Goodbye Questions! Hello to Conversation!

You have probably noticed that when adults are talking with children, adults tend to rely heavily on questions. “What’s that?” “Is that a truck?” “Do you like playing with cars?” “Are you excited for daddy to come home?”

When children are asked a question, a child is required to only provide a limited response, usually only one word. Many times, the questions we ask are of things we already know the answer to, there is really only one response a child can give. This, unintentionally, shuts down a child’s novel ideas and novel language. If we shift our conversational pattern away from questions and towards comments, we have the potential to shift daily moments into powerful opportunities for learning.

Three main reasons that comments are more powerful than questions:

1)    A comment seeks novel information and requires the child to use multiple parts of the brain in constructing a reply.

·      Instead of vocabulary recall (What’s that? “truck”), a child needs to process what the adult is saying and construct a novel response. When a response is novel, new pathways are being formed between different parts of the brain.

2)    A comment has the potential to keep the conversation going and this supports both novel language development as well as the interaction and relationship between the adult and child.

·      A question tends to shut a conversation down. It provides for one-turn in the conversation.

o   Adult: “What’s that?”

Child: “A truck.”

·      A comment provides limitless possibilities for conversational turns. There is no number that comments are limited to.

o   Adult: “My truck is going fast!”

o   Child: “My truck is passing your truck!”

o   Adult: “Oh no! I gotta go faster!”

o   Etc..

3)   Comments help the child have the freedom to decide what they want to talk about.

·      When we ask questions, we may be limiting the freedom of thought and ideas a child can have or may even be unintentionally telling a child their thoughts and ideas are wrong.

o   Adult looking at what a child drew: “Is that your mommy?”

o   Child: “NO. I was drawing robot!”

·      An alternative for questions about pictures is to simply comment on factual things that you see on the paper.

o   “Wow! You used purple right here!”

o   “There are so many circles!”

 

References

Pepper, J., & Weitzman, E. (2004). It Takes Two to Talk: A practical guide for parents of children with language delays (2nd ed.). Toronto: The Hanen Centre.

The Bear Snores On

This week we focused on the word "NEXT." We read the book "The Bear Snores On." We read this book with some rhythm. The kids helped me tap out the rhythm of the book. For some kids with speech and/or language disorders rhythm can be a little tricky. It can be great to add in some rhythm with book reading and nursery rhymes to help support that skill. It's also fun : )

Amanda K helped me record our story so you could see how we used rhythm to help tell our story this week.

After the story, Ms Manda (Wed/Thur) and Ms Ramos (Tues/Wed) pretended to be the bear. It was hilarious, the kids loved it. This was our activity card for the week.

Jingle Bells

For the month of December, we are working on the "J" sound!! The "J" sound is the same as "ch" but for "J" your voice is on. In order to make this sound, keep your teeth closed and push your lips out. Sometimes we pretend that we are making a kiss face for our mom. You can also tell your child to make the sound "strong" and practice while stomping their feet. You can use a visual cue when producing this sound of a thumb on one side of the mouth and your two fingers on the other and then push them together as you make a "J" sound.

Children often do not produce this sound accurately until age 4 - 4.5. Click here to see more information regarding developmental norms for sound acquisition (it is not good to rely too much on developmental sound charts.... but nice for general reference).

This WEEK we are talking about basic concepts/opposite words, and sometimes verbs with our activity. Basic concepts and opposites can be really, really challenging for children to learn completely. Kids often demonstrate fuzzy knowledge about basic concepts and may not use them accurately, or even more likely, they often do not produce them at all when we would expect them to.

Basic concept knowledge heavily impacts a child's academic performance. Teacher's use nothing but basic concepts all day every day. For more information about basic concepts and how to work on them at home, I attached a link to a basic concept handout from Super Duper.

As always, things are funnest for kids to be exposed to (and secretly be working on, without even knowing it!) IN PLAY. If you would like me to model how to do this let me know. I would be more than happy to make a video if anyone out there would find it helpful.
Our activity card for the week:

Pronouns : )

This week one of our main targets for large group is the repetitive production of subjective pronouns he, she, and they.

In general, children produce their subjective pronouns accurately before the age of 4. When I say subjective pronouns, this includes: I, you, we, he, she and they. A list of developmental norms can be found here (lists subjective pronouns as developing prior to 34 months) or a list of language developmental in general between 3 and 4 years can be found here.

When a child has been using a substitution of another pronoun for a long time, it can be hard to break the habit.

Common substitutions:

• Her for she ("Her got it!")
• Him for he ("Him got it!")
  
• He for she ("He got it!" - when it is a female)
• Me for I ("Me got it!")
• Us for we ("Us did it!")

Most often, I see kiddos use an objective pronoun for subjective (substitution of him/her/me/them/us for he/she/I/they/we).

Substitution patterns take a lot of practice to correct. 

I find it most beneficial to model "I" or "she" or "he" as much as humanly possibly (my goal is over 100 times in 5 minutes) - matching your actions to what the child is currently doing - and find a good way to chant "I" ("Tell me who wants cookies?? I do! I do! I do! I do!"). 

At home to practice this skill you can follow a child's lead during a brief ten minute play time, match the child's play, and see how often you can model "I, she, he"!

• Examples:
• Playing blocks
• I got blue! I got green! Oh nice I got a red! I have it. I have the red. I do. I have it! I see yours! I see green. I see red. I see it! I'm building. Am I?? I am! I'm building. etc..
• Here is Mama Bear. She has a block! She has green. She has blue. She has two! She is building. She is helping me build. She is working. Yes she is. Is she?
• Eating snack
• I want popcorn. I want more. I need some. I really do. I really do need some. I love it! Can I have more? Can I? I can!! Yes!! I can. I'm eating. I ate it! etc..
• Ooo Daddy has popcorn too! Yes he does. Look he has it! He has more. He has the most. He is eating. He is. He really is. He loves it! Do you think he does? He does. He looks like he does. etc..

Don't talk too fast, leave time for your child to talk, and don't panic when they keep using the wrong target.

Also, on another positive note, working on any subjective pronoun can have a positive influence on the other ones. Let me know if you would like to talk more about your individual child and pronouns! See below for books to read that target he/she.

amanda.burr@canyonsdistrict.org

I just have listed things as I had time, I have more book ideas. Also, when I read through them to bombard a target, I make up my own sentence to add in even more repetition.

A Leaf Is On My Head

This week for large group we sang "Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down" and talked about the leaves we have seen by our houses. The leaves are getting ready for the cold winter. For abstract concepts like this, Kiddos need to hear about it multiple times.

Early language - Point out "leaves", "falling", and "colors"

Middle language - Use longer phrases to talk about how "the leaves are falling" and "changing colors"

Later language - Talk about the sequencing (first little buds/flower, then they open up and are green, then they change colors red/orange/yellow, then they fall), why leaves start changing colors, and falling off of the trees

We each got to pick a leaf and then we took turns being the leader to decide where we put the leaf on our bodies.

We then sang a song to the tune of the "Farmer In the Dell" about where we had put our leaf (I know, I use "Farmer In the Dell" A LOT - it is my all purpose tune, its the best). 

My leaf is on my head,
My leaf is on my head,
Hi-Ho the derry-O!!
My leaf is on my head!

Targeted:

• Concept - Autumn, falling leaves
• Body parts
• Prepositions
• /h/ sound

We also discussed our horse sound - /h/ and tried to figure out if anyone in the class started with "H." We thought of a lot of other words that started with our horse sound too (Hi Ho, Hand, Head, House)!!

Also, this week because of the short week, I am going to see all of the kids individually but for large group my schedule is as follows: Monday - Mrs. Ramos, Tuesday - Ms Manda, and Wednesday - Mr Nate (the Boo Book).

Who Hid the Mummy?

We learned a new song this week at the beginning of large group for autumn!!

              Leaves are falling all around
              On the housetops,
              On the ground,
              Leaves are falling on my nose,
              On my head and hands and toes!

There is a link at the bottom of this post if you would like to know the melody. There are a ton of awesome vocabulary words embedded in that super short song.

After singing and talking about autumn, we played a game where we hid a Halloween Mummy and then found it.

Ms Amanda/Bee told us that when she got to school, she noticed that someone had taken her mummy out of hid bed and had HID it. So then we played a game where we closed our eyes and Ms Amanda/Bee hid the mummy behind one of us. We then patted our legs while we chanted.....
     "Who took the mummy from the mummy's bed?"

We then took turns guessing who had taken it.  If we couldn't remember the name of the kid we wanted to guess, or could not say it, we used a picture on the iPad to point to that said the name of the kid we were guessing.

If we had the mummy we would say "Yes, I have the mummy!" or if we didn't have the mummy we said "No, I don't have the mummy."

We had fun guessing who had the baby and then at the end, we put the mummy back in his bed so he could take his nap.

This week we also started talking about our quiet "Horse Sound" ---- /h/. We put our hands in front of our mouths so we could feel how that sound feels HOT!

Our Horse Sound -  h   -  h   -   h

Popcorn Popping

During large group this week we figured out who had a name that started with our popcorn sound. We had to figure it out. Hmmmm... Pamanda... hmmm no... It's not Pamanada it's AMANDA. Then we looked at some popcorn kernels, touched them, and talked about what happens when they get really really hot! We pretended to be popcorn kernels—curled up tight, got really hot, then popped open!  We then popped our own popcorn with our air popper while practicing our /p/ sound (Pop! Pop! Pop!). We gathered up popcorn kernels and put them in our cups and ate them! While we were eating popcorn, we watched and listened to the book “Popcorn” by Frank Asch. This activity can be extended at home by watching Frank Asch’s book online, talking about what happened, and finding objects that begin with the /p/ sound in your home.

           

Language Targets:

•  Paste tense regular and irregular: picked it up, poured, popped, placed, held, ate, came out, and stuffed
•  /p/: Auditory bombardment, production in initial and final position, phonemic awareness

Google: “Frank Asch Popcorn”, click on second link down or go to:

http://www.frankasch.com/popcorn.swf