The West Coast Language Development Centre designs, trials and runs parent workshops and programmes to develop their skills in supporting their child’s language, comprehension and early reading. Over the course of a year both teachers and speech pathologists collaborate to run and/or present either stand-alone parent workshops or a programme over several weeks. The workshops are held at various campuses to minimise travel time and to cater for as many parents as possible.
In 2018 the WCLDC developed and trialled a parent book sharing programme for pre-primary parents which runs over the course of a Term. The parents learn and practise specific book sharing strategies to support language development (both talking and understanding) through book sharing. The programme has been run across the Padbury, Poseidon, and Quinns sites with positive results for both parents and pre-primary students.
In 2019 a new Kindergarten programme was developed and trialled which aimed to teach parents effective strategies to support their child’s oral language development. Parents learn a new skill and have the opportunity to practise the skill in the classroom context supported by their child’s speech pathologist.
In 2021 a new Year 1 parent program is being trialed with a focus on Developmental Language Disorder and supporting your child.
Online Parent Workshops
There are some brief, online recorded workshops available for parents to view on the West Coast Language Development Centre Youtube channel. The current online recorded workshops available are:
Reading and Spelling
This is a two part workshop. The sessions provide a brief introduction to some of the key skills your child needs to read and spell.
Part 1 (23 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhY3mAGOOAk
Part 2 (26 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQcIeG6ky4A
What is Language?
This is a two part workshop. The sessions provide a brief introduction to Developmental Language Disorder and areas of language, including ideas of activities to support your child’s language at home.
Part 1 (13 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE0flqRBjqU
Part 2 (30 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOPIk6QqRJg