Theme for March---Friendship

First and foremost my deepest apologies for lacking on the blog post updates during the  month of February.  My academic position had me traveling quite a bit and it just got me too far behind to get the pictures uploaded and ready to go for a good quality post.  If I can't make the post high quality I do not want to throw just anything out there. 

The theme for "Wright's Word Wall" for March will be related to Friendship.  The photograph that will accompany the word wall will be the following:


The first words for the first week of March will be:

People:                    You
Actions:                   Run
Nouns:                     Dog
Places:                     School
Describing Words:  Small
Social Vocabulary:  Please


One important aspect of building friendships is being able to engage in shared activities and demonstrate social etiquette.  These are the reasons for this week's word selections.  It is important to teach children (and adults) to be other-oriented.  This can be a very challenging and daunting task.  Many children will begin referring to themselves in the third person initially by using their own name.  In my case I would say "Sandra hungry".  In previous word wall vocabulary, your child was introduced to the word "I" to help give them developmental language to start referring to themselves in the first person using "I" rather than the third person using their name.  Don't worry if your child is not grasping this concept quickly.  It is very abstract in nature.  If you try to model it for your child it can also become quite confusing because when you use the term "I" you are referring to yourself, not your child. 

The good news is that teaching a child to use the word "you" can be much easier than teaching who the word "I" represents.  How can you do this?  Here is my suggestion.  You need 3 people (at least).  One person is the child learning the vocabulary, the second person is the communication facilitator whose sole responsibility is to help the child learn the vocabulary and the third person is the communication partner.  Engage in a game-like or turn taking activity where the child can make statements like "you run" or "you throw" or "you kick" (note all previous word wall action words).  The communication facilitators helps the child access these words on an AAC system or shows the words to be read if your child has good verbal abilities, or to be pointed to.  The communication facilitator should access the word "you" in the same manner the child would then point or gesture through eye gaze to the communication partner.  Initially the communication partner should respond to demonstrate the meaning of the word you.  With practice the communication partner should stop responding entirely to the communication facilitator and only respond to the child.  Remember that the target of the activity here is that the child begin to learn and understand the concept of the vocabulary "you" refers to another person.  When it is felt the child understands this concept, the communication partner and communication facilitator should switch roles to ensure that the child does not think the word "you" is a nickname for a particular person but understands that the word is universal.