Wholly Language, Batman!
Understanding the Whole-Language Approach The Whole-Language approach to literacy is a philosophy which emphasizes the perspective that language is a meaning-making system and advocates that dren should focus on meaning and strategy instruction to determine the...
How We Teach Reading Impacts Family Health – and our Economy
There is a war smouldering behind the scenes in the academic community regarding how reading should be taught, and occasionally it flares up and rages into heated battles. Why it matters to us as educators, administrators, policy makers, and school board members is...
Could Hooked on Phonics Work for You?
Understanding Phonics Phonics is an approach or method of teaching literacy skills that focuses on matching letters to the sounds they make. A big focus of phonics is “decoding” – the idea that letters or groups of letters represent sounds through a “code”, that can...
Reading Instruction: Who Needs It?
It’s worth examining who benefits from specific and explicit reading instruction. Our minds immediately picture the students with dyslexia – we imagine them trying to make sense of the letters moving around on the page, or seeing the letters and words backwards (this...
Defining Terms: From Speaking to Reading
We need to define our terms: What exactly are we dealing with when we talk about reading? Reading is the automatic extraction of meaning when encountering words in text – on a page or on a screen. That’s what it means to read – as you encounter text, your brain...
Literate Kids of The Future: A Call for Literacy ACTION
What does the future look like for reading, writing, and spelling in Canada? I was so happy to learn that a “Future Bus” stop was coming soon to my neighbourhood. I stopped to think: What DOES the future look like, and where does the “Future Bus” take me? The Present...
Understanding a Speech-first Approach to Reading, Writing and Spelling
Why a Speech – Language expert will make all the difference for your child I received my Linguistics degree with great distinction. In fact, I was awarded a scholarship for top graduate in the Linguistics department. Is this a humble brag? Yes. It certainly is....
What Happens to Children that have Trouble with speaking and reading?
Speech – Language experts really do change lives Outcomes for children with trouble speaking and reading are not good. Much of the research comes out of the US, but it is easy to see that similar trends exist in Canada. And its pretty sobering! What emerges are trends...
Does your child have trouble learning or delays in development? Why a Diagnosis may not be the answer
As humans, we LOVE to label things. The human brain loves to organize, categorize, find patterns, find meaning, and generally make sense of things. However, it is often in the Naming of Things that we get into trouble! Names and labels are a constraint or...
WHY Speech-Language Pathology?
I believe that families need to connect and form a relationship with the professionals that are going to serve their children. There are often emotional moments during treatment. There are often difficult questions. The relationship is important, and relationships...
5 Reasons a Speech – Language Pathologist should be in charge of your child’s learning program
Is your child achieving to their true potential? The role of Speech – Language Pathologists (SLPs) is rapidly evolving in health and education sectors. As we continue to learn how the brain processes and manipulates information, we see that the linguistic systems are...