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I absolutely adore all the Froggy books by Jonathan London. These books follow Froggy and his family during different events and activities throughout the year. In our February Book of the Month: Froggy Gets Dressed (London, 1992), Froggy wants to play outside in the snow. To play out in the snow, he needs to make sure he has plenty of warm clothing. This book is great for modeling and teaching winter vocabulary, using phrases/sentences, and even practicing sounds.
Vocabulary: Vocabulary development is crucial in order to support a child’s development of understanding and use of language. Let’s look at some of the vocabulary in this book:
Body Parts and Winter Clothing: As Froggy prepares for the cold, he puts on and takes off a variety of winter clothing. You can point out these clothing items and the body parts where they are placed. Examples include: “hat - head”, “socks - feet”, and “scarf - neck”.
Spatial Concepts: As Froggy keeps forgetting to put on certain winter clothing items, he has to take items off and put them on while going in and out of the house. Concepts to focus on include: “on/off” and “inside/outside”.
Descriptor Words: Winter is very cold where Froggy lives, and he needs to find a way to stay warm outside. You can model words such as “hot”, “cold”, and “warm”. In addition, you can model emotion words such as “tired”, “excited”, and “embarrassed” to describe how Froggy is feeling during different parts of the book.
Using Phrases and Sentences: We learn to put words together to express ourselves more efficiently and in more detail. Let’s look at some of the phrases and sentences we can model throughout this book:
Negative + Clothing Item: “oh no… no shirt!”, “no coat”, “no mittens”
Preposition + Noun or Noun + Preposition: “on head”, “shoes on”, “socks off”, “on hands”
Action + Preposition: “Put on”, “Take off”, “Go out”
Action + Preposition + Clothing Item: “Put on hat”, “Pull off socks”
Sound Production: Children learn how to produce different sounds and sound combinations in order to express themselves more clearly and to be understood by others. Let’s look at some sounds and sound combinations we can target throughout this book:
Consonant Blends: Children often reduce consonant blends down to one sound (eg. “pay” for “play”). Words to target blends in this book include: “Froggy”, “play”, “flop”, and “sleep”.
Final Consonants: Children often omit final consonant sounds by using a phonological process called final consonant deletion. Words to target final consonant deletion in this book include: “hat”, “boot”, “sock”, “head”, “on”, “off”, “zip”, and “zum”.
Vowel-Consonant Words: Children with difficulty coordinating different speech motor movements benefit from practicing in simple syllable structures such as Vowel-Consonant (VC) words. VC Words to focus on in this book include: “on”, “off”, “in”, “out”, “arm”.
I hope you enjoy reading about Froggy and his winter adventures this week with your child! My desire is that these ideas will help support you and your child in their speech and language development.
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