Do you sometimes find yourself saying 'yes' then working out the practicalities later? I'm really bad at that, so when I was asked if I could devise a training programme for 2 year olds that could be delivered mainly without taking the staff out of the nursery or pre-school, similar to the Languageland Programme that caters for 3-7yr olds, I said.......... 'Of course!'. I enlisted the the help of Helen Stretton, and we set about working out a training package with a 6 week programme.
There will be an initial training session without the children to set the scene and introduce the ideas that we're going to demonstrate. There isn't anywhere that pulls together the framework of communication and how everything fits together, so we'll start with that.We'll look at attention, listening, auditory memory, information-carrying words as well as vocabulary and other important concepts.
Each of the 6 sessions following will see the therapist run the group and discuss why she is doing an activity. The staff will be able to follow with aim/activity sheets with explanations which tie in with what they learned in the first classroom session. There will also be sheets which give more ideas, further activity suggestions and useful books to back up what has been covered.
We have designed it so that others can use it so there is a sheet for each session for the person delivering the session to suggest exactly how to deliver it for maximum effect.
Helen is piloting it in September in Burton with a project working with staff from 2 pre-schools and a group of 2 year olds and their parents, funded by the Community and Learning Partnership. Lisa Griffiths, the Smart Talkers Franchisee from St Neots will do a second pilot in her area. The idea then is to sell it to other speech & language therapists or special needs co-ordinators so they can deliver the training in their settings. We have a publisher who is interested already.
If you know of any settings who are wondering how they could improve their knowledge of language in 2 year olds but who don't want to spend money on staff cover, then this is for them. www.private-speech-therapy.co.uk or www.smarttalkers.org.uk
Thanks to the Buddying scheme and the local Community and Learning partnership, the nursery and the pre-school at Doxey Primary in Stafford were able to participate together in a joint project of Languageland Training. This is a package which was developed to provide a complete programme to improve the speech and language skills of children in Primary and nursery education. It works by demonstration training to support nursery & class teachers in adjusting their teaching practice through demonstrated language lessons, and to achieve collaborative practice.
Uniquely, Doxey also invited parents to attend so they could see what I was doing and to have the opportunity of discussing language activities they could do at home. Each week they had materials they could take with them.
When this idea was first mooted, I wasn't sure it was good one, as it meant 8 children, 8 parents and 8 staff. It can be quite difficult to keep the children's attention, control the group and be discussing what you're doing with staff but to have to then also present it in a way that's readily understood by the parents too was quite daunting.
The activities were delivered to children from the nursery and pre-school via Circle Time style sessions and targeted language basics such as: General interaction/social skills, Good listening, Sound awareness skills, Vocabulary and Comprehension. The children just thought we were having fun playing games, singing songs and pretending to ride on a magic carpet but each session was structured to show staff ideas for activities.
I needn't have worried as it worked very well and feedback was 100% positive from staff and parents. Jo Upton from the pre-school said that the staff were 'inspired', they also signed up for our next project on signing training.
We are hoping to do more with the Buddying project as its a great way of sharing good practise. The next one is in Stretton near Burton with staff from Lansdowne nursery and the Stretton pre-school. Helen Stretton will aptly do that one!
We're also writing our own version for younger children of around 2 yrs. Watch this space!!
Languageland is avialable to buy from www.blacksheeppress.co.uk
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