Wellbeing and Inclusion Support Hub (WISH)
Welcome to Week 6!
Each fortnight, I’ll be featuring one of our staff members within the WISH team, so our families can get to know who is supporting the students at Robertson State School.
This fortnight, we meet our Social Worker, Natasha Bradford.
A message from: Community Hearing Screening Clinic
New Free Local Audiology Screening Service
As an initiative to reduce hospital waiting lists for non-complex audiology cases, Children’s Health Queensland are providing FREE hearing screening clinics throughout the community. These clinics help to improve access to specialist care and provide a fast, efficient pathway to diagnostic audiology services. More importantly, they reduce the wait time, travel time and travel costs for families. Clinics are run by Allied Health Assistants, under the delegation of an Audiologist.
We are excited to share with you our new clinic at Mt Gravatt East, which runs Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
Families are encouraged to call us on 32908970 and self-refer.
Who can be seen at the clinic?
The clinic offers free hearing screening for children and young people aged from 9 months to 16 years.
Who is eligible for this service?
Community Hearing screening is a targeted service and provide free hearing screening to Medicare eligible clients who meet the following criteria:
- Concerns regarding hearing
- Concerns with speech and language development
- Concerns with behaviour and or learning
- Those requiring hearing screening prior to further investigations
- Those who have not had their hearing screened within the last 12 months
How do families make an appointment?
Parents can make an appointment over the phone or complete our online enquiry form.
Community Hearing Screening booking enquiry form | Children's Health Queensland
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact our clinic on 07 3290 8970.
Until next fortnight,
Amanda Slinger
Head of Special Education Services - (HOSES)
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Speech-Lanuage News
What is Literacy – Empowering Families with Tips for Fostering Literacy and Reading Skills at Home
Literacy refers to an individual’s ability to read and write. These skills are crucial for success at school, daily life and down the track when your child will enter the workforce. Literacy involves the foundational skills like phonemic and phonological awareness (which will be discussed further below), which are vital for effective reading and writing for your child and setting them up for the best success in the future.
What is Phonological Awareness:
Phonological awareness is a crucial and critical skill for all children in developing their skills in reading and writing. It is the foundation of learning to read and is the ability of recognising and working with sounds in spoken language. It is the understanding of the different ways in which language can be broken down into smaller parts. There are many subskills that are a part of phonological awareness including syllable awareness, word awareness, rhyming, alliteration, and phonemic awareness.
Parents can actively contribute to building their child’s phonological awareness skills by engaging in the following activities:
- Rhyming Games: This encourages a child to identify words with similar ending sounds
- Alliteration Games: Explore words that start with the same sound to enhance the recognition of sounds
- Blending and Segmenting Games: Break down words into individual sounds e.g., “C-A-T” and blend them to form words e.g. “CAT”. You may like to play this game whilst driving e.g., “I can see a T-R-U-CK… what do you think I can see?” Your child can then blend the sounds back together and say “TRUCK”!
What is Phonemic Awareness:
Phonemic awareness delves into letter-sound knowledge; emphasising the ability to identify, focus on, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words.
Parents can actively contribute to building their child’s phonemic awareness skills by engaging in the following activities:
- Letter Sound Recognition: Helping your child associate letters with their corresponding sounds e.g., the letter /b/ is the first sound we hear in “bath”, the letter /c/ makes the first sound we hear in “cat”.
- Word Blending Practice: Engage in exercises where your child blends sounds to create new words.
- Word Recognition: Foster your child’s ability to recognise whole words that cannot be sounded out phonetically.
Promoting Reading and Writing Skills:
For successful reading, children must be able to recognise letters, blend sounds, understand word meanings, and comprehend sentences. Writing skills involve similarly through thinking, word separation, sound-to-letter correlation, and creating coherent sentences.
Parents can actively contribute to building their child’s reading and writing skills by engaging in the following activities:
- Encouraging Reading Aloud: Engage in regular reading sessions with your child to enhance word recognition and comprehension.
- Creative Writing Exercises: Spark creativity by encouraging your child to create sentences and stories.
- Punctuation and Grammar: Emphasise the importance of proper grammatical structure and punctuation in writing to your child.
Parent Tips for Recognising when to Seek Help:
- Chat to your classroom teacher/s if you notice that your child exhibits challenges in reading, writing, or spelling.
- Maintain open communication with your child’s teacher/s to stay informed on their progress and any concerns.
- Pay attention to your child’s reading and writing habits at home, addressing any notable challenges promptly.
It is important to remember that parents play a pivotal role in nurturing their child’s literacy skills. By incorporating these strategies and reaching out to your classroom teacher when needed, parents can create a supportive environment that fosters a love of writing and reading for your child.
With warm regards, and until next time,
Morgan Johnson
Speech Language Pathologist
Robertson State School (Mondays & Tuesdays)