Halloween Speech for Deaf Kids
Trick or Treat Vocabulary Boosters and Hearing Impaired Children
Choose a Halloween picture book for vocabulary and word skills for the deaf.
Halloween is upon us! Many parents and teachers of the hearing impaired look for new ways to teach vocabulary that is classic to the hearing world. The pretend and intrigue of Halloween fun are great motivators to work on vocabulary with a child who is hearing impaired, and it is not too late to use this word-friendly opportunity. Choose a favorite Halloween book to get the activity started. Then try these word building tips.
- Think of rhyming words. For example, how many words can you and your child think of that end with the same sound as Boo? Encourage kids to think through the alphabet to get first letters to add to the –oo ending. Also help them think of other endings that sound the same (so they will rhyme) but may be spelled differently. In the case of –oo, the ending –ou sounds the same. Boo and thank you are rhymes.
- Think of words that are synonyms. Maybe the book says that the sound was scary. How many words can you come up with that mean the same as scary? Older kids can look in a thesaurus. Younger kids can write a simple sentence with scary (or any chosen word) and then rewrite it with a word that means the same as scary.
- Think of words that are antonyms and complete the activities in #2.
- Choose a list of words from the book. Talk about what they mean. Then play the classic game of Hangman to guess a particular word. Remember in this version of Hangman to make the man have a jack-o-lantern head.
- Make a list of new Halloween words from the story. Then have your child rewrite the words in alphabetical order.
- If you chose a book with a short text, have your child rewrite the story making it a Thanksgiving tale.
- For a different way to get words (Instead of a book), try looking through newspaper sales flyers for pictures of costumes and treats.
- Perhaps your child is very young and just needs to learn some traditional Halloween words. Try these books to start building a Halloween language base.
- Make a list of words using the letters in the word Halloween or Trick-or-Treating.
- Pull out the old family photographs to talk about Halloween fun in previous years.
- Rent a friendly Halloween DVD. Talk about what happened afterwards. Encourage your child to write a letter or an email to someone about the events of the story.
Read more ideas about building language skills with Halloween fun.
The copyright of the article Halloween Speech for Deaf Kids in Deaf Child Parenting is owned by Lynn Moore. Permission to republish Halloween Speech for Deaf Kids must be granted by the author in writing.
