Today is wAcKy WeDnEsDaY! Humor for Kids with Hearing Loss!

Today is wAcKy WeDnEsDaY! The Wednesday before April Fools Day is when we read aloud this classic book and focus on absurdities for listening language and vocabulary building.

Describing and explaining What’s Wrong? is an activity that kids love. An instant smile appears when a child sees a duck wearing rubber boots or that is raining under an umbrella.

When a child can talk about why it is crazy an airplane has bird wings, they are using reasoning skills and making inferences.

wAcKy WeDnEsDaY is one of my favorite books with rhymes that make reading fun and enjoyable, while the crazy pictures encourage kids to get involved in the story.

Grab these Free Jokes each month created to develop humor in kids with hearing loss. https://bit.ly/3iZZuSfFreeJokesFromLynn

https://www.amazon.com/Wacky-Wednesday-Beginner-Books-R/dp/0394829123

World Emoji Day and Listening and Language Ideas For Kids With Hearing Loss

Happy 😊 World Emoji Day! The word “emoji” is made up of two different words: 'e' for picture and ‘moji’ is for character. Emojis attempt to fill the space when written communication happens virtually.

Kids ❤️ emojis and so do we! My Emoji cookie cutters and play dough is a fun activity for kids with hearing loss learning to listen and talk.

Try these ideas for growing listening and language with emojis.

1. 😊 For little listeners, emojis are a great way to target emotions, happy, sad, surprised...

2. Can the child listen 🦻🏼 (don't look) to a phrase of identical words and identify the intended emotion?

Where is my 🐶 puppy? - 😊 Happy tone 🦻🏼

Where is my 🐶 puppy? -🤨 Angry tone 🦻🏼

Where is my 🐶 puppy? -🥺 Scared tone 🦻🏼

3. World Emoji Day It's a great way to begin a discussion about different ways people communicate, even across language barriers, and how we express sentiment.

Do you have a favorite emoji? What ones do you use most frequently?

Visit my Listen With Lynn store for games, activities, and resources for children that are deaf and hard of hearing learning to listen and talk.

Multiple Meaning Words And Children With Hearing Loss

🐸 Toad or Towed?

Homophones are words that sound the same as a toad 🐸 and towed 🛻-🚗 but are spelled differently and have different meanings. There are over 7700 homophones in the English language and many puns, jokes, and cartoons are based on homophones.

🐸 Children with limited vocabularies often struggle to understand and use multiple-meaning words. This negatively impacts their listening and reading comprehension.

🐸 Do you talk about contextually-based vocabulary and metacognitive skills with kids with hearing loss?

In LSL auditory verbal therapy, I offer tips and strategies for parents to help their children understand jokes and why they are funny. This expands the children’s vocabulary and grows flexible language skills like multiple-meaning words, idioms, puns. Memorizing jokes grow auditory memory skills, encourages clear speech when retelling, and builds perspective-taking and social skills.

April Fool’s Pranks Create A Reason For Kids To Think, Listen and Talk For Kids With Hearing Loss

MOOD COLOR CI speech processors.
Show the world your true covers! The color of your processors changes with your moods.
This April Fools joke never gets old.

Today is one of my favorite therapy days for listeners of all ages. April Fool’s Day creates a reason for your child to think, listen and talk.
Put your toddler in a bathtub with no water or give them a juice box without a straw.
Read a book upside down to your preschooler or serve ice cream sundaes for dinner. April Fools!
Silly faces, peekaboo, and unexpected tickles connect toddlers and parents. Funny business, like silly words to a song or wearing underwear as a hat tickles a child’s sense of humor.

Kid’s get a kick out of talking about silly situations. Slapstick humor leads to understanding riddles, knock-knock jokes, puns, and even sarcasm for older kids. Humor is evidence of brain development and growing listening, spoken language, and social skills.

Snag these FREE riddles and jokes for all 12 months of the year!

I’m All Ears! SAY WHAT? Fun With Idioms

The I’m All Ears resource makes teaching idioms a piece of cake. Teaching idioms may seem intimidating at first. It doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult. There is step by step teaching suggestions for starting simple and how to spend time explaining the figurative language of idioms.

I’m All Ears is a well-loved, humorous listening and language bookmaking activity. Children listen to a given idiom then draw a picture of what they literally heard. Say What? An idiom is a saying that has a meaning that is different from its literal words. To a child, the "laugh out loud" drawings in their book are a source of humor, fun but are brain-building opportunities. The DIY books help children understand and use idioms spontaneously. This activity builds vocabulary, expands high-level language skills of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. Understanding and using all types of figurative language plays an essential role in spoken and written language, pragmatics, and communication competence.

Children with typical hearing, learn idioms through incidental exposure without having to be taught. Whereas, children who are deaf and hard of hearing often require explicit and direct instruction especially with higher-level language like idioms. Idioms are challenging for children that process information literally and have a concrete or limited vocabulary.

This resource has easy to follow step by step suggestions for incorporating idioms into therapy or academic lessons. Included are the following -

TWENTY idiom activity sheets are included to begin the I’m All Ears DIY books.

NO PREP - Print a set for each child, open on an iPad drawing app or share the PDF in teletherapy.

Listening and Spoken Language (LSL) Tips

1. Ensure optimal access to sound with the child's hearing devices which is essential for overhearing. Research indicates that ninety percent of learning takes place incidentally.

2. Idioms are abstract. Teach with real experiences for new vocabulary to stick. 

3. Provide lots of exposure to the targeted idiom in multiple contexts.

4. Say the idiom (In one ear and out the other.) then WAIT. Give the child time to process what they heard. 

5. Use the child’s Auditory Feedback Loop by asking what they heard before repeating the idiom.

6. Teach the idioms in complete sentences. This allows for learning how the idiom relates to other grammatical structures as part of an auditory mental map.

7. Read aloud daily. Books introduce unusual vocabulary like idioms that may not come up every day but are important for the child to have in their repertoire.

8. Laugh at the humor!