Helping our children to learn

Please watch this fun video. It reminds us of our responsibility as adults to model how we use words, take turns and help each other to understand the meaning of words.

https://www.tes.com/news/viral-video-shows-how-parents-can-boost-pupils-language-skills

“One of the key pieces of advice that we frequently give to parents and practitioners is the importance of modelling language to help develop children’s vocabulary and sentences,” says Murrell. “As adults, we instinctively ask young children a lot of questions, such as ‘What’s that?’, ‘What colour is it?’, ‘Did you have a good day today?’, ‘What did you do?’ etc.

“However, this doesn’t always add anything and doesn’t help to ‘feed’ little ones’ new words. We also ask a lot of questions that we already know the answers to.

“A strategy that can make a real difference is turning most of those questions into comments; particularly comments about whatever a child is focused on at that particular moment.”

In St Peter’s, our P1 classroom has a play-based curriculum where all staff listen, model clear speech, give the children the words they need and expand their thinking and vocabulary. “I see……I think…..I wonder”.

We can all guide our children to learn through play.

• Make our thinking visible to make sense of the world
• We “show, not tell” children how to think and learn.
• Through play, children can develop social  skills.
• They learn to take turns.
• They learn rules.
• They learn to negotiate and compromise.
• They gain the self-confidence required to engage in new experiences and environments.

Thank you for all your support.