Parents! What would you like to see included?

We are developing a  new website with our friends at Devmac especially for parents. We are told so often that parents want to help their children but don't know where to look. The internet is a fantastic place to source information, in fact, we reported recently that this is exactly where parents are looking BUT how do they know what they find is any good?

We will have lots of free downloads for information and simple games as well as resource packs, books and games that we have either written/devised or have reviewed and recommend.

There will be videos showing parents exactly how to use them. We have lots planned!

What would you like to see included? Please let us know, as we would welcome your ideas

info@smalltalk-ltd.co.uk

Learning to listen

We take the development of communication for granted but it is actually the best achievement of our lifetime. There, is however,  a very alarming national decline in speech, language and communication skills which means that at least 40,000 children started school in 2009 without adequate spoken language ability (Wright, J., 2009) and a Government report in 2008 showed that this can be as high as 50% of children in some areas (Bercow, J.). The Government’s Communication Tsar Jean Gross, reported that ‘at least’ 1 in every 6 three year olds has a recognised difficulty while many, many more were undetected. Today’s demands of the reception class teacher are tremendous yet the children are starting school without the necessary pre-requisite skills. Spoken language skills are the building blocks for written language and almost every educational task pre-supposes a certain level of ability.

I carried out a study recently involving 100 schools across the country, which showed 100 % Primary Head Teachers were extremely concerned about declining speech, language and communication skills. The main problem they believed was a lack of listening skills.

We live in a very visual, fast- paced age and often the first time a child is required to do any formal listening is when they start school. Many, many children have to be taught to attend and listen before they can begin the demands of the national curriculum. I started my Small Talker groups to try to address this issue.  We work on ‘active listening’.

A lot of parents and staff will repeatedly say “Listen!” But what does that mean to a 3 year old? Listening is not a passive skill, it’s an active one and therefore one that needs to be learned. We tend to get quite poor results if we say “Behave!” to our little ones. It means very little, whereas if we describe the behaviour we want, they are more likely to understand what we require of them and then we might have some chance of them doing what we’ve asked. For example, if we want them to be quiet, sit still and not run around in the GP waiting room it better to tell them that than ask them to ‘Behave!’ Many parents and lots of teachers know this and act accordingly. We need to treat listening the same way.

Active listening can be broken down in to:

•good sitting

•good looking

•good waiting

•good thinking

You wouldn’t expect good thinking until school age and it’s very hard to do good waiting as a 3 or 4 year old (it’s hard enough for me to wait if I've got something to say!) Which is why they find it hard to wait for their turn or to let others answer a question to which they know the answer.

Our Small Talker groups (for 3 and 4 year olds) work on the first 3 components of active listening. We use a puppet to demonstrate ‘not good’ sitting so that he actually mirrors some of their behaviours e.g. picking the carpet to picking their noses. They are asked to help the puppet ‘because he’s not naughty, he’s just got to learn’. They have to look for the ‘un-desired’ behaviour and say ‘stop, do good sitting’. They are usually excellent at identifying the behaviour in the puppet although they may still be doing the same themselves for a while. Afterwards, I put the puppet where he can ‘watch’ them do good sitting so he can learn by example. I then monitor the behaviour in a very positive way so that I praise good sitting (and the wriggly ones usually sit up in an aim to please) or if that doesn’t work I ask the wriggly ones to help the puppet by showing him ‘good sitting’. If they are constantly nagged to sit still or to listen, they will switch off. It’s amazing how well they respond to this approach. I have had a few run-ins with TA’s and parents who have been completely peed off with my approach because they are itching to dictate ‘Will you sit still, now!’ However, I’ve asked them to trust me and watch what happens even if I am irritating them….  we’ve had some great results!
www.smarttalkers.org.uk or www.smalltalk-ltd.co.uk

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Attention & Listening

I spend hours each day working on attention and listening. I cannot stress how important these skills are to learning and to language development. One of the nurseries I visit weekly (I wont say where!) really don't apprecitae this for example, one of the worst listeners in the group keeps wandering off or walking aawy mid-sentence. They keep saying how intelligent he is and cant see whats wrong with him being allowed to do this, but what is the point of being really bright if you cannot attend to a task? The Talking Point Website is excellent and has many resources I can use to help get the message across to them. This one is good:

www.talkingpoint.org.uk

Hear hear!!

I was very concerned about the poor listening skills of children in primary schools so I decided to seek the views of colleagues in education. This was to reveiw an earlier study in the 1990s which I had been done with a colleague at the time, Sue Gowers. This is a brief report on the findings:

The Problem?

        189 Early Years Departments including Head Teachers, class Teaches, early years co-ordinators and special needs co-ordinators contributed their feelings. The 94% return rate for a questionnaire probably speaks for itself about the level of concern as typically, a response of around 32.5%

All of the schools were extremely worried: children generally have shorter attention span and most have difficulty listening. The problem is getting worse with children entering school ill-prepared for the demands of the classroom.

Many respondents blamed the constant blare of 24 hour TV with increased background noise causing children to switch off. Others felt that children’s senses were being over loaded with non-auditory stimulation. Most expressed a concern about the time children spend watching television & DVDs or playing computer type games. All felt that too much screen time including TV was partly to blame because children could just watch the pictures and didn’t need to listen.

On the whole respondents blamed parents for children’s poor attention and listening skills. Perhaps it’s the pressure of today’s busy lifestyle that necessitates leaving them in front of the TV as surrogate babysitter with little time set aside for conversation. 75% felt there were no social status differences.  Could it be that all families experience pressure but for different reasons? ‘Middle class’ parents are busy working to pay the mortgage, cars and holidays so they don’t have time to interact with their children, while others don’t realise they ought to?

Consequences?

As a result of poor attention and listening skills the class teacher has to begin by teaching them to listen. Unfortunately, it is assumed that children are equipped with the necessary abilities to learn but most school staff found that a great deal of time is taken up directing and re-focussing. In the 1970s it was felt that by the time a child arrived at school they had almost fully developed attention so that they could be drawing whilst listening to and understanding a completely separate instruction (Cooper, Moodley & Reynell 1978). These days the Teacher would have to ask them to put down their pencils, turn to the teacher, give the instruction and then tell them to continue the task.

As listening is a learned skill, children with learning difficulties will take longer than their peers to acquire it. Often extra work is needed for this group within the mainstream classroom. 
Probably as a result of poor auditory skills, there are many more speech and language problems in mainstream schools. Estimates vary but it is generally accepted that 7% of any class is likely to experience specific difficulty. Jean Gross Government Communication Tsar identified 1 in 6 3 year olds with identified difficulties but ‘many, many more’  with delays which hadn’t been picked up. Delays are almost becoming the norm. Bercow (2008) found up to 50% had communication difficulties which would impact on the children’s learning in school.

The Solution?

Ideally, one of the solutions is parental guidance when the children are younger which is why I set up Smart Talkers pre-school groups. One of the main aims is to show parents how to use ‘active listening’. We tend to think of listening as a passive skill but it actually an active learning task involving several aspects: good sitting, good looking, good waiting and good thinking. These were identified by Maggie Johnson who has done a great deal of work on this area including with children who have ADHD. Each part needs to be worked on in order. Realistically, however, the task of sorting the problem falls to the class teacher.

When working with children with short attention spans, learning activities have to be restructured so that only short periods of concentration are required with many different activities designed to retain interest and attention. Maggie has written ‘How to get them to hang on to your every word’ which has some great class room techniques for all ages. However, the following general strategies will be useful:

General Strategies ·        Ensure you have full attention and eye contact ·        Keep the instructions short & simple so that the key words are kept to a minimum ·        Speak as slowly, clearly and naturally as possible ·        Give the child time to understand/process the information/instruction. It may be necessary to repeat even simple instructions several times in order for the child to process the information ·        Check they have understood what is expected of them ‘Comprehension monitoring’ ·        Try to develop the child overall confidence by praising him for things he is good at. Also try to make communication as pleasurable an experience as possible. When a child is nervous or anxious the ability to understand may be adversely affected ·        Keep external distractions to a minimum whist giving instructions ·        Use gesture and other non-verbal cues whenever possible e.g. facial expression pointing etc ·        Use visual clues and cues e.g. pictures of the tasks, picture timetable

 

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Pay Attention!!

Many people are surprised me when I say I work on attention skills as a speech and language therapist but I feel that it is an important part of my work. If children can't attend and listen then they can't learn. Smart Talkers Pre-School Communication Groups actively seek to develop this aspect.


There are 6 levels of attention which were recognised in the 1970s by Cooper, Moodley and Reynell. They identified ages by which the stages were achievable and by aged 6 it was felt that a child would have fully integrated attention so that they might carry on with an activity while listening to and assimilating information about something different e.g. listening to an instruction about playtime while colouring in a picture. These days this is certainly not expected and an inadequate attention level is one of the biggest problems when children start school.


This ICan Video is interesting and worth sharing.

Active listening

As we mentioned in previous blog posts, listening is a learned skill and involves distinct components which need to be taught:

• good sitting
• good looking
• good waiting
• good thinking

This is an example of using a puppet to teach 'good sitting'. This was the first time we had done this in this nursery with this group of children and I was delighted with the results.

Small Talker Pre-school Communication Groups:

• ·         At least 40,000 children will have started school this September without the necessary level of speech, language and communication skills (Prof. J Wright, de Montford University, 2008)
• ·         A high percentage of these are transient difficulties which could have been prevented or dealt with pre-school. ICAN estimates 50% of the reception population fall into this category
• ·         Studies show that if a child starts school with delayed language his chances of success after school are less (Prof. J Law, City University, 2009)
• ·         At least 85% of those starting school will have poor attention and listening skills which will prevent them learning (Hill, 2010)

The Small Talker Groups were set up exactly to try to help alleviate the problems faced by the Class Teacher. We work on everything they need to be successful, effective communicators including attention, listening, vocabulary, understanding, expressive language skills and social interaction.

They are for all children but are ideal for those who really need a boost before they start school next year www.smarttalkers.org.uk

Active listening

We tend to get quite poor results if we say "Behave!" to our little ones. It means very little, whereas if we describe the behaviour we want. they are more likely to understand what we require of them and then we might have some chance of them doing what we've asked. For example, if we want them to be quiet, sit still and not run around in the GP waiting room it better to tell them that than ask them to 'Behave!' Many parents and lots of teachers know this and act accordingly. However, we often and repeatedly say "Listen!" But what does that mean to a 3 year old?
Listening is not a passive skill, it's an active one and therefore one that needs to be learned. Just like behaviour we need to break it down and describe what we want from them.
Active listening is actually:

• good sitting
• good looking
• good waiting
• good thinking

You wouldn't expect good thinking until school age and it's very hard to do good waiting as a 3 or 4 year old (its hard enough for this 47 year old to wait if she's got something to say!) Which is why they find it hard to wait for their turn or to let others answer a question to which they know the answer.

Our Small Talker groups (for 3 and 4 year olds) work on active listening. We use a puppet to demonstrate 'not good' sitting so that he actually mirrors some of their behaviours e.g. picking the carpet to picking their noses. They are asked to help the puppet 'because he's not naughty, he's just got to learn'. They have to look for the 'un-required' behaviour and say 'stop, do good sitting'. They are usually excellent at identifying the behaviour in the puppet although they may still be doing the same themselves for a while. Afterwards. I put the puppet where he can 'watch' them do good sitting so he can learn by example. I then monitor the behaviour in a  very positive way so that I praise good sitting (and the wriggly ones usually sit up in  an aim to please) or if that doesn't work I ask the wriggly ones to help the puppet by showing him 'good sitting'. If they are constantly nagged to sit still or to listen, they will switch off. It's amazing how well they respond to this approach. I have had a few run-ins with TAs and parents who have been completely peed off with  my approach because they are itching to dictate 'Will you sit still, now!' However, I've asked them to trust me and watch what happens even if I am irritating them....  we've had some great results!

Maggie Johnson has done a great deal of work with listening skills especially with children with ADHD. I can wholeheartedly recommend her book: 

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