Blog Image: Like many businesses and schools around the area, our office is closed today due to the snow we got overnight and the more expected snow coming later today.As we were getting dressed to go play in the snow earlier this morning, I started listing all of the things we could do and realized how many snow related items are words that contain clusters and thought, "Wow, a snow day provides perfect material for children working on reducing their use of cluster reduction!" As I mentioned in another blog, cluster reduction is when a child omits or leaves off one of the two sounds grouped together in a word, usually at the beginning of a word. So, for example, "snow" would become "so" and "gloves" may become "goves," and because so many words related to snow have clusters, there is ample opportunity to practice the correct production of the word while having fun in the snow!We talk with our families about the importance of practicing the sounds and phonological processes targeted in therapy at home, so in an effort to practice what I preach, I thought I would provide a snowy day word list for all those children working on reducing their use of cluster reduction (hey-even on a snow day off you can't switch off the speech therapist in me!)Here are some words to practice while you are playing in the snow, watching more snow fall, or enjoying your cup of steaming hot chocolate while making a Valentine's Day craft or watching the Olympics:/g/ cluster words to practice:gloves glee gloomy (if you are a sun lover!)/f/ cluster words to practice:flake frozen flurry freeze freezing friends frolic/s/ clusters words to practice:snow snowball snow flake snow fallsnow angel snow man snow fight snow creamsnow drift snow plow snow storm snowingsnowed snowy sled skiski slope sleigh sleet slushslippery slip sloppy school's closed :)and my personal favoritesteaming (as in, steaming hot chocolate)Enjoy the snow day and have fun seeing how you can make everyday activities in the snow into speech related practice!
