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Topic “P7”
Make phrases in past tense using irregular verbs 1
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| What have you done today with visual timetable Paper, pens or pencil (for adult only), photos of events that have happened during the day (optional) See this list of common irregular past tense verbs for some examples. (http:en.commtap.org/content/common-irregular-past-tense-verbs) | 1. Make a visual timetable by writing or drawing each past day's activities on a board/sheet so that the child can see what happened. It can bring the past tense more alive if you use photos of activities that did actually happen on the previous day or earlier in the current day. 2. Ask 'What did you do here?' as you point to a picture/photo. The child may say 'Rided my bike.' You can confirm with 'Yes, you rode your bike.' Add emphasis to the correct form of the verb. You can invite the child to say rode. | It is very common for young children to acquire a few irregular past tenses for very common verbs (e.g. went). Then they seem to pick up the -ed rule and suddenly the went becomes wented. This will normally sort itself out. You will also hear goed. However, many verbs with irregular past tense forms don't emerge and some concerted practice is needed. Don't correct all day long - the child will often be quite sure he said it right! Until you have done the practice in the special activities, you can use the correct form yourself in confirmation e.g. the child says 'I eated all my cabbage' and you can say 'You ate all of it? That's fantastic.' |
| Lotto Lotto boards with pictures of activities the children have done recently - say four or six pictures per board. One board per child. Matching set of picture cards. If the boards are in black and white and the picture cards are in colour, this makes the game more rewarding. | You can vary how you play this game - this is one way you can do it. For the first game, you can be the caller, for subsequent games a child can have a go. 1. The caller takes a card. Ask the child to complete this sentence at each turn (using the verb in their picture): 'Yesterday, I ...' (For example: 'Yesterday I rode my bike.'). You could use a question, such as "What did you do yesterday?", "What did Max do yesterday?" 2. The child who's got it says they have got it, and they get the card; 3. Continue until all the boards are covered up. | The child may say 'Rided my bike.' You can confirm with 'Yes, you rode your bike.' Add emphasis to the correct form of the verb. You can invite the child to say rode - be sensitive if you do this, and don't repeatedly ask the child to say this. |
| Pairs Two matching sets of pictures of activities the children have done recently - say 20 cards in all. | You might need to prompt with a question, such as "What did you do yesterday?", "What did Max do this morning?". The child may say, for example, 'Rided my bike.' You can confirm with 'Yes, you rode your bike.' Add emphasis to the correct form of the verb. You can invite the child to say rode - be sensitive if you do this, and don't repeatedly ask the child to say this. | |
| Simon Says See this list of common irregular past tense verbs for some examples. (http:en.commtap.org/content/common-irregular-past-tense-verbs) | The child may say, for example, 'falled' You can confirm with 'Yes, you fell.' Add emphasis to the correct form of the verb. You can invite the child to say fell - be sensitive if you do this, and don't repeatedly ask the child to say this. | |
| What have you done today? Paper, pens or pencil (for adult only) See this list of common irregular past tense verbs for some examples. (http:en.commtap.org/content/common-irregular-past-tense-verbs) | If a child does not use a correct past tense, for example "Terry do writing", just feed back the correct way of saying it in a conversational way, for example "oh, Terry wrote something?". For this activity, when it is your turn, try to use an example with an irregular past tense verb (see below) particularly one which you know the child is having difficulty with. However do NOT force the child to think of something they have done which involves an irregular verb - accept, and conversationally correct whatever they say. You can do step 1 with one child as well as in a group. | |
| Retell a sequence Props to support a sequence of actions you will perform (optional) See this list of common irregular past tense verbs for some examples. (http:en.commtap.org/content/common-irregular-past-tense-verbs) | To make this activity a bit easier, you could make a memory jogger with action pictures lined up. The child may say, for example, 'you buyed milk' You can confirm with 'Yes, I bought some milk.' Add emphasis to the correct form of the verb. You can invite the child to say bought - be sensitive if you do this, and don't repeatedly ask the child to say the word. |
Contribute information appropriately in one to one or in small groups
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Dice Games A selection of pictures of different items, stuck on card A large dice | Play in a small group of children. Each child takes a turn to pick a card. S/he rolls the dice, and then tells the group as many points about his/her picture as the number on the dice. (e.g. if s/he has a picture of a train and rolls a 3, s/he tells the group 3 things about a train) | Choose items of interest to the children. Instead of talking about a picture, the children can talk about themselves, or each other, or things they did yesterday. |
| 'Who am I?' game Strips of paper/card to make headbands Sticky tape Blutac Pictures of clothes, animals and toys / furniture stuck on card | You may need to help the children think about the questions they ask, so that they don't just guess at what they are. E.g. have a photocopied sheet of all the pictures, put into their groups - clothes, animals and toys. Prompt the children to ask first e.g. 'am I an animal?' If you want to make it harder, you can put a limit on the number of questions each child can ask. |
Stories from pictures
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Sequence pictures and comment on them Commercially available sequencing pictures Photo-copied pictures from a favourite book Photos from an outing |
| You may need to model this skill for children ie talking about what is in the picture. Encourage children to give the information about their pictures to others who are not already 'in the know'! This is motivating and can make more sense to some children. |
| Child's own drawings |
understands printed word can describe own experience
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Event recall A sheet with columns labelled with 'when', 'who', 'what', 'where' | Use a recent event and the 'wh' recall sheet and fill this out with the child e.g. a trip to the swimming bath - fill in a word or two to describe when the event took place, who went, what the event was and where it took place. The event can then be recalled by reading across the columns. This technique can be used to recall a recent book or game in the playground, or cooking lesson. | Keep language simple - the object is to show that print is relevant to real life experience and pictures of real life. Use 2/3 word phrases only. Give lots of reward even for small bits of a task well done - you don't have to wait till the end of a task to reward. This way you can always reward good behaviour before the child gets restless. |
| Recent event picture sequence Scrap book Photos from home or a school trip | ||
| Simple stick man drawings of an event | ||
| Diary | ||
| Home-school book |
Understand sentences containing a future tense
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| What's going to happen Familiar picture story books - the story should involve at least two people/animals etc. | 1. Read the book to the child - make sure they can see the pictures - (note this is NOT a reading activity - the child does not need to read the book); 2. As you go through the book, say what each person is doing and what they are going to do on the next page, for example "Daisy is wearing a hat", "Sam is going to put a hat on"; 3. Next time round, ask questions like "who is wearing a hat?", "who is going to put a hat on": accept the child's answer, however if it is incorrect, you can say "I think Sam's going to wear the hat", then turn the page, and say something like "oh, yes, he put the hat on". If the child got it right, then you can say something like "Yes! Sam put the hat on!". | Make sure your language fits the context - it can be tempting to use the target language (future tense) even though it doesn't quite fit with the situation. For example, in the example on the left with Sam and Daisy, on the first page (where Sam is not yet wearing a hat) you could say "Sam is going to put his hat on". However, when you get to the second page (which shows that he has put his hat on), the language to use is not now "Sam is going to put his hat on" (because he's already put it on), now you would have to say something like "(ah) ...Sam put his hat on". |
| What's going to happen using pictures You can use purpose designed pictures, or you can make your own: Make a set of pictures using a digital camera with at least two children you are working with. You could also use two soft toys such as a teddy and a doll. Make a sequence of pictures showing the children doing various actions, such as putting on a hat, kicking a ball, drinking something, eating a cake. First picture: show the two children; Second picture: one child doing the action e.g. putting a hat on - and the other child waiting to do the action; Third picture: the other child doing the action (the first child should also be in the picture having done the action - e.g. if they have just put a hat on, this picture should have them with the hat on). Put the three pictures in this order in a book. | It might be necessary to act out the sequence rather than just repeat it using the pictures: see "EW P7 sequences three pictures showing a practical activity" at www.commtap.org. Instead of pictures, you could film the sequence with a digital camera. |
Listen to short story and answer questions on it
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Stories that the child isn't familiar with. Stories could be taken from reading books, or from picture sequence cards. (For example 'And then' published by Schubi). You could also use stories from "Language for Thinking" (Stephen Parsons and Anna Branagan). Initially don't show the pictures but instead read the stories from p136 to the children, before asking the suggested questions on them. You could also find short animated stories on YouTube for example, so that you can show the child the story after you have narrated it and asked the child questions on it. | Read chunks of the story to the child, or tell the story from the sequence cards. The chunks should be around 50 words long (a paragraph) and/or contain between two and three things that happen. (Use shorter chunks if this is too long for the child). Ask a question relevant to the key information in the story. For example, suppose this was part of the story: "Lucy rode her red bicycle down the hill. At the bottom she couldn't stop and fell straight into the fish pond..." Relevant questions would be 'What did Lucy do', 'What happened to Lucy at the bottom of the hill': avoid asking questions about details which aren't particularly relevant to the story such as 'What colour was Lucy's bike?'; Ask the child the question then re-read the part of the story which contains the answer to the question; Show him/her part of the story using pictures. Try to guide the child to recall the information with the minimum amount of prompts necessary. Try to avoid the situation where you need to say what the answer is. If you keep needing to do this then the story is probably too hard. | You could also ask the child to retell the chunk you have read. The child could also be asked to reconstruct the story using drawing, using miniatures (e.g. playmobil), selecting and ordering cards from a set of picture sequence cards. For the child to gain more information from stories and explanations at other times he/she will be assisted by the use of visuals to support this, and also by being asked a question before hearing the story or explanation so that he/she has something to focus his/her listening on. |
Activities to develop understanding of 4 key word instructions (nouns/verbs/adjectives/prepositions)
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Dinner Time (noun + size + noun + noun) - 2 different soft toys - 2 plates - 2 boxes or baskets | 2. Put the 2 soft toys in front of your child, and put a plate and box/basket in front of each one. 2. Select four or five pairs of pictures (i.e., big and small apple, big and small burger etc.) and spread them out - putting the big and small pictures next to each other. Say the name of each picture as you put them out. 3. Ask your child to put an item of food on the doll's or teddy's plate or basket (e.g. "put the big banana on teddy's plate"). | |
| Place the items (noun + size + noun + noun) |
Follows two related instructions
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Instructions in PE PE equipment | Give sequences of one then two instructions, for example: 'Run to the post then turn around', 'Jump then run to the window', 'Throw the yellow ball', 'Jump three times then turn around' Variations: Have a fixed set of instructions, for example turn around, throw the ball, run to the post, jump in the hoop. Let the children take it in turns to be the teacher, giving the other children the instructions. It may be useful to have picture prompts for the instructions which the children can use. | If the child gets it wrong you can: - repeat the instruction doing the actions together; - hold up a finger for each instruction you do to remind the child that there was more than one instruction; - use less steps in the instruction |
| General class room instructions No specific equipment | Be careful about how much you are expecting the child to understand - use no more than two steps in the instruction. Some situations require very little understanding of language, for example asking 'get your coat' when it's home time requires no language understanding as this what a child would normally expect to do at this time. | |
| Barrier games Paper, coloured pens, a barrier so that children can't see what each other is doing Black sheet press have a range of ready made sheets for doing these activities. | At first, you can start by giving the instructions. |
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