Regardless of which letter-sound sequence you use to introduce letter-sound links and teach children early blending skills, kids in Kindergarten should have mastered the basic alphabetic code by the end of the school year. They should also be able to blend the speech sounds most commonly associated with each letter to form short words, like “bat” and “sit”.
Unfortunately, some children are very good at tricking us into thinking they are better readers than they actually are. For example, some children with good expressive vocabularies and/or oral language structure skills are adept at pretending to read by guessing words from pictures or following simple language patterns (e.g. “I can see a…”, “There’s a…”). This is especially a risk when predictive texts that use repeated carrier phrases and lots of pictures. Other children simply memorise their readers and trick us into thinking they are reading by reciting books back to us on cue like secretaries from the 1950s.
Many children with problems decoding words fly under the radar until around Year 3. Then they are expected to read lots of things without pictures, and are also expected to learn new things – written words they have never seen before – by reading about them. If the child hasn’t learned to decode before Year 3, it takes a huge amount of work to catch up, and the evidence tells us that many kids never catch up.
To give families a reality check on their children’s true basic decoding skills, we have written some free, mini-stories for late Kindy kids (and older kids with reading issues).
They don’t have pictures or follow patterns. Nor are they fine literature by any measure. (If you are after quality literature to enhance your child’s oral language development, check out these links – audiobooks for preschoolers, audiobooks for kids in Kindergarten and Year 1, audiobooks for kids in Years 2-6.)
Instead, these mini-stories are designed for one thing: a basic check whether children can decode real, simple words without guessing from pictures or spotting oral language patterns.
To help us structure the stories, we used the Sounds Write letter-sound sequence and Units for reference. We tweaked it a bit to include some early developing morphemes, including 3S and possessive s. But most children who have finished Kindergarten should be able to read these silly little tales without too much trouble.
If your child struggles to read these tales, she or he might benefit from some more work on letter-sound links and early blending skills to kick-start their true decoding and reading skills.
Related articles:
- Teaching the alphabet to your child? Here’s what you need to know
- Is your child struggling to read? Here’s what works
- Kick-start your child’s reading with speech sound knowledge (phonological awareness)
- How to find out if your child has a reading problem (and how to choose the right treatment approach)
- “I don’t understand what I’m reading” – reading comprehension problems (and what to do about them)
- How to help your school-age child learn new words – the nuts and bolts of how I actually do it in therapy
- The forgotten reading skill: fluency, and why it matters
- What else helps struggling readers? The evidence for “morphological awareness” training
- Dyslexia vs Developmental Language Disorder: same or different, and what do we need to know about their relationship?
Banter Speech & LanguageBanter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.
David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee, and is a Board Member of SPELD NSW.
30 things parents tell us they look for in excellent speech pathologists
We want parents to be informed about, and engaged in, what we do when we work with their child.
Research – and clinical experience – tells us that parents want to work with a speech pathologist who is:
- right for them; and
- right for their child.
This means we must impose high standards on ourselves, our team, and our professional colleagues.
As part of our ongoing efforts to improve our services, we looked at peer-reviewed research and client feedback. It highlighted 30 key themes for us to think about when:
- selecting and training our speech pathologists; and
- improving our services.
Related articles:
Banter Speech & LanguageBanter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.
David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee, and is a Board Member of SPELD NSW.
Celebrating staying small; plus a sale!
A few weeks ago, one of my clients – a successful entrepreneur – took me aside. “You should scale Banter Speech,” he said. “Open more branches. Franchise!”
He wasn’t the first person to give us that advice. From a business perspective, the suggestion made sense. We’ve invested a lot of time and energy over the years in training, building quality systems, and creating resources to help people with speech, language, stuttering, literacy and other communication challenges. With work, we could probably double or triple our size pretty quickly.
But, something about the idea didn’t sit right with me.
Cut to yesterday. As I cleaned up my man cave, looking for our battered Christmas Tree box, I came across a classic: “A Pattern Language”, by Christopher Alexander and colleagues. It’s a book about planning ideal towns, buildings and services for people and communities.
As I flicked through it (procrastinating), I came across this great quote:
“Services don’t work if they are too large. When they are large, their human qualities vanish; they become bureaucratic; red tape takes over.”
If you are providing quality care to real people with challenges, there are big benefits to staying small:
“We have concluded that no service should have more than 12 persons total…the largest number of people that can sit down in a face-to-face discussion.”
So – although we are grateful for the support – we’re not looking to scale or franchise our clinic. We love our small, but talented team. Our independence. Our active relationships with our clients, their families and our local communities.
We revel in the absence of red tape and the freedom it gives us to try new things, to improve our client care, and to create useful resources.
Speaking of resources, Teachers Pay Teachers is throwing a huge cyber sale on 2 and 3 December!
All of our 188 resources are discounted by up to 25%!
To inspire you, here are some of our most popular resources. But check out the terrific resources of other speech pathologists, too!
Banter Speech & LanguageBanter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.
David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee, and is a Board Member of SPELD NSW.
Tip of the week: Joint Attention
Our tip of the week is joint attention.
Joint attention is the capacity to focus together with another (e.g. a parent) on something in the world, like an apple or a game. For typically developing children, it starts at about 9 months of age.
Banter Speech & LanguageBanter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.
David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee, and is a Board Member of SPELD NSW.
Complex Cluster Targets for use with a Cycles Approach, Complexity Approach or Contrastive Approach
Traditional articulation and developmentally-based phonological approaches to therapy work. But they can be slow going! When working with students with significant speech sound problems, we want efficient results – especially if we don’t have much face-to-face time to do therapy.
For children with moderate-severe phonological speech sound disorders, we use three main evidence-based approaches in our clinic:
- Cycles;
- Complexity; and
- Contrast.
You can read more about the science supporting the Cycles, Complexity and Contrast Approaches here: Cycles Approach; Complexity Approach and Contrast Approach.
These approaches seek to bring about permanent, big changes to a student’s phonological system and to make students more intelligible. They rely on choosing good targets that transfer to other speech sounds without having to work on every speech sound in every word position.
Which sounds should we target?
Complexity theory tells us that some consonant sounds are more complex than others. For example:
- Three sound clusters (like /spl/, /skw/ and /spr/) are more complex than two sound clusters (like /sl/ and /pr/).
- So-called “small-sonority-difference clusters” like /sm/, /sn/ and /mj/ (as is “music”) are more complex than “large-sonority-difference clusters” like /tw/, /kw/ and /pl/.
- True consonant clusters (like /tw/, /pl/, /br/, and /fl/) are more complex than so-called “adjunct clusters” like /sp/, /st/ and /sk/.
- True consonant clusters like /pl/, /sw/ and /fr/ are more complex than affricates like “j” or “ch”.
- Affricates like “j” or “ch” are more complex than fricatives like /f/ or /s/.
- Long, “hissy” sounds called “fricatives” (like /f/ and /s/) are more complex than short “stops” like /p/ and /t/.
- Semi-vowel ‘liquid’ and glide sounds like /l/ and /r/ are more complex than sounds made through your nose, like /n/.
The key idea, here, is that speech pathologists should prioritise speech sound targets that:
- are late-acquired developmentally;
- are complex/marked (e.g. targeting fricatives rather than stops, true clusters rather single sounds, clusters with low sonority differences, rather than high (or negative) sonority differences);
- the child doesn’t know/cannot yet produce accurately; and
- the child is not yet stimulable for.
Again, our goal is to produce big, system-wide changes as quickly as possible.
How many words should we target?
Taking our lead from Cycles, we focus on only 5-6 words per target, per session. Evidence shows that 5-6 exemplars is sufficient to get transfer to untreated words with the same target. It also means you don’t waste time (and dosage) explaining lots of new (often weird) vocabulary to students – a big issue for students with working memory and language disorders and other issues.
What kind of words should we choose?
We’ve opted for a combination of functional real words, mixed-vowel, multi-syllabic non-words, and minimal pairs. Where possible, we have taken our real words from a well-known corpus of high frequency words used in spoken English: the New General Service List. Our non-word drills are designed to practice the target with different vowels and word positions. With selected targets, we also provide practice doing minimal pairs.
High frequency, functional, real words to use in speech therapy following the Complexity Approach, Contrastive Approach or Cycles
In this pack, we include complex targets, sorted from most to least complex. Yes, students need to have some motivation and resilience to give them a go. But we’ve found that working on complex targets – using a Complexity, Contrast or Cycles Approach – gives you much more “bang for your buck” than targeting early-developing single consonants in word initial, final and medial positions. In particular, we’ve found that working with complex targets often results in bigger improvements in a student’s general intelligibility.
We know that some of the targets in this pack may seem aggressive – especially if you are used to developmental and traditional approaches. But, since making our targets more complex in Cycles, Contrast and Complexity-based therapy, we’ve haven’t looked back, and wanted to share our resources with others!
To make the tasks more difficult, and to speed up generalisation, combine the targets words with carrier phrases. (You can download our free carrier phrase pack here.)
Related articles:
- How to treat speech sound disorders 1: the Cycles Approach
- How to treat speech sound disorders 2: the Complexity Approach
- How to treat speech sound disorders 3: the Contrastive Approach – Minimal and Maximal Pairs
- Speech sound disorders in children
- FAQ: In what order and at what age should my child have learned his/her speech sound consonants?
- FAQ: 10 common speech error patterns seen in children of 3-5 years of age – and when you should be concerned
- How to use principles of motor learning to improve your speech
- Why preschoolers with unclear speech are at risk of later reading problems: red flags to seek help
Banter Speech & LanguageBanter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.
David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee.
Upskilling to Treat Severe Childhood Apraxia of Speech (including free training links)
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a persistent disorder that requires therapy.
In this video blog, we talk about an important, evidence-based treatment for severe CAS called “Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing”, or DTTC.
Banter Speech & LanguageBanter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.
David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee.