Who Are We?
Our communication champions for the year 2023/2024 are Catherine Gordon and Vivianne Scott. Catherine has been a communication champion for a number of years and brings a lot of experience to this role. Vivianne has recently completed her Learning Language and Loving it training, bringing a fresh approach to the role and is keen to get started working with the children, developing language and communication.
Catherine Vivianne
So What is the role of a communication champion?
- We can support the children with their attention and listening and provide guidance for speech and language, usually through small targeted support groups alongside our Equity and Excellence lead. We are not trained speech therapists but can certainly guide you to the S.A.L.T team if you need further assistance and will provide contact details for you to contact them yourselves if preferred.
S.A.L.T Information (to follow)
Communication Board
Our communication board has been moved to the front of the building so you don’t miss out on getting access to it. This has lots of useful information, our monthly top tip and our rhyme of the month. Please look at this to see any updated information. 👀😊
Top Tips
Each month will have a new top tip which will be updated on this blog. These are also available on each playroom door and on our Communication window to the right of the main ECC doors, just under the school staircase.
*****January Top Tip*****
This months top tip is about spending time reading to your child. Choose a book that is stage appropriate, and sit together to look at the book. Allow your child to point to the pictures and you can both say the words. This time spent is precious and the language ad communication you are developing in your child, supports them in the further stages of their development.
**** December Top Tip***
December’s top tip is all about spending time with your child. Getting down onto the floor to chat or play. Children remember the moments you spend together, more than they remember the toys they had at this age. Enjoy your time together.
*November Top Tip*
It is really important that we allow children time to speak, and therefore be mindful of how many questions we ask. It is recommended that for every question we ask, we include 2 comments. This allows children the time to answer the question, have a chat and not be overwhelmed with the expectation to remember all the questions and to respond appropriately.
For example, asking “What did you do at Nursery today?” “What did you have for lunch” “Who did you play with”
This can be a little overwhelming for children, therefore we could change this to “Did you have a nice time at nursery today?” “I wonder if it was soup for lunch, I love the soup?” “I bet your friend was there to play with you”.
This will lessen the expectation to answer a specific question, and should open up the possibilities for dialogue.
*October Top Tip
Watching Tv Together – watching tv and films is something that we all enjoy and is often a crucial tool for entertaining children at home. This can be a perfect activity to get children talking. Talk about how it makes both of you feel. Does it make you laugh or feel sad ? This is a good way of helping your child learn about feelings. See if there are ways to relate the show to real life. By watching tv together and talking about it you are enriching your child’s vocabulary helping them make connections with the world around them.
Our Rhyme of the month will be Dingle Dangle Scarecrow, which will also be posted on each playroom window and communication board.
April Top Tip
Give your child a reason to talk, place an item ( a toy or food for example ) out of reach and wait to see if your child communicates to get it.
Use choices to encourage your child to communicate.
Do something funny – put the toy on your head or their socks on your hands, see what happens, have fun.
March Top Tip
play – Children learn lots about early communication skills through playing with toys and people. Children need lots of opportunities to play.
REMEMBER to be face to face and wait for a response.
Elf on the shelf 🎅
Here’s some ideas to help build your child’s language with that naughty elf.
Position words – “ the elf is in the bowl “
Doing words – “ think about what elf is doing “
Describing words – “ he’s hungry “he’s thirsty “
November Top Tip
Get the balance right.
Asking questions is a strategy we use with children all the time when we want them to talk more.
Our favourite seems to be questions that test children because we know the answer already ! These questions can work well with chatty children as they love to show use all the things they know.
However, when we use the same strategy with a less talkative child we are often met with silence. A more successful way to engage a quiet child is simply to comment on what they are doing. This removes the pressure for them to speak and gives them a model they can copy if they want to. Try turning questions into comments.
Try turning questions into comments
October Top Tip
Watching Tv Together – watching tv and films is something that we all enjoy and is often crucial tool for entertaining children at home. This can be a perfect activity to get children talking. Talk about how it makes both of you feel. Does it make you laugh or feel sad ? This is a good way of helping your child learn about feelings. See if there are ways to relate the show to real life. By watching tv together and talking about it you are enriching your child’s vocabulary helping them make connection with the world around them.
speech sound development webinar for families in East Ayrshire.
Monthly Top Tip
September
Above is the speech and language team contact details (another copy can be found on our communication board). The team are very supportive and can help with any advice around your child’s speech.
Communication Board
Our communication board has been moved to the front of the building so you don’t miss out on getting access to it. This has lots of useful information and our rhyme of the fortnight. Our board is child friendly to catch their eye too, so look out for Elsa or Buzz! 👀😊
Rhyme of the month
Nursery rhymes are important for language acquisition and help with speech development. They help children develop auditory skills such as discriminating between sounds and developing the ear for the music of words.
2-3 year rhyme
4 – 5 year rhyme
Please feel free to share any videos or photos of your children trying these out. ☺
Activity ideas to try at home 💬
Word detective
Ask your wee person to find 5 things in the house that they don’t know the name of.
Get them to bring the items to you and talk to your wee person about them. Tell them what it’s called, what it’s for etc.
How many things can you find?
Choose a sound e.g ask your wee person how many things they can find that begin with that sound e.g “cat” “coin” etc.
3. Scavenger hunt
Ask your child to find objects/toys in the house with 1, 2, 3 or 4 beats for example “spoon” “ba-na-na”.
Have fun! 🤗 These are just some of the activities I carry out in small groups that the children love to participate in.
Communication in the E.C.C
A lot of what I have mentioned here are what your children will be involved in at the E.C.C, for children that need a little more support smaller groups work best. We have lots of fun building our skills through books, playdough, outdoors, and nursery rhymes.
Please try not to worry if your child can’t say a certain sound just yet, this usually develops in time. 💫Remember every child develops at different age and stages 💫
S.A.L.T Guidance & Advice
Going forward
Unfortunately covid restrictions have stopped a lot of parental involvement with communication as we have had book bug, playdough workshops and drop ins in previous years. But hopefully with the above information and ideas it will help with any of your concerns. Hopefully we will be back to inviting you all for a workshop soon.
For the E.C.C going forward with communication our aim is to become accredited in being a communication friendly environment.
S.A.L.T details
Above is their contact number, you can also find lots of useful information on their other social media platforms on; Facebook, Instagram and twitter. Try #getweepeoplechatting
