Word Wise Therapy

08/06/2026

I love digging deeper and using our detective (inference skills) to make meaning from what we see or read. So much happens between the lines of text that must be understood. Many children miss these subtle signs and though they may be fluent readers, they lack deep comprehension. Today we used these cool pictures from Once Upon a Picture and Love Literacy Mount Maunganui’s ‘Show don’t Tell’ resource to analyse and then develop our own descriptive language over Zoom.

26/05/2026

Today is brought to you by Pete the Cat 😎

Pete has been helping build early listening, engagement and narrative skills. We practised:
- waiting for a turn with a story prop
- remembering and ordering events from the story
- joining in with a predictable phrase

These playful story activities help strengthen sequencing, attention, vocabulary and early narrative development in a fun and engaging way. Who doesn’t love a little mud and water?! Water

18/05/2026

I love seeing the world through the eyes of children. Today I explored story-telling and sequencing while watching tiny hands work their way through a re-telling of The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s feast, sequencing the food and practicing the power of the mighty plural ‘s’ (three cheers for morphology!) Finished the day with my own little mindful observers who giggled at a very happy hot choccy 🐛 🍂 ☕️

29/04/2026

Oh the magic (magnetic) wand 🪄 ever a favourite for a quick reinforcing activity. Here we are building word associations between verbs and nouns building both receptive and expressive language.

28/04/2026

The “zone of proximal development” (Vgotsky) is where the magic happens in language therapy. ✨

Tasks that are not too easy, not too hard. Just enough support for a child to do something today that they couldn’t quite do on their own yesterday.

In my sessions, I’m constantly watching for that sweet spot; the moment a child is ready for the next small step. Maybe it’s adding one more word, taking a turn in conversation, or using a new sound with support.

That’s where real learning sticks.

24/04/2026

What a week it’s been in Literacy Land. I’m genuinely excited by how rich this learning is.

Our topic over the past few weeks has been local caves, where we’ve been comparing and contrasting the scientific processes that form them. We’ve explored incredible examples like Harwoods Hole on the Takaka Hill.

Using a strong topic context has allowed us to apply our spelling patterns in meaningful ways—like silent e in cave and -ck in rock. We’ve also been exploring morphology: open syllables (de- in degenerate, bio- in bioluminescence) and how suffixes like -er and -est change meaning (deep → deeper → deepest).

The Big idea: we’re learning how meaning works inside words—and using that to strengthen both reading and writing.

24/03/2026

Totally trying this with my letter focused five year old!

24/03/2026

24/03/2026

Recharged the batteries over the weekend in the great outdoors.

- 11kms walked
- eels, trout, ducks and swans seen
- weka, robins, bellbirds and a midnight kiwi call heard
- sunset and sunrise soaked-in
- curiosity peaked