World Book Day, Thursday March 7th, is about celebrating books and reading all year round.The best way you can support your child’s reading is by encouraging a love of reading, and spending time looking through books, talking about the pictures and story, and reading together each day
Children with SEND needs lots of repetition and over- learning of reading skills, both at school and at home. Reading is about much more than getting your child to read to you, it is just as beneficial for you to read to them, particularly early on.
Here is our latest powerpoint from our 5 minutes for inclusion series
‘What is the impact of Speech Language and Communication Needs (SLCN) on children’s mental health and well-being?’
This presentation looks at both the risk factors, the protective factors and the wider impact on mental health and well-being for young people with SLCN.
Signalong, The Communication Charity, provides resources, training and free advice, and readily works with others in the field to promote communication skills for children and adults with speech, language and communication needs and English as an additional language.
They produce a free education resource every Friday. This week’s theme is ‘Get Ready for Easter!’
The LAS team are busier than Santa’s elves preparing the sequel to their popular Christmas ‘wisecrackers’ series. In the meantime, enjoy these Yuletide cheery chestnuts (wink wink). Watch this space-drop date December 13th!
Core boards are tools used in augmented and alternative communication (AAC) with students who have difficulty with verbal speech. They feature a grid of symbols, words and phrases which represent concepts. Evidence (and experience) shows them to be invaluable in supporting communication for our SEN learners.
Eloise Bromwich, from the Tower Hamlets Speech and Language Therapy team, has developed a Core board for use across Tower Hamlets schools. Eloise demonstrates how to turn the resources into a functional low-tech AAC device. High Tech communication aids, such as Proloqu and TD Snap, use the same principle. Putting a low-tech device into practice before implementing higher-tech AAC is usually a good way of introducing the concepts.
Eloise demonstrates how to make the core boards below.
Essential reading for educators-‘This report presents five recommendations for mainstream primary and secondary schools seeking to improve their provision for pupils with SEND. Some of the recommendations included here will also be helpful for pupils in special schools.’ Recommendation 1 Create a positive and supportive environment for all pupils, without exception. Recommendation 2 Build an ongoing, holistic understanding of your pupils and their needs. Recommendation 3 Ensure all pupils have access to high quality teaching. Recommendation 4 Complement high quality teaching with carefully selected small-group and one-to-one interventions. Recommendation 5 Work effectively with teaching assistants.
“Without forgetting, we would have no memory at all,” said Oliver Hardt, who studies memory and forgetting at McGill University in Montreal. The process is necessary for the functioning of a healthy brain—just as important as the ability to remember.
Read this fascinating article on the latest research into the theory of ‘forgetting’ as an active component of the long-term memory process.
Josie worked as a Careers Advisor and librarian before starting the Home Ed Life blog. Her website is full of current advice, unpicks the legal requirements and points you in the direction of free resources to teach the way you want to, enrich your child’s learning but also prepare them for statutory examinations.
Signalong-The Communication Charity- provides resources, training and free advice, and readily works with others in the field to promote communication skills for children and adults with speech, language and communication needs and English as an additional language. A central tenet of Signalong is “one concept per sign, one sign per concept” which is different to other British Sign Language based systems, which require an understanding of the context in order to distinguish meaning.
Download your free Advent Calendar craft activity here!
