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Ways to Engage Your Reluctant Writer
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Ways to Engage Your Reluctant Writer

Language, Learning, Literacy

Ways to Engage Your Reluctant Writer

Does your young child or a child your educate need assistance, not just with writing, but to find the ‘joy’ in writing?

This is a dilemma we face frequently particularly when working with school aged children who have struggled with speech and language skills since their preschool years.

They have often followed the trajectory of finding school work difficult. Learning to read and spell has been hard going and the task of writing a narrative or expository text seems not only insurmountable but also just very unappealing.

It can be tricky to help these students. We can only improve our writing by writing but how do you do this when the student is lacking in skill, motivation, confidence and interest?

Aaah…that last word….interest. Harness their interest to find a spark and you might be surprised by how quickly a student can move from being disengaged to finding a love of writing.

Find what interests the child…what lights the fire in their belly?

For one of my students this Term, that fire has been all things Pokemon and Star Wars. I can’t say that I know much at all about either of these topics but I am quickly learning. It has not taken much digging to find a plethora of ideas out there to harness my student’s interest in these topics and to funnel this interest into a range of writing tasks.

We have had so much fun expanding our vocabulary and knowledge about these mythical creatures using resources freely available such as this beauty https://www.scribd.com/document/521042181/3

We have been able to look at foundational decoding skills by breaking the names into syllables to read accurately and to highlight the trickier spellings of consonants and vowel sounds.

We have also been able to use the names of Pokemon to target spelling with a focus upon mapping speech sounds to graphemes / letters.

Our Pokemon themed sessions have also provided plenty of ideas for planning narratives using these interesting characters. Targeting oral and written narrative has so many far reaching benefits for all children but particularly for those who struggle with language and literacy. Using scaffolds such as these Narrative Scaffolds Narrative Scaffolds with a Pokemon theme doesn’t feel like hard work at all for students who have a strong interest in these little critters.

If Star Wars is more your thing….

It only takes a quick Google and you will have so many fresh ideas to incorporate this interest into a writing task. Whether it is a narrative, a description or information report, an opinion piece or any writing text you are targeting…there is an idea within the Star Wars theme that will work.

Remember that writing doesn’t have to be an all or nothing task either. Why not help children who struggle to get started with writing to brainstorm all they know about a topic (and believe me..students who are interested in Star Wars know A LOT about this topic). Encourage the students to write each idea or word on a single strip of paper. At this stage, they […]

Karen Trengove2023-05-30T04:58:51+00:00

Kicking Goals in Early Childhood Communication
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Kicking Goals in Early Childhood Communication

Language, Learning, Speech

Kicking Goals in Early Childhood Communication

So now you have profiled a child’s communicative strengths and challenges

and have some ideas brewing for where you would like to start.

Things can get pretty overwhelming at this stage so here a few helpful suggestions for communication goals that can be targeted in early childhood settings during natural routines and play:

“What will make the most difference to this child’s life?”

When looking at your profile of communication strengths and challenges, this is a vital question to ask as you sit back and reflect upon where to start.

SPEECH: What speech sound difficulties are those that are most impacting intelligibility and clarity for this child? These might be good sounds to start working on if developmentally appropriate. https://learn2communicate.com.au/product/speech-development-a-toolkit-for-early-childhood-educators/

RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE: At what times of the day does the child’s difficulties with understanding language most impact his or her capacity to engage with activities, routines and play? Perhaps it is when needing to follow instructions during transition times. Maybe it is when required to listen and respond during story time on the mat or when responding to questions for early morning circle time.

EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE: Are there situations where communication breaks down because a child is unable to effectively convey his or her ideas using words or short sentences? Does this ever result in frustration for you or for the child?

SOCIAL COMMUNICATION: Have you noticed particular patterns of challenge related to the child’s difficulties in understanding and using the many unwritten rules of social interaction and play. Perhaps the child is struggling to understand the concept of turns or does not seem to comprehend when his or her actions have upset a playmate. Maybe the child’s ability to play has stalled and the child is yet to play with a variety of items in a reciprocal and imaginative manner. This may be restricting their ability to positive engage with peers.

Take Small Steps to Achieve Communication Goals

As I have often said…my advice is that less is more. Choose no more than 3 small things to start working towards the child achieving in your early childhood setting. Choose goals that are important, that have meaning to the child, are developmentally appropriate and that will make a significant difference for your child.

Keep goals small, really specific and achievable to target in natural early childhood routines.

Achieving these small goals helps the child to inch towards achieving those big, longer term goals whilst being motivated by small wins and success along the way.

Some examples might include:

XX will understand and follow 2 step instructions during lunch time e.g. “Get you lunch box…..and get your hat”.

Remember to also note the supports that you are going to infuse into these goals to set the child up for success. In the above example it might be that you will call the child’s name first, get down to their level, place yourself face to face with the child when giving the instruction and slow your speech down. You might also include gestures such as pointing and pictures of the items that the […]

Karen Trengove2023-04-24T03:48:45+00:00

Talking Time with your Child…Make it an Atomic Habit
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Talking Time with your Child…Make it an Atomic Habit

Autism, Language, Social Communication, Speech

Talking Time with your Child…Make it an Atomic Habit

I have recently been reflecting upon how our daily habits all contribute to our long term health and wellbeing after reading the bestselling book ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear. For those of you who attended our face to face Learn2Communicate events throughout the Central West of NSW earlier in 2022, you would already know this. I haven’t stopped thinking about the idea of applying this concept to my work as a Speech Pathologist. How can we make small and easy changes to our daily routines and interactions with children in a way that will have a powerful impact?

We know that children respond well to frequent, positive interactions with a loving caregiver and that child acquisition of oral language skills can be boosted in the early years via such interactions. As a Speech Pathologist and also as a Parent, I also know that providing families of children who have speech, language and communication challenges with comprehensive, detailed ‘home programmes’ in order to provide this boost to oral language can be ineffective. Add to this the request by the Speech Pathologist to “complete this home programme with your child at least 3-4 times per week and try to spend 15-30 minutes during each practice time” and we see many parents opting to run for the hills!

What if we could, instead, infuse some new powerful habits into everyday routines and that these habits were easy yet effective in helping all children become effective communicators?

How can we make Talking Time with Children a new Atomic Habit that each and every one of us can adopt?

Here are some ideas I would encourage all of you to consider!

Start by identifying what the exisiting routines are during your day that involve you and your child.

Write these down. A routine doesn’t have to have many steps; it is simply just something that happens on several days each week with some degree of predictability. Some examples I can think of with a toddler in mind might be: getting into the car seat, packing a bag for daycare, bath time, story time at night, getting dressed, breakfast, snack, lunch and dinner time, parent returning home from work time, bed time. Perhaps keep a blank piece of paper on the fridge for a week and note every small little routine that you can think of as it occurs.