Practitioner Training

1. Practitioner Training

2. About Talk Boost KS1 • Small group intervention • Activities with groups of 3–4 children, three times a week for 10 weeks • 30–40 minutes each session with a teacher/teaching assistant Measures of children’s language and communication before and after Talk Boost KS1 Tracker and the Children’s attitude survey Children’s Activity Book Activities for children to take home and share with parents or carers • Whole class activities for class teachers • Linking small group activities to the class and supporting whole class speaking and listening skills

3. Course outline • Session 1 The importance of good speech, language and communication (SLC) skills • Session 2 Selecting children for Talk Boost KS1 • Session 3 Using Talk Boost KS1: Intervention Manual content and activities • Session 4 Teacher Manual, Children’s Activity Book, planning and questions

4. Warm-up activity Spend two minutes talking to the person next to you about your morning routine, from getting up to arriving at work: • How much of what you do depends on being able to use communication skills? • If you couldn’t communicate, what effect would that have?

5. Warm-up activity Now discuss: • Why do we communicate? • What skills do we need? • What would be the impact if we couldn’t communicate?

6. Session 1: The importance of good speech, language and communication (SLC) skills

7. Speech, language and communication • Speech • The sounds and sound combinations that are put together to make up words • Language • Understanding language (also known as comprehension or receptive language) • Talking (also known as expressive language) • Communication • Gives us a way of sharing feelings and emotions – a tool for giving and receiving information

8. Why do children need speaking and listening skills?

9. In order to learn, children need language • Speech sounds for reading and spelling • Use words and sentences to put their thoughts into text • Without language, there can be no reading or writing, maths, science, history or geography • Use their language to organise their thoughts: • explain • predict • problem solve • develop their understanding and thinking • clarify

10. Speech, language and communication lotto • The lotto board is divided into examples of speech, language and communication • Listen to the examples and decide which category is which • Place the card on the board when you’ve decided – there’s one example of each

11. Speech, language and communication lotto

12. Communication breakdown activity • Work in groups of three • One person takes a sentence and tries to get the message across to the others • They can’t use the words in bold • The others can ask questions to clarify the message

13. Speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) On their own or in any combination • Speechdifficulties, e.g. saying one sound instead of another • Communicationdifficulties, e.g. not looking or listening well. Interaction and communication is then impaired • Languagedifficulties, e.g. not using necessary words, or lack of understanding

14. SLCN fact or fiction activity • Children from economically deprived backgrounds are at considerable risk of language delay • SLCN is more common in boys than girls • By age 4 an average child would have experienced almost 45 million words • Children with weaker vocabularies are more likely to learn new words from incidental exposure than children with larger vocabularies • Young people who are slow to develop language are likely to be slow to develop reading skills and written language • Children do better if you make them work and talk together

15. Impact

16. Session 2: Selecting children forTalk Boost KS1

17. Who is Talk Boost KS1 for?

18. Who does best in the Talk Boost KS1 intervention?

19. Criteria: children to be included inTalk Boost KS1 Difficulties may impact on other areas of learning or socialising Difficulties may be due to a lack of opportunity or experience in the early years Children who have the potential to ‘catch up’ Children with English as an additional language (EAL) also benefit from Talk Boost KS1

20. Criteria: children who will not benefit as much Developmental Language Disorder

21. Case study: discussion activity Jack is 5 years old and sits quietly and smiles, but seems to struggle with everything in school. He misses a lot of school for medical appointments, and he seems very ‘babyish’. The other children in his group try and help him with everything Taylor is 5 years old, and he loves playing outside and is really good at football. He loves maths but struggles with sitting still to listen to stories and answering questions. He makes mistakes naming objects and still uses ‘me’ in sentences, and he laughs loudly, distracting other children at worktime

22. Which children?

23. Assessment and monitoring The Talk Boost KS1 Tracker is provided: • to help you select children for the intervention • to monitor the progress of the children after Talk Boost KS1 Note that the Tracker is not designed as a whole class screening tool

24. Talk Boost KS1 Tracker • Covers children’s language and communication skills in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 • For each year group the Tracker has five sections • The sections cover different aspects of language and communication

25. Talk Boost KS1 Tracker • Understanding spoken language: children’s ability to understand what other people say • Understandingand using vocabulary: children’s ability to understand, use and learn new words • Sentences: children’s ability to talk using grammar appropriate to their age and put together sentences • Storytelling and narrative: children’s ability to put together well ordered stories and accounts when talking • Social interaction: children’s ability to listen, take turns in conversations and use their language to interact with others

26. Talk Boost KS1 Tracker • Each answer is given a score of 1, 3 or 5 depending on how much detail the child gives or how accurate they are • There’s guidance on appropriate responses and how to score • You can complete the Score summary and use the online scoring tool to calculate the child’s level • The results are colour coded: RED,AMBER andGREEN

27. Tracker practice

28. Scoring the Tracker • Follow the guidance and use the online Tracker to get a numerical score and measure this against the child’s age: www.talkboostks1tracker.org.uk • Children scoring in the AMBER bands will benefit from Talk Boost KS1 • Children in the RED band may need further support, liaison with parents and consideration for external referral • Children in the GREENband will not benefit particularly from Talk Boost KS1

29. Session 3: Using Talk Boost KS1: Intervention Manual content and activities

30. Supporting materials

31. Talk Boost KS1 Intervention Manual and Toolkit

32. Talk Boost KS1: overall structure Talk Boost KS1 breaks language and communication down intofive component parts: • Attention and listening • Vocabulary • Building sentences • Telling stories • Conversations The 10-week programme has a focus each week linked to these five component parts

33. Throughout Talk Boost KS1

34. Five areas of language: activity • Attention an d listening • Vocabulary • Building sentences • Telling stories • Conversations Consider each area: Think of one way each area is supported and developed in class

35. Key activities • There’s a key activity for each language area except for Conversations • This teaches the principles for that area of language • This is the activity that also needs to be carried out with the whole class

36. Teaching good listening Attention and listening Make listening an active and explicit process This means making key behaviours explicit: • Sitting still, looking and thinking Explicitly linking these behaviours to listening: • ‘You’re doing good sitting, Sam, and that’s good listening.’ Provide children with strategies for good listening Lots of activities and practice for listening Give regular, ongoing and specific feedback ‘Catch’ children listening well and praise for exactly what they’re doing – all day, every day!

37. Vocabulary: principles Vocabulary • Teach meaning and phonic makeup • Link to current knowledge to make it meaningful • Use the words – repetition and practice in different contexts • There’s a lot of research around teaching vocabulary. What works is to give children: • semantic information: what does the word mean? • phonic knowledge: how is the word made up? • meta skills: what do they know already? • The tool used to teach this is Word magic...

38. Word magic template Vocabulary

39. Vocabulary: teaching using Word magic Vocabulary • Today’s new word is pineapple • Have you heard the word pineapple before? • What do you know about pineapples? Go through the template – describe it, what do we do with it?… etc • When you reach‘anything else?’, talk about the sounds in the word • Then it’s down to practice: • Put it in a sentence • Put it in a rhyme • Use it in the classroom • Write it for your word bank • Put it on the word wall • Use it on your topic table

40. Building sentences: principles Building sentences • Build a solid understanding as well as talking • Target the right level and ‘scaffold’ from there • Model and encourage longer sentences • Supporting both understanding and expressive language in practical ways • Adults modelling what they want to hear • Making children aware of their own language skills

41. Silly and sensible sentences Building sentences

42. Telling stories: principles Telling stories • Focus on the importance of day-to-day narratives and stories • Spoken stories and narratives come before written • Children need clear and explicit narrative structures to support these skills • We all tell stories throughout our day – it’s the basis of much of our communication • Many children struggle to organise their thoughts into a cohesive narrative • Giving children a clear narrative structure has been found to be effective for children with SLCN • This has also been found to be effective to support written narratives

43. Telling stories: teaching narrative Telling stories • First, teach the components of a story • Each story must have: • a person, a place, a time • activities or events • a conclusion • A good way to support this is to explicitly teach these components through story words

44. Story words Telling stories Story strips can be put on desks in the classroom to encourage structured narratives, both spoken and written

45. Conversations: principles Conversations • Focuses on verbal and non-verbal elements • Share with children the importance and purpose of conversations • Provide opportunities for conversations, both for social interaction and learning • This is about practising and making use of language skills – for a purpose: • To get what you want • To make friends • To tell people how you feel • To explain, negotiate, clarify, put your point across • This demonstrates to children how useful language and communication can be

46. Conversations: teaching Conversations

47. Session plan Each session will include: • Attention and listening • Vocabulary • Building sentencesOR Telling stories • Conversations

48. Session plan example All sessions follow the principle of plan...do...review All encourage children to be aware of their own learning Each has the same structure, for example: • Attention and listening: Good listening • Vocabulary: Word magic • Telling stories: Group story • Conversations: Finding out

49. Children’s review It’s important they get the chance to feed back to someone At the end of each session children review what they have learned Who could this person be?

50. Session 4: Teacher Manual, Children’s Activity Book, planning and questions