What is Tiny Talkers?

Tiny Talkers is a delightful language enrichment program designed for preschool age children. Each class is 50 minutes long and is crafted to target age appropriate communication skills. Classes will follow a theme related to a book of the week, including a sensory bin, a messy play or art activity, gross motor activity, and open play. We'll be building vocabulary, supporting language development and phonological (sound) awareness, practicing pre-literacy skills, as well as getting lots of practice with peer-to-peer social interactions. Parents are encouraged to participate and will receive a parent handout each week with ideas for how to extend the learning through the following week!

These classes are an amazing opportunity if you’ve ever had questions or concerns about your child’s speech and language development or if your child could use a chance to practice their communication skills with a little extra support from a speech therapist, but you aren’t ready to pursue a full speech evaluation. They’re also a wonderful place for little ones to practice their social communication with peers in a structured setting. Tiny Talkers classes are also perfect for working on the executive function skills that are absolutely essential for success in nearly every part of life. Every class we will work together on the foundational skills of perception, attention, working memory, inhibition, as well as some higher level skills such as planning.

Did you know that all of us learn best when we involve as many senses as possible? This is why it’s so critical for small children to have tons of time to immerse themselves in play that involves their whole bodies and allows them to get messy! When we include more senses our brains make more connections within our nonverbal working memory (our internal representation of the world). Those connections are how we learn and how we retrieve information later. When we talk about play being the “work” of children, we really mean it! Tiny Talkers classes try to incorporate activities that involve many different sense, as well as drawing kids’ and parents’ attention to those senses, to maximize the learning and connections that their little brains make during our classes. The learning can then continue and solidify during the following week as parents follow the extension activities on the parent handout.

An extra bonus of this class is the opportunity for building parenting community! We try to schedule classes in playgrounds with parks so that there is a natural transition to letting the kids play together after the class is over, as well as giving parents an opportunity to connect with each other. The facilitating speech therapist schedules in some time after each class to chat with parents and answer questions as needed. This is a wonderful, low pressure situation to bring up any communication development concerns you’ve had about your child. We can even schedule a quick speech and language screening for your child after one of the classes, which takes about 15 minutes and helps to give us a quick snapshot of whether further assessment is needed.

FAQ:

Is this class appropriate for children who have typically developing language skills?

Yes, absolutely. We meet children at their current level in these classes, and help them build on the skill set they have. So for a child who has a limited vocabulary this might mean supporting them at the single word level. For a child who is further along in their language development, this might mean helping to build more complex grammatical structures, or more advanced semantic relationships (connections between words based on their meaning), making more complicated inferences, or early literacy skills.

Is this class appropriate for children who are already receiving speech therapy?

Definitely! The more high quality speech and language input and opportunities to practice their skills a child gets, the better their communication output. If you’d like, you can let me know in your registration form what your child’s current goals are with their speech therapist, and I’ll do my best to incorporate some gentle support of those goals when appropriate during my class.

I don’t see a class or location scheduled at a time that works for my family!

Please get in touch and let’s see if we can work something out! We need between 3-5 children to run a Tiny Talkers session, so if you can invite a couple friends then we’ve got a great class! Sessions can include a single class, a 4 or 8 week session, or we can even work with your child’s school to offer a full year’s worth of weekly classes. We’re very flexible and we’d love to meet your family’s needs.

Could you bring this class to my child’s preschool or daycare?

Possibly, depending on the location and the preferences of the school or daycare! We’re very happy to collaborate with parents and schools to find a plan that works for all parties.

Where do classes take place?

For a very small class (max 3 kids) we can meet in our clinic space in Haslett. For larger groups we can meet at a local park (a fun way to build community is to plan a play date on the playground with classmates after class) or we’re happy to collaborate with your child’s school or daycare to bring in Tiny Talkers classes. Families could even schedule private Tiny Talkers in their own backyards by inviting at least 2 friends to join in the fun. Get in touch and we can discuss!