Developing Early Communication, Language and Learning Skills at Home

Creating Personalised Activity Packs for Parents

Laura Osman, Heidi Manouchehri

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429946608
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Developing Early Communication, Language and Learning Skills at Hom e is full of tried-and-tested, practical activities for children developing their communication, language and learning skills including those with special educational needs and disabilities. This book provides parents, teachers and therapists with a range of playful and engaging activities to consolidate and develop children's language and communication skills at home and school.

Organised into five areas, the resource includes motivating activities around the themes of outdoor activities, daily routines, messy play, games for turn-taking and games to encourage creativity and make sense of the world. Features include:

• 50 activities, each with a list of equipment, instructions, top tips, key vocabulary and ideas for extending the activity next time

• Symbol boards for each activity to support children's understanding and experiences

• Photocopiable sheets for ease of use

• Guidance on how to tailor activities to the interests and needs of the child to produce a personalised activity pack

• An activity checklist to help you maximise your interactions with the child

• An activity log to record children's responses and achievements

With clear and easy-to-follow instructions, the activities are suitable for use with children who are non-verbal, still developing their early communication or children who are talking. This is an invaluable resource for teachers, teaching assistants or therapists to share relevant activities with parents, and can equally be used by parents as a stand-alone resource. Designed to support the transfer of learning from school to home, this book will empower anyone working with children with SEND to develop children's communication, language and learning through playful interactions.

1
Introduction

Creating a personalised activity pack

Create an activity pack by photocopying the following pages:

• How to use
• Personalised communication, language and learning profile
• Early communication, language and learning
• How to use the symbol boards
• Essential resources
• Playful interaction checklist
• Activity checklist
• Activity log
• Choose ten activities that you think are suitable for the child that you are working with. If you work in a school then we recommend creating one activity pack per child per term. If you are a therapist, we would recommend creating one activity pack per therapy block.

Plan to use the activities with the children yourself to support them in becoming familiar with the resources and confident using them. This will help them to be successful when playing and interacting with the same resources at home. Therefore families will be rewarded by positive interactions with their child.

If you can, invite parents in for parent sessions and demonstrate what we mean by playful interactions. Alternatively, evidence-sharing applications could be used to share videos of their child engaging in playful interactions during the activities suggested in this book.

Incorporate activities from each category so that families can choose something that fits in with their weekly plans.

Take time to respond to comments in the activity log to develop effective parent partnerships and provide ongoing support and suggestions.

How to use

Your child is learning and developing each day through fun, play-based activities. This activity pack has been developed to help support you to continue their learning at home through playful interactions.

Enclosed in this pack are ten activities for you to choose from. The order in which you complete the activities is up to you! We recommend completing one a week but feel free to carry out more if you have time.

Repeat the activities; repetition is key to your child’s development and enjoyment. You will see them make progress and change how they play as they become more confident with the resources and they know what to expect. Their enjoyment of the activity may develop over time.

Use your child’s strengths, the things they are really good at, and incorporate them into the activity. Do they love music and singing? Make up a song as you transition to your activity, or sing whilst playing. Using things they like can be a great way to get them to explore something new.

Invite others to play with you. Siblings, friends and family make excellent play and communication partners too.

Please complete the activity log to let us know how you got on and to ask any questions. Photos and videos are a great way of sharing your child’s achievements and we would love to see these if you manage to take any.

Although these activities are designed with young children in mind, children must be supervised by responsible adults at all times during the activities. The authors of the book hold no liability for accidents, injury or damage to property.

Personalised communication, language and learning profile

How to make friends with me
Activities and toys that I like. . .	Things that I don't like. . .
How I communicate my thoughts and ideas	How I access my environment
Communication	Equipment and mobility

Ways that you can help me to achieve
What you can do to help me...	What things I need to help me...

Early communication, language and learning

Playfulness

Children learn about themselves and their world through play. Play is a spontaneous, fun activity in which children engage with the world around them. Therefore, play facilitates the development of communication, language and learning. Having fun through play and laughing will make it more likely that the activity and learning will be remembered.

Routines

Routines and consistency allow a child to build upon previous learning experiences by providing lots of opportunities to practice. They enable a child to develop an understanding about what is happening now and next. Using a consistent routine when starting and finishing an activity can help your child be calm and ready to learn.

The environment

The environment is about our surroundings and the world around us. Interacting with our environment using all of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Explore outdoors: ten playful activities to engage in outdoors
• 3 Daily routines: ten playful activities to enjoy during daily routines
• 4 Messy play: ten playful activities that use everyday items
• 5 Games: ten playful activities to develop turn-taking and friendships
• 6 Understanding the world:ten playful activities to help children make sense of the world and develop their creativity