Hello to the national year of communication

Hello is the national year of communication – a campaign to increase understanding of how important it is for children and young people to develop good communication skills. The campaign is run by The Communication Trust, a coalition of over 35 leading voluntary sector organisations, in partnership with Jean Gross, the Government’s Communication Champion.
Hello aims to make communication for all children and young people a priority in homes and schools across the UK so that they can live life to the full. The campaign is backed by the Department for Education and supported by BT.


A child with a speech, language and communication need may struggle to get words out of their mouth or not understand words that are being used. They may have difficulties holding a conversation, have multiple difficulties or simply have a limited vocabulary. These barriers are often invisible to others, meaning their needs are often misrepresented, misdiagnosed or missed altogether.


Please visit www.hello.org.uk for information on how you can help improve the communication skills of children and young people and to sign up for regular updates. You can also follow the campaign on Twitter : http://twitter.com/Comm_nTrust] and facebook: http://on.fb.me/9yHIIZ].


Smart Talkers are supporting the Hello campaign!
 

S & L World: up-date

We've been working hard on the first edition of the on-line, global Bulletin. I've had the easier task of co-ordinating the articles, while Ray has had all the technical stuff to do for the layout and for the web-site. 


It will be quarterly with subscription payable via PayPal. It won't matter when you start the subscription as the programme always counts a year from the start date. To contribute to the magazine will require subscription after the first edition.


So far, its been a tremendously enjoyable job. I've been liaising with so many intelligent, passionate, proactive professionals in my own field. It's renewed my enthusiasm and reminded me what a fantastic job we have.


The great news is, we have all the contributions now apart from one, which is on its way. There is a high paediatric bias in the first issue but we'll make sure that this is addressed for the second one. We've got some great articles, news features, an interview with a therapist from UAE and a couple of letters already for the launch.


There are a couple of advertising spaces free so if you know a company who would like to take advantage of the extra special offers please ask them to get in touch.


We're giving away the first issue as advertising so watch this space!

Toddlers' learning 'hit by noise'

This was brought to my attention by the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists from Yahoo news:

Young children are starting nursery school unable to speak and listen properly because of continuous noise and poor conversation at home, an Ofsted report has found.Skip related content

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Toddlers' learning 'hit by noise'Enlarge photo

Constantly switched on televisions, noisy brothers and sisters and raised voices are increasingly hampering children's language skills, it says.

The study, on how the best schools teach children to read, says some schools report spending days or weeks educating parents and improving children's social skills.

In some cases, children arrive at nursery still in nappies and with dummies in their mouths.

It says: "The majority of the schools visited that had nursery classes commented that, increasingly, children joined unprepared for learning and with poor listening and speaking skills. Read more on:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20101114/tuk-toddlers-learning-hit-by-noise-6323e80.html

This is exactly why we created Smart Talkers Pre-School Communication Groups. We owe it to our children to make sure they are ready for school in more ways than one! 

We work on attention, listening, vocabulary, auditory memory, narrative skills, simple reasoning and so much more. Without these skills children will not be able to start to read and write. Spoken language abilities are the building blocks for written language

www.smarttalkers.org.uk

Related articles

• Children unable to speak properly when they start nursery school (telegraph.co.uk)
• Toddlers' learning 'hit by noise' (mirror.co.uk)

British Mummy Bloggers

http://www.bmbblog.co.uk/2010/11/the-bmb-new-member-november-blog-hop.html 

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Nursery Packages

Latest from the University of York

A pre-school language intervention programme can significantly improve the educational lives of children with poorly developed speech and language skills, according to new research by psychologists at the University of York. 


"Language skills are the foundation for literacy development and are fundamental to educational success," Professor Margaret Snowling


Read more on http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2010/research/language-intervention/


This adds weight to the already irrefutable evidence that Smart talkers Pre-School groups are a fantastic opportunity for pre-school children.

www.smarttalkers.org.uk 

Incidentally, Professor Snowling was one of my tutors at UCL.... just plain Dr Maggie then but still very impressive!

Small Talk @ The Richard Clarke First School

The reception class at Richard Clarke First School in Abbots Bromley have just finished a 6 week programme of Languageland training. They have ‘travelled on a magic carpet’and had fun with puppets, songs and games but in reality those activities were part of a training programme for the class teacher Miss Le Grove to assist her in dealing with the challenges of teaching a reception class in the 21^st century.

Miss Le Grove called in Small Talk to deliver the training. It’s ideal because we can train reception and KS1 teachers without taking them out of the classroom. We looked at rhyme, syllable awareness, vocabulary, narrative, auditory memory, sequencing, expressive and receptive language skills with the children.

Small Talk Speech & Language therapy began to do lots of different training with nursery and primary school as a result of major concerns about the general level of children’s language when they start school. The Government’s Communication Tsar Jean Gross reported in January 2010 that 1 in 6 three year olds have a recognised problem but many, many more have delayed skills which will affect progress when they start school. A previous Government report in 2008 showed that this can be as high as 50% of children in some areas (Bercow, J.). A questionnaire to Primary Head Teachers by Small Talk Speech & Language therapy this year showed that 100% were concerned about declining speech, language and communication skills. 


These problems are not class or area specific and can affect all levels of society.

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, 

Previously, in the 1970s for example, when attention, listening and language levels were much better, reception class Teachers didn’t have the complex demands they have today. Their job is therefore doubly difficult, they have more to get through, with children who are not as ready as they were. It’s not fair on the child or the Teacher.  


Miss Le Grove felt that the sessions were very helpful, it confirmed what she was already doing and added lots more suggestions and ideas which she has already begun to implement. 


For further information please contact Libby on 0844 704 5888 www.private-speech-therapy.co.uk  or www.smarttalkers.org.uk or the Head Teacher on 01283 840206