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Language disorders and stories(13 Posts)
Hi all! Lots f you will know me, I am HEing ds (7) who has a severe language disorder plus what is now quite extreme behaviour rather than quirky!
We have been doing a lot of Montessori style teaching and Language for Thinking and Language Builder, though the last 2 are hard to plod through some days.
I wanted to share something that has been really helping ds. I think you should all try it (sorry can't think of a less "up myself" way of saying that)
It's to help first with understanding stories, and to help with recounting stories, and I am hoping with creating stories (but we haven't got that far).
Choose your story (we are doing goldilocks and the 3 bears at he moment because on big little, hard soft, etc)
Get a basket and fill it with main characters (3 teddies and a doll) and props (luckily we have masses of tatty plastic dolls house stuff etc and bowls and spoons). Nothing has to be to scale.
Get out basket and read story laying out characters as you mention them and props. This stage is about showing the vocab.
Next stage is to act out the story as it is read. Bears say their parts etc. Give some bits for dc to do, slowly pulling away to a more minor role yourself.
It is amazing how much he gets out of this exercise. Fully engaged and instructing, correcting and improving our efforts. He discusses how to set up. Who is what part. Why goldilocks is scared when she wakes up.
We have been working on it for about 6 sessions, but will move on as soon as I have laminated all of Tiddlers friends
I plan to do this wth lots of different books and then try to make the leap into inventing our own stories. I provide the props in a basket and he makes up a tale. I honestly think it is the best thing we have done for his language for ages.
We do it in that gap between food and bath.
Seems a bit batty to be posting this now. I'd love to hear any ideas the rest of you have tried.
Thank you. This is a lovey idea. I can see my 5 year old loving this and something my 8 year old would enjoy helping out with.
Believe it or not zzzzz, schools are meant to use this approach, when the literacy hour first came out[years ago when i was a ta], we had some really good training about using props.
We use them in a similar way at preschool.
Really glad it is making learning fun for you and your Ds
It seems to be unlocking large parts of the story fo him. There is something very powerful ( I *so don't talk like this in RL!) about physicaly moving the characters around, the lack of scale seems a positive and pleasing to the process, the basket of stuff adds an element of anticipation, and it is very unconfrontational. The basket sits there tempting him into the process.
Ineed ds has of course really always needed props, because his language problems are very severe. It's the acting out that has helped and the three dimensions rather than just pictures. His problems will always have something in common with the preschool stage as this is when the vast majority of children hone their language skills, though he is intellectually at least in line with his chronological age.
Of course it is possible that ds is just going through a language spurt. But I think not. We do lots and lots of literacy related/language related work. This seems to be having a big impact on his language.
I would be interested to hear if anyone else sees a similar effect and also any other activities that you feel encourage language in your language disordered child.
Sounds like a great idea and a lot of fun....I'll be trying it.
I also do this with my son for different stories even peppa pig and thomas characters playing in stories and sometimes he likes to have a doll in there to represent himself. It is amazing how he is able to remember stories if we play this way.
you sound like you've hit the zone........ inspirational stuff
Your point is very important zzz.
There is something extremely powerful about being able to communicate through another entity and I have on many occassions seen how using hand puppets and dolls can really help with this.
The issue is how to use this in a precise and measurable way.
I am very interested in Victoria Joffe's (academic and s/lt and a great woman) latest publication[[ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Narrative-Intervention-Programme-Victoria-Joffe/dp/086388797X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351152011&sr=1-1 Narrative Intervention Programme]]
It looks as if it addresses this area quite well but I need to check it out in more detail because I am not interested in anything that does not provide a clear measurable curriculum.
Sorry you are finding LFT a plodder!
I love it but the measurement system is weak and makes it hard for the person delivering to monitor progress in a fine tuned fashion. I have created my own way of doing so which works very well indeed and I have really good feedback from all the staff who deliver it.
If you email me, I can send it to you.
Gosh yes I remember doing this for my dd when she was 4yo and had a severe language problem. We would borrow sets of puppets from the toy library, print out and cut our own finger puppets from the www and it really took the 'work' out of developing language.
Other things that worked was discussing concepts such as ''who' using story books and just talking about who was in them, nothing else, whether we could use 'he' or 'she' etc. Ditto family photos etc.
Also predicting starting with 'what happened LAST' in the story (which is actually easier than what happened first!). And then going backwards.
moondog I want to sit down and read this properly, which given the current atmosphere at home isn't going to happen for a couple of days (half term). It looks great though. Thank you.
It isn't really LFT is a plodder. It's brilliant and I am a advocate. Ds had a really bad term at school last term and LFT was delivered throughout, so it has poor associations for him which makes it hard for us.
As far as progress and measurablilty, I have resorted to video and then playing back every month, entirely subjective! I would love to hear a more measurable approach (tis my nature) but will read first.
Ooh handy I will try "what happened last", .that sounds right up our street.
You see that's why I love this place, so to the point.
Headsprout Reading Comprehension very good for allowing a child to gather the main points, jist and structure from information but it is focussed on reading and not oral language.
Another option, if you have time is to take a simple story (eg Goldilocks) and come up with a structure for questions?
What mostly about?
Who are characters?
Where does it happen?
What happens first
'' '' next
'' '' last
It is pretty hard to maintain a coherent measurable structure throughout however without professional guidance.
What is lovely about LFT is there are a lot of spin off activities (in the back). Worksheets to draw, write about what happened next and so on.
The symbols used for what/when/who and so on are very useful too and we have them up in the class. They are good to show kids as an additinoal stimulus when you ask them 'wh' questions and really need to flag up precise meaning of them.
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