Student Engagement & Wellbeing News
Communication at Home
Caregivers are at the advantageous position to provide children with language rich experiences through fun interactions within a responsive relationship. These strategies can include actions such as turn taking opportunities, development of routines and patterns, use of conversational devices and interactions based in play, predictable actions and repeated exposure.
Developing oral language skills
Strong vocabulary and oral language skills form the foundation of literacy and academic success. A solid foundation of oral language helps children become successful readers and strong communicators. These skills also instil a child’s confidence and overall sense of wellbeing.
The development of these skills requires a rich language environment which in turn creates a high-quality learning environment. A rich language environment is one in which there are regular and varied language experiences. This can be achieved through:
- play
- building connection between actions and objects
- engagement in conversations
- sharing songs, rhymes and games
- expand, scaffold and model conversations
- develop routines
- shared reading activities
Discuss the activities that you engage in. Model sentences, ask questions, see if you can think of many synonyms to talk about the experience. For example, if you went on a bike ride and they said it was a ‘big’ ride, what other words could you use? E.g. “I went on a huge bike ride”.
If your child is still establishing their understanding of syntax (meaning sentence structure and tense in this case) then you can easily support them by being a good language role model. If they say a sentence that is not quite correct, reform their words into a correct sentence, and repeat it back. Without the pressure, you will find that they correct themselves and start to improve.
*Take photos of your interaction. Ask your child' s teacher if you could give them a copy to talk or write about during class. This could be a great intrinsic motivator for reluctant learners and writers.
Anna Gbikpi-Benissan