CYPOP 24 and Unit 301: Support children and young people’s speech, language and communication skills

1. CYPOP 24 and Unit 301:Support children and young people’s speech, language and communication skills

2. Learning Outcome 1 Understand the importance and the benefits of adults supporting the speech, language and communication development of children and young people

3. Pre-unit activity • Arrange to watch an activity in your setting for a short period of time; approximately 2-3 minutes • You may find a structured observation sheet useful for this • Make a note of the activity and who was involved • Write down as much as you can of the language of the adult and the language of the child or young person • Audio recording will help you to do this accurately but you will need appropriate permissions

4. Pre-unit activityFollow up and reflection • How many questions did the adult ask? • Who said the most? • How long were the child’s sentences? • How well did the child understand? • What helped support speech, language and communication?

5. Why is it important to support and extend children and young people’s speech, language and communication development? • Speech, language and communication skills are vital building blocks for other areas of their development • Speech, language and communication are central to children and young people’s ongoing development into adulthood • The impacts for children and young people who have difficulties with speech, language and communication are many and varied

6. Speech, language and communication skills continue to be central to development and learning

7. Activity 1a The positive effects of adults supporting speech, language and communication • Speech, language and communication • Play • Learning • Social development • Literacy • Behaviour • Emotional development • Self confidence • Thinking and problem-solving

8. Activity 1b How can you support and extend children and young people’s speech, language and communication?

9. What affects speech, language and communication development? Research evidence shows… • The more they hear, the more time their parents spend talking with them and the more types of words they are exposed to, the more children use • Children seem to develop strong language skills when parents ask open-ended questions, ask children to elaborate, and focus on topics of interest to the child. Responding to what the child is talking about and having familiar routines also promote shared understanding. • Conversations about how people feel and how that affects what they do, are important in learning social communication skills • The amount of language children hear is important • What adults say to children is also important • Co operative interactions are very important

10. Discussion point 1 • The evidence on the previous page is from a study looking at the way parents supported their children's speech, language and communication development. • Which of the points do you think are also relevant for people who work with children and young people and why?

11. Activity 1c Quick quiz • When can you support speech, language and communication? • When should you extend speech, language and communication • Any time – all the time! • In everyday routines and conversations • In all activities, play and social times • Set up specific opportunities/ activities • 1:1 and in groups • When children are talking with you or with other children • Use your judgement, based on knowing the child and what they need • Where you can and it’s appropriate

12. Key principles • Listen to and value the contributions of children and young people • Consider their level of development – where they are now and where next • Model good communication • Make language learning fun • Work with parents and carers • Include speech, language and communication in your planning • Make the most of opportunities throughout the day • Keep an eye and make a note

13. Key principles – children and young people learning more than one language • The principles of ways to support and extend children’s speech, language and communication apply to just the same children and young people learning more than one language • Bilingualism is an asset • Home language has an important and continuing role • As with developing a first language, understanding is in advance of talking. • Language diversity should be acknowledged and celebrated • The demands on children and young people who are learning English as a second language should be recognised and considered

14. Ways to support and extend speech, language and communication • There are 5 areas in this section, looking at some of the different ways adults support and extend speech, language and communication • Supporting speech, language and communication of babies • Supporting speech, language and communication of young children • Some ways to support speech • Some ways to support language – adapting and scaffolding • Some ways to support communication • You’ll need refer to different age ranges in your portfolio

15. Supporting the speech, language and communication of BABIES • Attachment is crucial to support communication development • Give babies time to process and respond • Opportunities for early communication – eye contact, sound-making, turn-taking • Using ‘parentese’ • Rhymes and songs • Shared attention • Running commentary for every day events

16. Activity 1d - Supporting the speech, language and communication of YOUNG CHILDREN Learning to Talk, Talking to Learn has 10 top tips: • Get the child’s attention first • Make learning Fun • Use simple repetitive language • Build on what the child says to you • Demonstrate rather than criticise • Imitate the child’s language • Use all the senses to teach new words • Give the child time to respond • Be careful with questions • Use the full range of expression

17. Activity 1d - Supporting the speech, language and communication of YOUNG CHILDREN • Choose a technique. Discuss with a partner your thoughts about this technique • If you work with young children, which of the techniques do you currently use? • Choose one technique you haven’t used before and make a plan to use it in your setting. • When you have tried this out, discuss with your group how you used the technique and how effective it was and make a comment in your portfolio

18. Ways to support and extend children and young people’s speech, language and communication There are many ways to support and extend children’s speech, language and communication. Adults can support and extend them: • In everyday routines and conversations • In activities and events that are happening anyway • In specifically planned activities • In 1:1, pairs and groups • When children are talking with you or with other children

19. Supporting and extending children’s SPEECH – a few ideas • Develop awareness of sounds in the environment • Encourage good listening skills • Play around with rhymes • Make sound pictures or have a sound table, with pictures or objects which start with the same sound • Model the right response rather than correcting their speech – “I taw a tat” – “you saw a cat? How exciting..!”

20. Transfer into practice 1 Think of an activity which already happens in your setting. Think of one way you could support a child’s speech through that activity Think of how a you could suggest a parent could support their child’s speech

21. Supporting children and young people’s LANGUAGE • Language includes talking and understanding.

22. Activity 1e - Adapting your language In small groups, listen to and have a look at the following information and the question which follows it. (Don’t worry, it’s meant to be complicated!) Then think about the five questions below • How easy is it to understand? • What makes this the case? • Could you answer the question? • How ‘good’ was this question? • How did you feel about the activity?

23. Activity 1e - Adapting your language Epistemology is generally characterised by a division of two competing schools of thought: rationalism and empiricism. The rationalists sought to reconstruct critically the total of human knowledge by the employment of such ‘pure’ reasoning from indubitable axioms. The empiricists took direct acquaintance with the ‘impressions’ of sense-experience as their bedrock of infallible knowledge Q1: Was rationalism one of the schools of thought?

24. Adapting your language – key things to think about

25. Adapting your language - questioning Too many questions and certain types of questions can inhibit language and communication

26. Activity 1f - Adapting your language- Exploring different ways of talking with children This is from a research study looking at 5 different ways of supporting and extending talking. • For each one, consider… • How well does the approach support and extend the child’s language? • How could the adult improve their questioning or interaction? • How often do you currently use each approach in your talk with children?

27. Activity 1f

28. 1 Enforced repetitions Child says: ‘biscuit’ Adult says: ‘say “please can I have a biscuit” Child says: ‘biscuit’

29. 2 Two choice questions • The adult asks the child a question where there are only two choices – this includes either yes/no answers or ‘forced alternatives’ Adult: ‘Is that an elephant?’ Child: ‘no’ OR Adult: Is that an elephant or a giraffe? Child: ‘Giraffe’

30. 3 – ‘wh’ questions • Adult asks a question starting why, what, when etc Adult: ‘Who’s that?’ Child: ‘daddy’ Adult: ‘where’s he going?’ Child: ‘shop’ Adult: ‘why?’ Child: ‘car’

31. 4 – Personal contributions • Adult avoids asking questions, but gives their personal contributions around something that the child is interested in. Adult: I went to the park at the weekend Child: Me too! Adult: I played football with Rosie Child: I played on the swings Adult: oh, I’m a bit too big for the swings Child: not me, I can go so high Adult: so high you touch the clouds… Child: even higher…

32. 5 - Phatics • Adult tries to say nothing with any ‘content’, just “makes the right noises”. They try to avoid questions and take the child’s lead Adult: Hey, look at that… Child: It’s a princess Adult: aha… Child: she’s gonna get eaten by the dragon Adult: oh no, scary … Child: but she doesn’t taste so good Adult: yuk… Child: she tastes like slugs Adult: disgusting – even for a dragon Child: yeah, cos he likes marshmallows

33. Activity 1f– answers – which work well?

34. Scaffolding children and young people’s language Scaffolding describes how adults provide support to enable children to achieve and develop their skills. There are many ways to do this; some examples are: • Adding to, or extending what a child says • Modelling examples • Encouraging children to rehearse and practise • Breaking tasks or skills down into smaller steps • Teaching and helping children to learn new words • Providing structures for giving information or telling stories • Using visual prompts or props

35. Some examples of extending a child’s talking Child/young person says Adult says Yes, it’s a big bus Me too – he’s enormous Oh, you can’t play football because your leg hurts • There’s a bus • I can see a big spider • I can’t play football today. My leg hurts

36. Some examples of extending children and young people’s language - vocabulary • Teach children new words: • Use all the senses – real objects if you can, or pictures if not • Talk together about its shape, colour, texture • Talk together about what it does, what it’s similar to, what it means • Talk together about how this links to what they already know – give examples and the context • Talk about the structure of the word – how many syllables it has, what it starts with • Help them to use it. • Reinforce the new word regularly

37. Vocabulary

38. Supporting children and young people’s COMMUNICATION Communication skills can often be taken for granted. Some ideas: • Model and demonstrate good communication skills • Make skills explicit • Talk about and practise communication for different situations, events and purposes • Give children and young people clear roles when working in groups – eg the summariser, the note-taker, the introducer • Ensure there are well structured opportunities for children and young people to communicate with each other • Learning through play

39. Discussion point 1.1 Working with parents, carers and families Why is it important to work with parents, carers and families in supporting a child or young person’s speech, language and communication? Think of three ways you could effectively work together

40. Working with parents, carers and families some ideas

41. Portfolio task 1.1 • Prepare some leaflets or posters, showing how adults can support and extend children and young people’s speech, language and communication development. Make sure you include general key points as well as any for the specific age groups • Include information on the positive effects of this support too.

42. Transfer into practice • Learning outcome 2 looks at how to put the ideas from Learning outcome 1 into practice. • Choose one of the methods you have found out about and try it out in your setting. Make a note of the context, activity and child you were working with. Note or record (with the appropriate permissions) a short section of your interaction and consider: • What you did and said: • What the child or young person did and said: • What the good parts of this method were: • What you might do differently next time:

43. Learning outcome 2 Be able to provide support for the speech, language and communication development of children and young people

44. Reflection on transfer into practice • Work in small groups to share experiences of trying out different methods of supporting and extending speech, language and communication in your settings. • Note down the key points from your discussion

45. Supporting speech, language and communication development

46. Activity 2a – considerations for supporting speech, language and communication • When you choose ways to support children and young people’s speech, language and communication, it is important to consider a child or young person’s: • Specific needs • Abilities • Home language • Interests • In pairs, choose one of the points and discuss why it is an important consideration. Share your thoughts with other groups to cover all four.

47. Planning how to support speech, language and communication in your practice and in your setting • Speech, language and communication can be supported through everyday routines, in conversations and activities which are happening anyway as part of your setting • Specific activities, events and games can also be planned to support speech, language and communication skills in particular • Speech, language and communication are so much part of what we do with children and young people, that it can sometimes be taken for granted • Including speech, language and communication in your planning keeps it at the forefront of your mind and firmly in your practice

48. Planning should include 1 • How will the physical environment support speech, language and communication? • What are the roles and responsibilities of staff in supporting speech, language and communication? • How are children and young people’s views included in what you do? • How can parents, carers and families be involved in supporting speech, language and communication too? • It is also important to consider what training and development are needed to best support children and young people’s speech, language and communication

49. Planning should include 2: • The child, young person or group you are working with • Their age • Any resources you would use • The adults involved • The activity and its aims • The methods you will use and why you are choosing them • How you will evaluate what you did

50. Evaluation should include: • Thinking about what you did, saw and heard • Thinking about how well you felt this worked • Finding out how others thought it worked – this would include the children and young people involved, maybe colleagues and parents or carers • Thinking about what you might do differently next time