 If you drop one in the snow, she said, you'll never find it. My name is Joanna Law. I'm a speech and language pathologist with Edmonton Catholic Schools. Let's say the word snow. Snow. Mother Teresa's school has a broad range of kids. It typically has several children that are severely speech and language delayed. And it also has children that are learning English as a second language. The first strategy I'm going to talk about is slide and decide. This strategy is all about the child leading the adult. So the adult becomes a partner in the child's play and takes note of what the child is doing. Not saying but doing. So the adult observes these things and then slides and decides to be at the child's level to become a part of their play. In the following video, you will see how a staff member observes, waits and listens before she joins in the play. What kinds of food go in the salad? If a child is working on a sound, making a comment using that sound with the sound slightly exaggerated is benefiting that child. Or if the child is mispronounced a speech sound that is being targeted, repeating the comment back to the child slightly exaggerated can be a benefit. Many opportunities present themselves during programming time. This little boy loves the classroom's gecko and it was one of the only things he initially spoke to the classroom staff about. Talking about his favorite thing in the classroom is a great way to develop some language skills. This strategy is important for encouraging the child to take the lead in an interaction. It lets us see what the child can already do and to value what the child's interests are. Nice, and you're going to ride your bike to school? Yeah. This next strategy is extend and expand. This strategy can be used to help a child build his or her current language skills by introducing new concepts, new vocabulary and new ideas. You can extend the child's sentence by adding new ideas. Watch what happens in the video clip while the children are playing bingo. Lots of new information was shared. Why do you have a drain in the bathtub? Because the water can get out. That's right, you've got to put, so the water can get out. In the following video clip, the child's description of a rabbit was extended to include new information. Is it a bunny? Dry? Good! As well, the pronoun they was modeled to expand sentence structure as that was a goal for one of the children in the group. In the following video clip, the teacher used the popular song Down by the Bay and expanded the children's knowledge of rhyming. Did you ever see a ring sitting on a swing? Down by the Bay. Does it rhyme? Good job. Again, many opportunities present themselves during programming time. This strategy can be very effective when the classroom staff is very familiar with the child's goals and can take advantage of the many teachable moments that occur. My client is really the adults in the classroom. It's the adults that I want to change and it works really well because we're valuing the child's interests. And we know that if we're talking about what the child is interested in, chances are they're going to pick up that vocabulary faster.