QFT - Teaching strategies

• Provide an inclusive and communication friendly learning environment.
• Provide an environment where children’s views and contributions are valued.
• Ensure every learning objective is explained clearly according to the needs of the children and the link from previous learning is explicitly explained.
• Clear visually supported rules to support learning and safety should be in place.
• Children will need clear, structured teaching allowing for generalising of new skills and overlearning.
• Access to a Communication Lead Practitioner who has an understanding of how to meet SLCN needs.

Communicating in school can be stressful for CYP who struggle with speech production. They need opportunities to develop fluency and accuracy in a nurturing environment that enables them to progress at their own pace.

You can support this by:

• Comment on the content, not on how clearly the child speaks.
• Give a correct speech model by repeating what the child says with a slight emphasis on the mispronounced sound or word.
• Don’t make the child repeat the words.
• Don’t pretend to understand what the child has said.
• Build up the child’s confidence and self-esteem and focus on strengths.
• Liaise closely with parents/carers.

It is vital that children listen to language and practice using it. Attention and listening skills help develop social skills.  Children need to learn to focus on another person and listen to them in order to take turns, make eye contact, and to engage in conversation and play.

You can support this by:

• Following the child’s lead in their setting and comment and extend what they are saying.
• Making time to talk to the children and value what the child says.
• Considering the group in which the young person learns best.
• Considering their positioning within the classroom, asking the child what works for them.
• Looking at the child when you are talking to them. Use their name, make eye contact and demonstrate that you are listening to them.  Put yourself at the child’s level when appropriate.
• Using visual cues and gestures to support the teaching of these skills – display these in your classroom.
• Explicitly teach good attention and listening skills. Praise the young person when carrying these out.
• Adults to model and demonstrate good attention and listening skills.
• Slowing down your speech and breaking down instructions into small chunks of information.
• Reading, retelling and discussing stories.

Children need to hear how language can be used to be able to use it themselves. Children who find it hard to make themselves understood by adults or other children will find their ability to join in activities and tell people things, ask questions, contribute in lessons and form friendships is inhibited. They may be unable to join in with songs or nursery rhymes and have difficulty following stories and remembering information.

You can support this by:

• Commenting, explaining and modelling language.
• Avoid cluttering wall displays – focus on displaying key words that are visually supported and refer to them in your teaching.
• Talking about the word using a STAR approach (Select, Teach, Activate, Review).
• Identifying key vocabulary and pre-teaching/overlearning and generalise new words to other situations.
• Play games and use kinaesthetic approaches where the CYP has to recall specific words in a fun way.
• Using shared storybook reading to develop and extend vocabulary of tier 2 words.
• Using word mats on desks to support the acquisition of new vocabulary.
• Using sequencing activities to develop sequential language, inference and prediction skills.

A child needs to be able to hear, process and remember the information they are given to be able to use it. The child’s ability to remember will have an impact on their ability to remember language, facts, instructions, recalling of sentences and more complex information given.

You can support this by:

• Keep things short and simple – try to give CYP information in short chunks.
• Slow down your rate of speech and plan in pauses.
• Incorporate mind maps into your class teaching.
• Allow thinking time before expecting an answer – remember the 10 second rule where you wait for 10 seconds to allow the child to process the information.
• Adapt questioning using ‘Blank’s Levels of Questioning’.
• Use visuals to support and display these for children to see.
• Play memory games within the classroom linked to the curriculum.

If you think a child is having difficulty understanding what is said to them, you can try the following:

• Check their understanding of concepts such as same/different, first/last, before/after and provide explicit teaching if necessary.
• Teach language through categorising items and making links.
• Pre-teach vocabulary and give a list of vocabulary to be shared at home or Tier 3 academic words (Linguistic concepts).
• Provide a peer language role model.
• Provide information sheets to parents at home so they can discuss language with their child and reinforce the information in a different environment.
• Ask the child to recast what you have just told them so you know they have understood what has been said to them.
• Encourage the child to tell you when they do not understand – a visual may support with this.