Important Dates
Event | Date |
ICAS Writing | 14/6/18 |
Feast of Ramadan (No School) | 15/6/18 |
Relıgıon and Values Week | 18/6/18 - 21/6/18 |
Grade 5 Excursion | 19/6/18 |
Grade 2 Excursion Fairy Park | 20/6/18 |
Foundation Class Excursion Community Walk | 20/6/18 |
Students Finish Term 2 (Happy Holidays) | 22/6/18 |
ICAS English | 31/7/18 |
ICAS Maths | 14/7/18 |
Speech Pathologist
Which speech sounds aren’t appropriate for school age children?
While speech sounds are developing, there are errors that are age appropriate for children and not a reason for concern. Sometimes however, there are speech errors that are not expected at any stage in typical sound development. If your child is making any of the following errors, referral to a Speech Pathologist is recommended.
Small sound inventory
When a child has only a few sounds, this can be an indicator of a speech issue.
Unusual sounds
Is your child using a sound not found in the English language? They may be using glottal sounds, which are made at the very back of the throat.
Swapping /t/ and /d/ to /k/ and /g/
Speech pathologists call this Backing. /t/ and /d/ are produced by touching the front of the tongue to the front of the palate. Are they being replaced by /k/and /g/, by touching the back of the tongue to the back of the palate? For example, ‘tan’ may become ‘can’, and ‘duck’ may become ‘guck’.
Leaving the first sound off of a word
Speech pathologists call this Initial Consonant Deletion; the first consonant is removed from a word. For example, ‘puppy’ would become ‘uppy’.
Vowel sound errors
If your child is replacing one vowel with another, it can indicate that a more severe speech disorder as this is very uncommon. For example, ‘dog’ may become ‘dirg’.
Inconsistent errors
If your child is inconsistently producing errors in speech, saying the same word differently, this could be indicating Childhood Apraxia of Speech. For example ‘ball’ may be said as ‘ball’, ‘bah’, ‘bawell’, ‘pall’, etc.
Replacing more than one sound with the same sound
Speech pathologists call this Multiple Collapses. Is your child habitually replacing multiple consonants with another consonant? For example, they may replace sounds with ‘n’, saying ‘nog’ for dog, ‘nun’ for ‘mum’, ‘noe’ for ‘shoe’ and ‘annle’ for ‘apple’.
Special Needs
How can you teach your children the importance of difference and uniqueness?
We live in a diverse society where we need to teach young children to respect and celebrate the differences in all people. It helps children realise that we are all humans despite our differences in how we look or dress, what we eat or celebrate and how we behave and learn. Our children begin to develop empathy. Empathy is about understanding the differences in other people.
Children notice differences at about age 2 years. At about 3 years of age, children notice physical disabilities. At about 4 and 5 years, they start to become fearful of differences. There are activities you can do with your children to teach them to respect differences and also to celebrate their own uniqueness.
I have shared a few activities you can do with your child below.
https://www.kcedventures.com/blog/teaching-kids-to-be-themselves-be-unique
SEL Program
Dear Parents,
At Sirius College we have always had programs in place that focus on student health and wellbeing. We continuously aim to make use of new tools and practices which may enhance our students’ social and emotional wellbeing. In the past we have made use of programs such as You Can Do It! Education Program, Smiling Mind, Mindfulness and many more. As times change so does our need to make use of new practices and approaches. For these reasons we have adopted a new Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Program which may enhance our students’ learning experiences.
What is SEL?
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.
We will keep parents informed about our practices and its impact on our students learning outcomes. Please feel free to ask your child teacher for more information and continue to read the article we have attached.
Regards,