- Know the letters and letter combinations and their corresponding sounds
- Apply the ‘rules’ such as what ‘e’ at the end of the word does to other sounds in the word
Sounds fairly simple right? But did you know there are about 250 different ways to spell all the sounds in English? Not so simple after all. Children are not naturally wired to learn to decode as they are with talking. They won't simply learn it by being read to at home. They won't learn it by rote learning 100 or more "sight words". They won't learn it by being told to look at the first letter and the picture and guess. They learn to make sense of this complex alphabetic code we use to read through an approach called systematic phonics. It’s a structured way of explicitly teaching children the letters and sounds that words are made of and how to blend them together to read the words. It is critical they are taught this. Without the ability to decode children will not become a skilled readers.
So, if your child is struggling to learn to read you need to get help from a qualified professional who sees children with literacy difficulties and does systematic phonics on a daily basis. The Speech Pathologists at Talk Play Grow certainly do. Call us on 9653 9955 or email info@jennih.sg-host.com to find out more about how we can help your child become a skilled and fluent reader.
Here more about decoding from our Clinical Director in this video