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As speech-language pathologists, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing our students succeed. To support our students in every setting, we also love to see parent engagement to ensure even more carry over of goals. Check out our tips and tricks to increase speech and language parent involvement to improve student success!
Introduce Yourself!!!
The best way to encourage and involve parents to be a part of their child’s speech and language progress is to make sure they can reach you! Whether it is the beginning of the school year or an initial evaluation, we like to introduce ourselves and provide the best contact information to parents.
We have a simple (and FREE) Editable Meet The SLP Template in our TPT store. This is a great tool for introducing yourself to your students as well as teachers and parents. Hang on your speech office door for cute decor or send home as a formal introduction.
Areas to edit include name, favorites, about me, and contact information. Just add your picture and use your favorite fonts to personalize! Perfect way to build rapport with parents and increase their involvement!
Speech & Language Notebooks
The number one question we get from parents is how can they help and support their child at home. To better show exactly what happens in our sessions, we send a weekly notebook with an activity to review at home or an extension activity for carry over. If a student completes their speech homework and parents sign the notebook, students can pick a sticker or choose the game during their next speech and language session!
Many, many parents over the years have said they really appreciate these speech and language notebooks. Not only do students get additional practice at home, but parents feel more involved and understand exactly how IEP goals are targeted in sessions.
Read More Here: SLP Tips For Collaboration with SW, OT, PT, Teachers, & Parents
Weekly (or Monthly) Parent Email
Since I have made the switch to preschool this year, Mandy (the veteran pre-k SLP 😉) has shared with me how she communicates with her families. Typically, she will send a monthly email with the rest of her team to share the month’s theme and suggested activities for all of the related services.
I have found that weekly parent contact works better with my schedule! So every Friday I send an email with the YouTube link to the book we read during the week, extension BOOM Card activities, and a fun song. Just recently I have started taking pictures of manipulatives used throughout the week to get students chatting about what we did!
Check out the email example below of my weekly parent involvement and extension activities! (We happened to be doing a bug theme this week…shout out to Speech Tree Co. for the awesome worm visual!)
Want another freebie to build even more rapport with parents? We have the easiest SLP Parent Teacher Conference Form to review your students’ strengths and goals with teachers or parents during conference season.
Also Read: 5 Parent Teacher Conference Tips For SLPs
We hope you found these parent involvement tips and tricks helpful! Do you have a tried and true way to communicate with your speech and language parents? Drop us a comment below to share! We would love to hear how you increase parent involvement!
Kate & Mandy
Talking Mama Bears
