Course Sample for Our Beginning Listening and Speaking Skills Homeschool Language Arts Course
- Teaching these beginning communication skills with early learners will provide a firm foundation that will help them throughout their lives! Basic speaking and listening skills can also boost self-confidence in many settings during typical daily activities.
- Consistency is key in building these skills. Phrases such as “Be a listener” and “Use your words” will help reinforce good habits.
- You can also ask questions regularly. Think about the five “W questions”: Who, What, Where, When, Why. Asking these will make your child formulate complete thoughts. Eventually, you will begin to notice that their descriptions improve because they are already incorporating the answers to the questions.
- Modeling appropriate speaking and listening behavior will help your child see this skill being used daily. That is the best instruction you can provide!
- This course will provide some activities to begin building these skills. Use these activities as a springboard for future activities and fun experiences to practice being a good speaker and listener!
- Once this unit is complete, continue using it! Build on the foundation that this course starts and repeat some of the activities throughout your language arts instruction at home.Objectives for this course
- Listen to, restate, and follow two- and three-step oral directions
- Read aloud to others
- Creatively reenact stories
- Memorize and recite short poems, rhymes, and Scripture
- Listen for enjoyment to many kinds of stories, poems, nursery rhymes, folk tales, etc.
- Listen to stories for comprehension, interpreting, and answering questions about what thestudent has heard
- Dictating words, phrases, and sentences for someone to write down
- Describe an experience or share an idea
How to use this course
Thirty activities are provided to meet the objectives for the course. Use these activities in conjunction with your language arts instruction. These activities are sequenced in a way that covers each of the objectives several times, yet each objective is spaced out over the course to have a spiraling effect. Feel free to repeat your favorite ones as many times as necessary. You can never practice speaking and listening too much!
Activity One
Read a favorite picture book together. After reading each page, ask your child a question about the picture. This will ensure that they are listening to the story and speaking a response to the question. Request that the answer be in a complete sentence. For example, let’s say there is a picture of a dog running toward a restaurant. You may ask, “Where is the dog going?” Instead of accepting the response “to the restaurant,” request a sentence. The answer should be “The dog is running to the restaurant.”
Activity Two
Play “Go Find It.” Select five similar objects to hide throughout your house. This could include five blocks, five toy cars, five dolls, five goody bags, five red pieces of paper, etc. Wherever you are is “home base.” Give your child a two- or three-step direction to find the object and return it to home base. For example: Say, “Go to your room. Look under your bed.” The child would leave you, go to his room, and retrieve the object. Then he would return it to you. Continue giving directions to find the other objects.
Activity Three
Print and complete Following Directions – Sweets from the Activity Pack. This is a fun way to follow directions. You will give your child directions given in the activity, and they will complete the activity board.
Activity Four
Use a common fairy tale or story your family enjoys. If that is not available, read a story. Then, act it out! Make some fun puppets from paper bags or staple pictures on craft sticks. Retell the story with the characters you have made. Get involved with your child on this one! Use funny voices and have fun together!
Activity Five
Print and complete Name 5 Things from the Activity Pack. Ask your child to name five things according to the category on the cards. Make a list of some of your child’s answers. Model how to write a list. Practice reading the lists together. For a fun twist, ask your child to draw a card and tell you to name five things. Then, he should make a list of some of your answers! Read them together.
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