Those of you who have heard me present at a conference or in-service know how passionate I am about awareness. Kids and adults who are working on their word finding need to know WHAT they are working on and WHY…and how it will help them in school and on the job. It’s time to share! Please share your favorite awareness activities.
I like to find examples of word finding difficulties in the media. Radio and TV commercials are great for using slips of the tongue to promote products. One of my favorites is a local bank which features “grandma” who talks about her padlock for her pony and her desire to ride on an elephant in Indiana instead of Indonesia . Sadly enough, one of our presidential candidates is filling the airwaves with his malapropisms (really? pre-medication instead of pre-meditation??). Capture those examples on YouTube and show them to your word finding students. Kids love to catch their parents using a sibling’s name for their own ( I once called my daughter by the dog’s name…a real faux pas!!). Help your students become aware that everyone occasionally makes a word finding mistake.
First, they need to recognize word finding errors in others. Then they can become more aware of their own word finding difficulties. I have made videos of kids reading dialogs that provide examples of WF errors. My speech kids love to use a digital counter to identify the examples they notice. Go to my “resources” page for some examples of dialogs.
Once students have a real understanding of what “word finding” is, help them identify the types of errors they make and the contexts in which they tend to have difficulty. Do they stumble retrieving new teachers’ and friends’ names? Do they have difficulty retrieving new science and social studies terms? Do they mix up syllables or substitute similar-sounding multi-syllable words (bioluminescence, hydroelectrical, elimination become biolupidescence, hydroeclectic, linenation)?
More than likely, you have some new “word finders” on your caseloads this fall. Spend some extra time working on awareness – in the long run, you will experience much greater success with your students.
Now it’s your turn. Please share your favorite awareness activities with the readers of this blog. Send them to me at jan@wordfindingforkids.com or post them on my Facebook page. I want to hear from you!