Over the past few months, I have had the pleasure of working with Erin Palmer. An amazing speech pathologist who lives in New Zealand and is originally from Canada. Earlier in the year, Erin shared an amazing Facebook post showcasing how to interactively use a picture book for storytime talk—she used The Wonky Donkey—Go and have a look! I had been trailing my Reading Adventures activities with families over the school holidays and this was a perfect example of everything I was doing too. I contacted Erin to gush over her post and as we chatted I could see a shared mission. We are so excited to share our Daily Chat Challenge with you. For the next 5 days, we will be sharing activities and resources to support conversation and language development in your home.
To join do this
Read Erin’s guest post here
Subscribe to join in the FREE 5-day challenge
You will receive daily activities and resources
Print out the double-sided posters or use from your device.
Use the hashtag #dailychatchallenge to join in, show how you are using the resources and share your daily chat ideas with us.
Erin discusses the importance of early language and why intentional chat with many conversational turns is a powerful tool to set a firm foundation for literacy to build on.
I often talk to parents of little ones about chat. Yes, language is an innate skill. We must simply be immersed in it to learn. BUT the way we talk to our babies can make that learning easier. I don’t talk about it as often, but the same can be said for our older kids. It can be more difficult to learn ‘higher level language skills’; yet these are skills children need to understand what they’re reading, and to flourish in the classroom. ‘Semantic flexibility’ is important. this means one needs to have a good vocabulary and an in-depth understanding of the relationships between and amongst words. Think categories, object function, sequence, similarities and differences, multiple meanings, and figures of speech. We don’t have to come up with special activities, or set time aside to work on these things. More so, we as adults need to be aware these things are important for our kids to know – and we need ideas for how to talk about them and how we can build them into activities we’re already doing.
Be language-aware
By being aware of the language concepts that will support our children in stretching their language skills, we can give them intention. We can make a point of incorporating those concepts into conversations, repeating them throughout the conversation, and circling back to them throughout other activities. Another way to think of this is the term ‘repetition with variety’.
The way we talk with our babies and children can make learning easier
Ongoing interaction helps things to ‘stick’ – the longer you can keep a conversation going, the more your child is learning. You, and your child, need to be active participants. We call this ‘serve and return’ (the conversation is bouncing back and forth, like the ball in a tennis game) – we know optimal conversations for learning contain at least 5-to-10 returns!
Once a child shows an understanding of an idea or concept, we continue to encourage them. We work to refine their understanding of the concept, as well expand and extend their knowledge related to the concept. We are slowly, but surely, increasing our children’s knowledge of the world. “Mum, can I have a feijoa in my lunch?” “You can! Feijoas (label) are one of those fruits (category) that contain a lot of vitamin C (attribute). That means they’re really good for you. I’ll put a spoon (association) in, too, so you can scoop the flesh (parts of a whole) out.”
Some language skills are easier to build than others
Having strong skills with vocabulary labels, categories, and functions supports later skills such as similarities/differences, multiple meanings, and figurative language. This is called the ‘semantic ladder’ – and we build from the bottom! We have used Dr Gail Richard’s model and this visual was created based on her work, “The Source for Processing Disorders”.
We are “giving intention to vocabulary concepts, using serve-and-return conversations, and building semantic flexibility through repetition with variety” – what a mouthful! It sounds really complicated – but it doesn’t have to be! To get started, think about an activity that happens regularly in your house. Does your child help with chores? Maybe its time to weed the garden, fold the laundry or clean the bedroom. Do the chore together…and talk, talk, talk.
You might start by picking one language goal, perhaps categories
When you weed – you might start with broad categories: weed vs. flower. You pull the weeds, you leave the flowers. Then, you could name specifics within the category – name 5 weeds, name 5 flowers.
Maybe the next time you weed, you could think about similarities and differences – how are the weeds and flowers the same? How are they different?
Harness the power of talk
As you practice (thinking about jobs your child will enjoy and conversation goals to work in) the easier it will get! You’ll be chatting away, enjoying ticking jobs off the list as a team, and building strong language skills as you go!
To make things easier, Clare and I have put together a list of activities, and possible language goals! What we have provided are examples (not scripts), to help you think about how language goals might fit in with any given activity.
Starting today you will receive an activity poster each day for 5 days with ideas to support conversation and language development in your home.
Join us in our ‘chat challenge’ – let us know how it went for you, what goals you worked on, what was tricky, and what was your ‘win of the week’!
To join do this
Read Erin’s guest post here
Subscribe to join in the FREE 5-day challenge
You will receive daily activities and resources
Print out the double-sided posters or use from your device.
Use the hashtag #dailychatchallenge to join in, show how you are using the resources and share your daily chat ideas with us.
