The first post celebrating my 2nd Bloggy B-day is from the brilliant infant and toddler SLP, Kimberly Scanlon, M.A. CCC-SLP, owner of her own private practice and author of My Toddler Talks.  Learn more about her while following her blogs www.mytoddlertalks.com and www.scanlonspeech.com. You can also find her on facebook, pinterest, and twitter.  

Let me begin with a big birthday shout out:

“Happy Birthday, Maria!”

Thank you so much for asking me to participate in your 2^nd Bloggy Bday! I’m honored to be here and am excited to share some information about my book, My Toddler Talks: Strategies and Activities to Promote Your Child’s Language Development.

Let’s get started:

What is My Toddler Talks?

My Toddler Talks is an easy to read hands-on workbook that’s been described as “a go to resource”, “unintimidating and user-friendly”, “extremely helpful”, “a must have”, and my favorite –

“Homework for my Speechie Parents”

My Toddler Talks includes:

• Effective language stimulation tips, techniques and strategies used by professional speech therapists
• 25 fun play routines designed to improve your child’s speech and language skills

• Such as this one:

• Straightforward instructions with many examples to foster understanding and empowerment
• Step by step directions on how to elicit communication from your child
• Charts to monitor progress with your child
• A system to track your child’s word growth
• Ways to incorporate speech development activities into your daily routines
• Recommended goals to drive results

• Sneak Peek:

I created My Toddler Talks with parents and caregivers very much in mind. I purposefully wrote in a straightforward, accessible style because I wanted to appeal to readers from all different educational backgrounds and walks of life. My Toddler Talks is the perfect resource for parents, grandparents and caregivers. It’s also a wonderful accompaniment to early intervention or speech therapy. Many of my most satisfied readers are ones who have already consulted with a speech therapist and read my book as a way to further practice at home.

My Toddler Talks is also very helpful for professionals such as speech therapy graduate students, early childhood educators, occupational and physical therapists and even other speech language pathologists who are new to the early intervention field and in need of some language development techniques and activities.

What is it NOT?

There are 25 fun step-by-step play routines in my book. BUT , My Toddler Talks is not meant to be an activity book. The real value in my play routines are the detailed instructions. If you are learning how to purposefully play to develop language, then my play routines will greatly help you. I don’t feel a child needs to have an endless supply of fancy toys or overly elaborate play activities to improve his or her language. I intentionally incorporated popular toys that could easily be found in most households. I don’t want readers to feel compelled to go out and buy new materials or products. It’s not the uniqueness of a toy or complexity of an activity that will get your child talking. It’s how you use a toy, how you interact, and how you implement a strategy or technique into your play that will be most effective. My book is a good resource on how to acquire some necessary skills to get a toddler talking. Once you learn my play routine approach, then you can essentially take any toy or basic object – let’s face it, sometimes toddlers are happy just opening and closing an umbrella or trying on your shoes – and apply it!

Enter to win a copy!

For Maria’s bday bloggy, we’ll be raffling off 3 copies of My Toddler Talks!

The only requirement is that you complete this sentence in the comments section of this post:

My (or a) toddler makes me smile when ____________…

Please understand that your entry WILL BE ELIMINATED if you do not follow the directions and comment on this blog post! Thank you!  The winners will be announced this Friday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You didn’t win? Don’t worry! We still have an AMAZING discount just for YOU!

If you don’t win a copy, I’m sorry…BUT – Here’s a 40% discount code: W227N53C Please click here to visit the publisher’s site and enter the discount code through the month of July 2014.  Grab this awesome discount while it lasts!

My Toddler Talks is also available on sale at Amazon.com (shipping is free for prime members) as well as at Barnesandnoble.com.

If you prefer reading on a tablet, I’ve got that covered too! It’s directly downloadable on the Kindle. If you have an iPad, no sweat – just download the kindle app and you can download the e-book version. Wait, there’s more – if you purchase the paperback version and you have the kindle or kindle app, you get the e-book version for FREE!

Lastly, if you’re not ready to make a purchase, that’s fine too. I share lots of free worksheets, handouts, and tips exclusively with folks who subscribe to my newsletter.

Here’s a little of what I share:

Thank you once again, Maria for asking me to participate. Have a fantastic birthday!

Kimberly Scanlon, MA, CCC-SLP is a licensed and certified speech language pathologist. In addition to running her private practice, she is a devoted mom, wife, and dog lover. Currently, she is working on writing and illustrating her second book. For more tips, inspiration, and helpful posts and articles, please visit her blogs www.mytoddlertalks.com and www.scanlonspeech.com. You can also follow her on facebook, pinterest, and twitter.