Teaching Conversation Skills

Developing good conversation skills is both one of the most helpful and the most difficult skills you can help your children acquire. You can help your children become better conversationalists and at the same time brush up on your skills as well. Here are some you and your children can do together.

Practice contributing to discussions by:

• Looking at the people who are talking.
• Waiting for a point when no one else is talking.
• Making a short, appropriate comment that relates to the topic being discussed.
• Choosing works that will not be offensive or confusing to others.
• Giving other people a chance to talk.

Practice keeping the conversation going by:

• Maintaining a relaxed but attentive posture. Nod your head to give ongoing encouragement.
• Asking follow-up questions that pertain to what the other person has just said.
• Avoiding fidgeting, looking away or yawning.
• Not interrupting
• Taking turns in the conversation and saying excuse me when interruption of others occurs

Closing the conversation by:

• Changing topics only when everyone appears to be finished talking about a particular issue.
• Changing to a topic that somehow relates to the previous one.
• Allowing everyone a chance to talk about the current topic.
• Waiting for a comfortable break in the conversation to leave.

For this and other tips for parents go to:

www.boystownpediatrics.org/ParentingTips/Pages/TeachingChildrenConversationSkills.aspx

Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent-Teacher conferences for the second trimester will be held February 28-March 3rd. Mrs. DeYoung will be sending home conference letters this week. Parents who did not meet with Mrs. DeYoung after the first trimester are encouraged to schedule a meeting. The conference schedule forms need to be returned by Monday February 28th, or parents may contact Mrs. DeYoung at mdyoung@ccsd66.org, or call (630)783-5157 to set an appointment.

Using Prefixes

Some of the fourth and fifth graders at Prairieview are reviewing prefixes as a strategy to discover meanings of unfamiliar words. We are learning these prefixes:

Prefixes
Prefix

ir, il, im, in, un means not
aqua, means water
uni means one
bi means two
tri means three
pre means before
post means after
multi means many
co, con, com means with, together
inter means between
re means again
geo means earth, land
sub means below
dis means opposite
trans means across
mis means wrong

Oral Motor Exercises for Tongue Elevation

Many students enrolled in speech therapy are working to improve articulation of the "r" sounds. The following exercises are designed to improve tongue elevation. Raising the tongue to the palate improves the child's ability to produce a clear "r" as well as other palatal phonemes like "sh" and "ch." Students are encouraged to practice the exercises at home.

• Bite on a toothbrush as you move your tongue to different places in the mouth. Do not drop the toothbrush.
• Practice licking popsicles or pretzel sticks. Move your tongue, not the stick!
• Put peanut butter on the roof of the mouth and try to lick it off
• Put a small piece of food (cheerio, raisin, etc) on the tongue. Hold it there for 5-10 seconds. Lift the item to the hard palate (roof of the mouth).
• Click your tongue 5 times.
• Say “kkk” “ggg” a few times. Watch the back of the tongue go up.
• Brush the sides of the tongue with a toothbrush. Then raise your tongue so the sides of your tongue are spread along the top teeth. Slide your tongue back and forth against the teeth.
  

More Vocabulary Tips

Here are some more vocabulary tips from www.improvingvocabulary.org

Making a word personally relevant will dramatically enrich your learning. Studies show that our memories are actually geared to "forget" or "block out" information that isn't perceived as relevant. The same studies also show that your memory improves when information is made personally relevant

Tips for learning vocabulary:

Make up your own examples When you learn a new word, think of common examples in your own life where the word would apply.

Define it in your own words Another way to make a word personally relevant is to define it in your own words. When you look up a word, first read the definition presented in the dictionary. After you have closed the dictionary, try making up your own definition

Encourage students to think of personal examples of new vocabulary, formulate sentences using the words, and to generate definitions. This will help them to retain what they have learned.

Vocabulary Practice

The old saying "practice makes perfect", rings very true for vocabulary building. Studies show that rehearsal dramatically improves long term memory. In fact, it takes between 10 and 20 repetitions to make a word part of your vocabulary. What's even more surprising is that rehearsing a word, even after you believe you have mastered it, can double the effectiveness of your learning, greatly reducing the chance that you will forget the word in the future.
www.improvingvocabulary.org

Students at Lakeview continue to practice using adjectives that describe personality traits. This week they reviewed some words from the word wall, sorted the words according to meaning, and formed sentences using new vocabulary. We will continue to think of examples of various traits and incorporate the new vocabulary in reading and writing activities.

This week in Speech

Speech and language students at Prairieview have been practicing using contextal clues to interpret the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading. They have made progress thinking of "What makes sense in the sentence?" when predicting meanings. Most of the students are feeling more comfortable attempting to figure out possibilities rather than skipping the word or giving up.

Other children have enjoyed listening to reading passages or watching a brief video and summarizing the story. They have used summary guide graphic organizers to identify characters, setting, and sequence of events. They are improving story-telling and expressive language skills.

Lakeview students enjoyed writing on Mrs. DeYoung's "Word Wall"
to list various character traits and synonym and antonym pairs. They generated lots of adjectives to describe emotions and personal attributes. This activity is helping to increase vocabulary and develop comprehension and reasoning skills.