VALDOSTA – Valdosta State University graduate students in communication sciences and disorders joined community leaders in Read Across America at Lowndes 1 Head Start. 

Valdosta City Councilwoman Vivian Miller-Cody, Kristen Hinson and Sarabeth Gaskins read “The Ear Book” and “Are You My Mother?” to the preschoolers, university officials said. 

The Head Start students answered questions and gestured as they interacted with the story. They also played a simple phonological awareness game as they clapped out the syllables in each child’s name.

Each semester, graduate students from VSU’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders can be found leading Language Group at Lowndes 1 Head Start. The students, who are learning to be speech-language pathologists, work with small groups of preschoolers focusing on language and literacy skills.

Through this seven-year-long collaboration with Coastal Plains Head Start, Karen Noll, clinical faculty at VSU, has been training future SLPs in the techniques used in early intervention.