Read Across America Week
📚Happy Read Across America Week (and Happy Birthday Dr. Suess!)📚
Each year, National Read Across America Week is celebrated during the first week of March. The annual event is part of Read Across America, an initiative on reading creative by the National Education Association.
Here are some great ways to inspire reading in children:
📚 Keep books everywhere you spend time. Put them in the car, in every room of the house, and tuck them in backpacks and purses. Make them easily accessible.
📚Visit the library often. Knowing how to use the library and learning the benefits of a library fosters a love of reading as well as genuine respect for the services libraries provide.
📚Get caught reading. Children imitate what they see the adults around them do. Whether they see you read a magazine, newspaper, or novel, let them know reading is the cool thing to do.
📚Read to your children. No matter their age, reading aloud strengthens their vocabulary and language skills. It also opens up opportunities for discussion.
📚Have your children read to you, too. You never know what you might learn!
NO! AAC will not prevent, stop, or slow a child from speaking verbally, and in fact research had found it to increase overall communication skills, verbal communication, and receptive language! That’s a WIN-WIN-WIN!
There are NO prerequisites to using AAC. And a child does not have to have the ability to point, there are many ways they can access AAC including but not limited to eye gaze, partner assisted scanning, head pointing and more!
Choosing a communication app should be made on an individualized basis. It’s important to consider availability of a robust vocabulary, and individual preferences.
The main idea behind this fun activity is exploring sensory exposure and play, which our pediatric occupational therapy kiddos love! Kids learn best exploring their environment through senses. In this case, we are utilizing sensory play and exposure to help kids tolerate different feelings and textures that they may have an adverse reaction to normally. The hope is that they will become more comfortable with these unusual textures and eventually be able to easily tolerate (and even enjoy) similarly textured foods.
Allowing kids to play with food without the added pressure of having to eat it, helps build comfort and confidence. Sensory play in general (not just with feeding) is one of the best ways for your child to develop their language, cognitive, fine motor, and gross motor skills.
What you will need to make Edible Play Doh:
- 4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup cooking oil (coconut, vegetable, canola)
- 1 packet of kool-aid
- 1/3 cup water
- First mix the flour and oil in a large bowl
- In a separate smaller bowl, mix the water with the kool-aid
- Finally, add the kool-aid to the flour mixture
