Activity: Preschool children range greatly in their speaking abilities. Teachers and parents need to be aware of techniques that can be used to help each child progress from their current level of oral language to more mature speaking. There can be many opportunities to informally teach children about language while conversing with them in daily conversations.
Create a document that will provide parents and teachers working with preschoolers with suggested techniques and strategies for helping children develop their speaking skills while engaging in conversations.
The textbook, slides, and videos have some excellent suggestions. The Activity Rubric will be used.
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Realizing Speaking Goals Overview
A responsive teacher can use actions, questions, and statements during daily conversations with children to help them improve their speaking skills. It is important for teachers to become familiar with the interests of the children and join them in discussions about that which is important to the child.
Effective teachers are aware that repetition of words, targeting new vocabulary, teaching words in categories, and creating classrooms where words are valued are a few strategies that they can use when conversing with children. Questioning which leads to problem-solving is also a valuable skill for teachers to acquire.
You will be asked to gather together a list of strategies that can be used during daily conversations with children to help them develop more mature speaking skills. The two videos for the week will provide you with additional suggestions. What will you do to help children learn to use 2500 new words each year?
Creating a language-rich classroom environment and setting the stage for dramatic play, and other opportunities for children to talk is another important role of the teacher. You may have watched children play in the past and been intrigued by how the children spoke and the vocabulary they used.
I can recall a time when I joined a play session and was appointed the veterinarian for the many plastic animals that started to appear with various ailments. It was exciting to hear the children describe, in detail, the horrible events that led up to the poor animals’ injuries. There seemed to be no end to their creativity and new vocabulary was quickly picked up from one child and repeated by a peer. The horse “fractured” his leg and apparently so did the elephant, lion, and tiger.
Think about how you could turn play sessions into opportunities for developing vocabulary, comprehension, and conversational skills.
