March 13, 2020

Dear Parents and Students,

Since PVPUSD has closed schools to limit exposure and spread of COVID-19, service providers cannot interact with their students directly.  Therefore, I will be available for virtual office hours for two hours each weekday from 9 to 11 a.m., except for holidays and the week of spring break.  In the meantime students should practice their communication skills every day or at least several times per week for 15-20 minutes (or MORE!).  Here are some ideas:  

• Call friends or extended family members and ask them to tell you something about their lives you don’t know. Remember to listen and ask questions.  Focus on speaking fluently and saying all your speech sounds correctly.  If you catch yourself saying a word incorrectly, restate the word correctly right away.  You know your bugaboo sounds if you have them.
• Keep a journal regarding what you do every day during the time you are home due to the Corona virus pandemic. Bring it with you when you return to school so you can share some of it with me and/or your peers in speech group.
• Read and write about current events in the news. These are interesting times.
• Read magazines of interest and discuss an article with someone.
• Find a good book and take turns reading it with a parent. Talk about the setting, the characters, the problem, the solution, and the ending.  Can you make any inferences or predictions?  Define unfamiliar words and write them in a notebook to share with your speech group. 
• Play language based games with your family. Some good ones are “Blurt,” “Password,” “Apples to Apples” “Scrabble,” and “5 Second Rule.”  There are many others.
• Try something new. Cook, bake, or build something from scratch.  Enhance your skills for following directions and learn new vocabulary by labeling utensils, tools, and ingredients that are unfamiliar.  If this is not “your cup of tea,” flip through a thesaurus and take online vocabulary quizzes.
• Take a virtual museum tour or create art and discuss it.

I have attached handouts that also include speech and language tasks/activities/websites that you can refer to and use when practicing.  Parents, if you have any questions regarding the skills or sounds that your child is targeting or which activities would best meet your child's needs, please feel free to reach out to me via e-mail - I'm happy to help.  I can be reached at [email protected].

If you desire additional ideas or materials to continue to target your child's skills during the closure, please let me know.  We can even schedule a time to connect via phone or video chat as needed.  I am happy to help with any questions or concerns that arise related to your child's speech & language or IEP services. 

Take care and stay healthy! 

Bonnie Angle, MA, CCC-SLP

ASHA Certified Speech-Language Pathologist