back to school reading prep

Back to School Reading Prep

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While it’s hard to believe that summer is already on its way out, many of you have probably been thinking about the new school year for some time now. As a parent, you want to be sure that your child retains skills from the previous school year and continues to progress during the summer. Being a good reader will positively affect all school subjects and is the basis for many facets of learning. As children progress in school they switch from learning to read, to reading to learn. If your child is behind in reading, this will greatly affect how and what they learn in other subject areas.

What are the best ways to prepare your child for reading in the new school year?

  1. Encourage reading: No matter what your end-of-summer activities are, find time to squeeze inBack to School Reading Prep some reading. Reading should always be a priority! Making crafts along with books is a great way to make reading more fun.
  1. Make it a routine: Have reading be a part of your daily routine to set an expectation for reading frequency. Children are more likely to read if they are exposed to books and reading on a consistent basis.
  1. Discuss vocabulary: Talk about words found in books, use the words in different ways, and give examples of what the word means. If a child understands what a word means, she is more likely to use it!
  1. Ask questions: Listen to your child read and ask questions about what they read and what is happening in the story. Ask why things happen and prompt your child to predict what is going to happen next.
  1. Use comprehension checkpoints: After your child reads a paragraph of a story or a page in a book, ask her what happened and ensure she understood what she just read.
  1. Be a good model: Monkey see, monkey do. If your child sees you reading, she will want to read too! Model a positive and encouraging attitude when it comes to reading.

Follow the above tips to set your child off on the right track for the new school year!

Click here for more tips on how to sneak in reading practice.

NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!

sneaking in reading practice

5 Ways to Sneak Reading Practice into Your Child’s Day

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Fitting in reading practice into a child’s daily routine is often a re-occurring battle between parents and their children. This may be due to several reasons; it may be a challenging and therefore not enjoyable task for a child or there may be the distractions from activities that are much more appealing than reading. Continued exposure to literacy and reading is important, especially throughout the summer months. If a child continues to put up high resistance to traditional reading activities, try to “sneak” in reading into fun activities. Luckily, literacy is all around us and can easily be camouflaged into fun.

5 Ways to Sneak Reading Practice Into Your Child’s Day:

  1. Cooking: Invite your children to bake or cook a recipe with you. Children love to be involved and givenHow to Sneak Reading into Your Child's Day responsibilities. Have their “job” be to read the recipe to get the ingredients and tell you what is next. Children will also learn the importance of paying attention to details, as recipes rely on the completion of specific directions. Try to find a recipe that can be tailored to your child’s skill level. The recipe can be as simple or complex as you would like; even making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches can be made into a reading activity. You can also adapt a recipe to include different verbs or new vocabulary.
  2. Jokes: What child doesn’t love a good laugh? Reading jokes is a great way to add direct fun to a reading activity. Children jokes can be found on the internet, in a joke book or even on a popsicle stick! A child can practice reading a joke several times, and then perform it for another caregiver or adult later in the day. Not only is a child practicing his literacy skills, but he is also gaining exposure to figurative language.
  3. Road Trip Games: The summer season often comes with long road trips. It is easy to use electronics to occupy your child’s attention during these long hours. However, a great way to continue to improve your child’s literacy skills is to play the traditional Alphabet Game! Have your child look for the letters of the alphabet in the signs and words that you drive past. This is good practice with alphabetical order, identifying letters and reading single words. This game can be adapted to be a team effort or a race.
  4. Play teacher: Use the natural dynamic between older and younger siblings as an opportunity to get in some reading practice. Talk with your child about playing teacher with his younger sibling. The older brother or sister can read a story to his or her younger sibling, teach a specific letter or even write a short story. This is a fun way for kids to feel successful with reading, especially when they get to “teach” the younger brother or sister.
  5. Put on a Play: This is a great activity if you have multiple children that can participate. Find a free children’s drama script online or buy a book of children dramas. Children love using their imagination and also getting an audience’s attention. Practice reading the scripts before the performance to highlight any words they may not know and introduce them to new vocabulary.

If these suggestions don’t necessarily fit in with your child’s personality or family routine, get creative with your own daily routine. You can write up a schedule for your child’s day, having them read it at breakfast, or write out the directions of a craft for your child to complete. Remember the goal should be to create a motivating and fun activity for your child to gain additional practice and exposure to literacy.

Click here for more tips on how to get your child interested in reading.

NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!

Help! My Child Hates Camp

Help! My Child Hates Camp

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What’s there not to love about swimming, popsicles, and outdoor activities? A lot. For some. Camp represents freedom from school and an opportunity for long stretches of recreational activity, however for some kids, endless amounts of time outside and engaging in sports-like activities are far from ideal. Some kids do not enjoy camp. If you have a camper writing home about how much he loathes the camp experience, try these tips to encourage some fun.

Tips to Help Your Child Who Hates Camp:

  1. Have your child identify the positives about camp. Although there may be aspects that your childHelp! My Child Hates Camp does not prefer about camp, catch him making these statements so he doesn’t maximize a few small parts and minimize the parts that aren’t so bad or that he does like. If the child likes art, air conditioning, and cook outs, help him identify times within his day or week that reflect those preferred tasks. This will help balance out his perspective.
  2. Identify preferred summer-time tasks. If the child loves to bike ride, go on trips to the zoo, or make s’mores, factor those activities into the summer schedule outside of camp time. Help the child recognize that camp isn’t preventing him from engaging in what he wants but that his needs can still be accommodated. Encourage your child to calmly communicate his needs and work together to problem solve ways to get his needs met, although it might not be in the moment desired.
  3. Incentivize participation. If your child does not like being outside or engaging in physical activity/team sports, set up a system to encourage compliance.
  4. Talk to your child. Before registering for a camp, find out what activities your child is interested in doing and what he would not like. If your child is more into the arts, consider a program for theater, crafts, and dance. If your child prefers physical activity, opt for a sports camp. Touching base about preferences can facilitate open communication of needs and an opportunity to avoid potential problems.

Click here to read our camp survival guide for parents and kids.

NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!

 

4th of July Crafts to Develop Fine Motor Skills

5 4th of July Crafts to Improve Fine Motor Skills

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Fourth of July is the perfect time to have your child create customized crafts in celebration of independence! Below are 5 ideas to build upon fine motor skills.

5 4th of July Crafts to Build Fine Motor Skills:

  1. Star-Spangled Flags: Gather red and white acrylic paint, blue construction paper, 10-15 popsicle sticks, glue,4th of July Crafts to Build Fine Motor Skills and glitter. After painting the popsicle sticks red and white and letting them dry, glue the backs together horizontally to make the stripes of the flag onto one full popsicle stick on the left (the flag staff) and two half pieces of popsicle stick on the middle and the right). Cut out a blue square and affix it to the top left corner of the flag. Use glitter and glue to create the stars. The older the child, the more precise you can encourage them to be when making the stars.
  2. Holiday-Themed Tissue Paper Crafts: Download a template of a flag or star and trace it onto a piece of white cardboard. For younger kids, plan out and label the placement of the colors to assist them in organization. For older kids, encourage them to create and measure their own template using a ruler. Gather red, white, and blue squares of tissue paper (can be precut or cut by the student). Have them place small amounts of glue onto the cardboard and then twist and glue or crumble the tissue paper on top. The end result will be a beautiful holiday themed craft they can showcase to friends and family.
  3. String Beads on a Pipe Cleaner: A great option for young children to promote pincer grasp and improve hand arch development. Can also work with string to create personalized and holiday themed necklaces and bracelets.
  4. Fourth of July Friendship Bracelets: Requires 3 arms-length sized pieces of of red, white, and blue embroidery floss, a piece of cardboard, and scissors. Locate a do-it-yourself, step-by-step instruction guide from the internet which will provide pictures and detailed instructions of several how-to-braid patterns. These patterns vary from easy to hard, so there are plenty of different options. This activity is great for hand strengthening, in hand manipulation, and fine motor coordination.
  5. Have Kids Practice Painting Each Other’s Finger Nails! This skill requires sustained attention as well as fine motor precision and control. Encourage your child to be creative and explore different colors and designs.


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NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!

sensory strategies for road trips

Sensory Strategies for Road Trips

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It would take five pairs of hands and feet for me to count the number of family road trips I embarked on as a child. My family and I would load up our van and drive everywhere; we explored everywhere from Florida to New York City!

Road trips, whether they be taken with family or friends, have been a staple of American culture for decades. There isSensory Strategies for Road Trips an undeniable appeal for many to take the adventure and see the beautiful country sides, mountain towns, and valleys that the United States have to offer. While many families can plan a road trip with no second thought, many other families have become mindful of the sensory demands that a road trip has on their child.

Road trips come with sensory demands in many forms: visual, tactile, auditory, proprioceptive and vestibular. Road trips also bring the possibility of car sickness. Nausea can be precipitated by head motion. Car sickness, specifically, is caused by the discord within the brain’s ability to process movement with visual input. For example, your visual system says you are moving as the landscape passes by; however, your body and the proprioceptive receptors of the brain say you are sitting still. As your sensory receptors cannot find a way to process both sides of the sensory input, your body begins to have a visceral reaction, leading to nausea.  Another example occurs as you are trying to read a book in the car; your eyes are stationary on the book while the fluid in your ear canals are moving as the car goes over bumps and the car accelerates/decelerates; your brain has difficulty in processing if you are moving or if you are stationary as the input it is receiving does not match up.

Worry not, though! Here are some sensory strategies to incorporate into this summer’s road trip agenda:

  1. If your child requires movement breaks, do not wait until you need a bathroom break to stop. Allow scheduled stops at rest areas or parks to stretch, jump and run. Though it may add time to your trip, it will be beneficial for your child as a means to regulate.
  2. If your child is visually sensitive, provide him with sunglasses or even an eye mask.
  3. Keep in mind that seatbelts can be difficult for children with tactile difficulties. Place a soft piece of cloth or invest in a seat belt cover to ease the tactile input.
  4. If your child is of age or weight, allow them to sit in the front seat to help ease motion sickness. Sitting in front helps to alleviate the vestibular input of bumps and hills in the road.
  5. Provide your child with calming or preferred music. Auditory input can be used to help “ground” your child and assist with self-regulation and even sleep.
  6. Set your child up for success with comfortable and preferred clothing. Be mindful of removing their outerwear, as well.
  7. Proprioceptive input via a weighted blanket will help to provide body awareness and grounding abilities to your child, serving as calming input.
  8. Provide your child with snacks and drinks as preferred. Nutrition and appetite have a great influence on your body’s ability to regulate and calm.


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NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!

Auditory Strategies on the 4th of July

BOOM! Auditory Strategies to Make this Independence Day Fun for your Auditorily Sensitive Child

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In our previous Independence Day themed blog, we discussed sensory strategies to address visual concerns around the holiday. Remember that the Fourth of July provides as much auditory stimulation as it does visual.

Remember, sensory over-responsivity, or sensory defensiveness, occurs when a child (or adult) is presented withAuditory Strategies for the 4th of July sensory stimuli is not processed within the brain efficiently. This can cause sensory stimuli to feel painful or threatening, leading to a heightened “fight or flight” response.

Auditory over-responsivity is a heightened response to auditory stimuli, leading to an avoidance or fear of certain sounds. Children who experience hypersensitivities to sound will often cover their ears or cry.

Independence Day, in particular, is a day filled with more auditory stimuli than most other days. When preparing your family plans this July, keep these suggestions in mind for your child with auditory sensitivities.

How to Help Your Child with Auditory Sensitivities this 4th of July:

  • When arriving to the venue, find a designated “quiet area” to retreat to, should you need it. Introduce your child to this space prior to the beginning of the festivities and make sure that he/she is aware that it can be accessed at any time!
  • Keep noise canceling headphones or ear plugs at hand. Trial these prior to Independence Day to ensure that your child is comfortable wearing them.
  • Provide plenty of calming input, via deep pressure and heavy work, to your child prior to and throughout the day. The deep pressure will provide “grounding” input to their body, allowing them to better integrate sensory input in other forms.


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NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!

visual strategies

FLASH! Visual Strategies to Make this Independence Day Fun for your Visually Sensitive Child

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Independence Day is a holiday filled with picnics, parades, and fireworks. While many celebrate this day by coming together with friends and family in a hubbub of joy, anticipating a day filled with food and laughter, families with special needs children find the holiday to be a challenge.

Sensory Over-Responsivity (Sensory Defensiveness):

Sensory over-responsivity, or sensory defensiveness, occurs when a child (or adult) is presented
fireworks2Portrait with sensory stimuli that cannot be processed in a timely manner. This means that the brain and its sensory receptors is having difficulty in translating sensory stimuli into functional responses. This can cause sensory stimuli to feel painful or threatening, leading to a heightened “fight or flight” response.

Visual Over-Responsivity:

Visual over-responsivity, specifically, is characterized by hypersensitivity to visual stimuli, whether it be light, color or frequency of movement. Children with visual hypersensitivities may present with difficulty in visually attending to some stimuli, hyper-attentiveness to some stimuli, an increase of “coping strategies” when placed in a busy environment (i.e., chewing, moving their bodies, or hiding), or avoidance of light, natural or artificial.

The Fourth of July provides visual stimuli within each of these realms. Here are a few strategies to utilize this summer:

  • Prepare your child for the day by providing the child with information regarding what to expect. Have a conversation of what colors they will see and how bright it can be.
  • Create a game of “eye-spy” within the days activities: talk about what you may see throughout the day and have your child focus their gaze to search for specific items (i.e., how many flags are in the parade? How many blue fireworks do you see?).
  • Have sunglasses or dark lenses handy– they can be worn during the day or during the fireworks show.
  • Provide deep pressure and heavy work input to the body prior to and during visually stimulating activities.


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NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!

keep your child organized this summer

Strategies to Keep Your Child Organized This Summer

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Spring is in the air and with the warm temperature creeping in, this is a sure sign of one thing to come…school’s out for summer! For many, this is a time of year we look forward to, but it can also be a difficult time for our kiddos with ADHD that benefit from the structure and routine that school provides Monday through Friday. Check out these useful tips to help ward off the “I’m bored” summer bug.

Tips to Keep Your Child Organized This Summer:Keep Your Child Organized This Summer

  1. Keep them happy campers: There are many summer camps out there that range from 1 week to several months long. Figure out what would work best for your family. This allows your child time to burn off some energy and engage in social interactions in a structured, monitored environment. Contact your local YMCA or park district for local camps or classes offered near you.
  2. Keep morning routines the same: When kids know what to expect in the morning, it can help to limit meltdowns.
  3. Post a weekly schedule of activities: These can range from very simple tasks like chores and reading to more involved activities like an outing to the park or museum. Make your child part of this so they feel empowered too! This can also be helpful for your child’s sitter if both parents are working.
  4. Plan for at least one success a day: Let your child pick activities they enjoy doing (or do well J) and give praise for their work. Give them an opportunity to tell you about what they did, too!
  5. Join a sport: Many times a child with ADHD may do better in an individual sport. If you child has a low frustration tolerance, difficulty following directions, or acts before thinking, think about enrolling your kiddo in martial arts, golf or bowling!
  6. Dust off the old board games: Games like checkers, chess and UNO help with executive functioning skills. Uno helps kids practice switching between matching colors versus numbers helps to practice cognitive flexibility. Chess also can provide a platform for teaching impulsive children to slow down and think carefully before making their next move
  7. Cook together:Waiting for instructions (inhibition), trying to remember the directions (working memory) and measuring and counting steps (sustained-attention) all help to develop executive functioning skills.

Have a fun and organized summer!

executive functioning

NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!

Sensory Activities for Summer

Sensory Play for Summer

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Sensory play and multi-sensory approaches to learning have been incorporated throughout many learning opportunities to encourage versatile growth and development. Providing children with an opportunity to learn via tactile, auditory, visual, and even movement input has proven to show faster incorporation and carry-over of skills across environments. Sensory teaching techniques also stimulate learning by encouraging children to some or all of their senses to do the following:

  • Gather information about an assignment using both visual information and auditory informationSensory Activities for Summer
  • Synthesize and analyze material
  • Solve logic-based problems with multiple perspectives
  • Develop and utilize problem-solving skills
  • Use non-verbal reasoning skills
  • Understand and make connections between concepts
  • Store and recall information easily and efficiently

These skills can be cultivated during the summer months as well. The summer provides an array of its own sensory experiences that can be used to promote sensory learning while out of school. Here are some activities for the while family to encourage whole body learning and development.

 Sensory play activities for summer:

  1. Play a game of eye-spy outside! You can make it more of a challenge by using clues of size, shape, or clues of purpose.
  2. Play pictionary on the sidewalks with chalk, for a tactile and visual experience.
  3. Enjoy water play. Play a game of slip-and-slide while trying to retrieve an object on the way down; providing sensory play, motor planning and visual-motor integration skills.
  4. DIY play-doh is great for tactile play and executive functioning skills to follow a recipe.
  5. Make tactile balloons. Fill balloons with different textures (beans, beads, sand, rice, play-doh, coffee grinds, marbles, water, hairgel, corn starch and water mix) For more fun, place balloons in a tub if water, then guess and write what is inside each one!
  6. Have a Hippity Hop scavenger hunt.
  7. Play a game of edible shapes. Gather foods that have distinctive shapes (ex. cheese puff balls, gold fish, marshmallows, starburst, Hershey kisses, pretzel sticks tortilla chips). Blindfold the children playing and have them guess both the shape and the food!
  8. Create an obstacle course on a playground for motor planning, proprioceptive input and vestibular input. For added fun have your child draw out or write the steps of the course prior to completing it.
  9. Do Spice painting. Mix white glue with a bit of water to dilute it and add some spices (no hot spices). The activity will provide various aromas and will have different textures when dried.
  10. Visit the beach and play hangman, tic-tac-toe or write messages in the sand.


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NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!

5 Tips for a Successful Summer Break

5 Tips for a Successful Summer Break

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With summer right around the corner, now is the time to set your family up for success when the school doors close. Planning ahead can reduce stress, align expectations, and make sure that everyone’s needs are met so that summer can be pleasurable for all involved.

Here are 5 tips for a successful summer break:

  1. Gain knowledge of expectations. Set up a family meeting to determine what everyone’s5 Tips for a Successful Summer Break expectations are. To plan ahead can alleviate stress and frustration, but it is essential to make sure that everyone is on board with the summer structure. Have each child identify individual wants and needs. If the child is scheduled for day camp and that is not something that they “want to do” have them also come up with alternative ideas that would make their summer fun (i.e. going to Six Flags, going to the beach, etc.). Also, if the child views day camp as non-preferred, the parent can then share positives about going to camp (i.e. getting to swim, play with friends, engage in sports) to challenge previous negative thinking and facilitate smoother, morning time transitions.
  2. Establish Routines. Arrange for everyone to come together to determine daily structure in the home so that there are no surprises. Calling a family meeting can be helpful to debunk the child’s “lax” expectations for summer vacation and reinstate a more appropriate daily system. If the child wishes to do art all day, or swim, or sleep, the parent can work to structure these unstructured activities to create routine and clear boundaries.
  3. Research activities as a family. Allow your child to collaborate on what activities sound like fun for the family to engage in. Asking for your child’s ideas about weekend plans can help them feel empowered and demonstrate the art of compromise.
  4. Get outside. Summer presents a great opportunity to maximize play-based skills and physical activity. Encourage your child to be outside at least an hour a day to boost their mood, release energy, and provide alternative means for parent-child bonding.
  5. Maintain academic skills. Although summer is a fun time to engage in a plethora of recreational activities, it can also include some reality-based activities. When a child is out of school for several months, it is important that some academic tasks happen regularly to reduce risk for losing skills and to maintain gains. Identify a variety of subjects or tasks for the child to pick from and determine a set frequency of engaging in this activity (i.e. math workbook, reading, writing tasks, etc.).

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NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview and Des Plaines. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (877) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates today!