Support participation and build confidence
Suggestion for implementing the strategy ‘Using whole-class strategies to support students with speech, language and communication needs in years 1–8’
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Encourage sustained participation
Encourage sustained participation
Discuss with students what will support their participation and motivation.
Build these suggestions into your teaching practice.
- Establish clear classroom routines.
- Teach strategies to help students them when they get stuck.
- Break work into short manageable chunks.
- Give positive, timely feedback.
- Brief students about changes to routine.
- When changing classroom layout, provide a plan of new layout and when it will happen.
- Provide easy access to quiet spaces for working or winding down.
- Schedule brain breaks.
- Notice avoidance tactics or increasing anxiety, implement supports quickly.
- Offer leadership opportunities based on knowledge of student's expertise and interests.
- Connect learning to student's interests.
- Foster tuakana-teina relationships where students support each other.
Give students time
Give students time
Break work into manageable chunks.
Provide students with strategies to help them when they get stuck.
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Source: Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga
Ideas to support conversation
Ideas to support conversation
- Cut down on the amount that you talk.
- Comment on what students are doing – this is less pressured than asking questions.
- When students can’t think of what to say, help them. For example, if a student wants to join in a game say, “Ben, you could say, ‘Can I join in?’”.
- Demonstrate how to say things. Should a student say, “Car blue school”, you can continue the conversation by adding, “So you saw a blue car on the way to school”.
- Expand on what students say – this helps them to build longer sentences.
- Expand students’ vocabulary. Instead of saying “Pass me the blue and red container”, say “Pass me the colourful container”.
Utilise group and pair-based activities
Utilise group and pair-based activities
Provide opportunities for students to work with others.
Group or pair-based activities need careful organisation to achieve productive interaction and learning.
- Encourage students to listen actively to each other, share ideas, and recognise different points of view.
- Discuss the conventions of conversation, for example, maintaining personal space between people, using eye contact and facial expressions, opening and closing conversations, and taking turns. Talk about how these vary across cultures and contexts.
- Create social stories to support social interaction and participation. A social story breaks down a task or social situation into small and easy-to-understand steps, accompanied by descriptive pictures.
- Foster tuakana-teina relationships and create a culture where students provide support for each other.
Next steps
More suggestions for implementing the strategy “Helpful classroom strategies years 1-8”:
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Current page Support participation and confidence
Return to the guide “Speech, language and communication needs ”
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How to use this site
Guide to Index of the guide: Speech, language & communcation needs
Understand:
Strategies for action:
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Identify needs and how to provide supportShow suggestions for Identify needs and how to provide support
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Key areas to supportShow suggestions for Key areas to support
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Helpful classroom strategies years 1-8Show suggestions for Helpful classroom strategies years 1-8
- Support participation and confidence
- Present information in different ways
- Support processing and planning
- Provide options to create, learn and share
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Helpful classroom strategies years 9-13Show suggestions for Helpful classroom strategies years 9-13
