Week 4

This weeks agenda was all about PRAISE. Effective ways to Praise and Encourage your child, and to bring out the best in your child. I found this week very helpful and when I got home me and my daughters make some Easter buns, and all the time we were making them I kept praising her. The difference it made was excellent. They were smiling, laughing, clapping hands, they were happy that i was praising them.
Here are a few notes i took during the lesson:

• Don't just praise perfection
• Physical contact can help to encourage/make a child feel special
• "use positive reinforces" (well done, brilliant, super)
• Be specific when using praise
• Avoid criticism/negative
• Use praise to encourage behaviours (patience)
• Don't take behaviours for granted
• Expressions-facial-smile-eye contact___Physical-cuddles-taps
• Stay positive when giving praises
• Keep things fun and enjoyable
• Praise small steps

Put some of the above into practice it will work if you want it to work it did for me.

Here are some notes about praising your child:

• Catch your child being good-don't save praise for perfect behaviour.
• Don't worry about spoiling your children with praise
• Increase praise for difficult children
• Model self-praise
• Give labeled and specific praise
• Make praise contingent on behaviour
• Praise with smiles, eye contact, and enthusiasm
• Give positive praise
• Praise immediately
• Give pats and hugs and kisses along with praise
• Use praise consistently
• Praise in front of other people

Choose 1 behaviour you would like to see more often PRAISE it every time they do, this will bring your child to do it more often.

Some Physical rewards

A pat on the ham or shoulder
A hug
Head rubbing
Squeezing the arm or wrist
Giving a kiss

This like this will make your child feel special and give them encouragement.

Speech Sounds

If your like me and you have a child who as difficulty with there speech here are a few ideas to help you and you child with their speech.

Here are some ideas I picked up from my daughters Speech Therapist.

You child will need to know about sounds, hear the difference between sounds and know where sounds go in words before they can use them in their speech. This is called "phonological awareness". These activities will help your child to listen and think about speech sounds.

• Take time to listen to your child

• Kneel or sit so that you are at eye level with your child
• Repeat back what your child has said when they have finished using the correct productions of the words
• Do not interrupt and/or correct any speech errors whilst your child is trying to tell you something

You will be showing your child how to be a good listener. Your child will know that you have listened and understood them and they will feel more confident about speaking.

• If your child does not say the sounds in a word correctly, don't correct your child just say the word back the correct way so that the child can hear how you say it.
• Encourage your child to listen, your child needs to be able to block out other noise and focus on speech. Listening is a skill which children learn. Try the following to help your child to listen

• Turn of the TV, radio, washing machine and find a quite space

• Take turns to hide a musical instrument. Can your child find the instrument by listening to where it is hidden?

• Talk about what you can hear when you are at home and out and about with your child. See how many things your child can hear when the house is quite, E.g. clock ticking, a fly, an aeroplane flying over the house, the fridge, the radio

• Listen to your child's speech to hear which sound(s) he/she has difficulty with.
  

Try playing the following games to increase your child's ability to listen for that sound.

• I spy with my little eye.......

• Treasure hunt-Find me something that starts with______(you can play this game in the house, park, beach, car ect....)

• Sorting game-put a mix of objects in a bag using objects which start with the sound your child has difficulty with and other objects. Can you child find all the objects that start with________ and put them in a separate box?

• Word games-How many words can your child think of that start with_______. The winner gets a treat!

Playing with words and the sounds in words will help your child to learn more about sounds and word patterns. This will help your child with their speech and to learn to read and write. There are three main ways we can play with words and sounds:

• Rhyming
• Sound segmenting and blending
• Syllable segmenting

The following are activities to help your child word play:
Rhyming:

• Make up silly rhymes together-"Go and sit on the table Mable" see if your child can fill in the rhyme.

• Look at rhyming stories together. When your child is familiar with the story can they finish of the rhyme. "I'm scared he said about the bear, the great big bear that lives in..........."

• Rhyme generation "what rhymes with car?"

Sounds Segmentation and Blending:
When we sound segment all we do is break up a word into it's sounds, E.g. cat- c-a-t. Sound blending is when we put those sounds back together to make a word.

• Try saying words in a silly way, separating out the sounds. Tell your child you are going to say a word in a silly way or in a robot's voice, it is something in the room they are in, see if your child can find what it is you are saying E.g. s-o-ck. Again this is a game you can play anywhere.

• Picture- Can they find the picture if you say it in a silly way/robot voice- d-o-g

Syllable Segmentation:
This is when we break up words into the beats, claps or syllables. E.g. car-1 beat, par-ty 2 beats, to-ma-to 3 beats

• Slowly clap out and new words and encourage your child to copy. This will help your child get the sounds in the word in the right order.

• Try walking or jumping in step with saying words

With all new words, clap them out, talk about the sounds you can hear and make up a rhyme to go with it. This will help your child to listen and think about sounds and also remember the new word.

All this information helped me and my child especially Syllable Segmentation we learn new words and clap them out all the time and it does help her to remember new words. Its something she doesn't get born with.

Week 3

Each member of the group read out what they had done with there child or children from the take we had the week before, and what we have changed.

This week the cause was about: Helping Your Child Learn Through Play
Promoting Your Child's Thinking Skills
Encouraging Your Child's Learning

Here are a few notes I took from the course:

• Take an active interest in your child's work
• Do a learning activity with your child everyday
• Praise and encourage your child's efforts in the right direction (not just the end product)
• Set up reward programs for doing the small steps it takes to learn something new
• Be enthusiastic about your child's school projects
• elaborate with the teacher and attend school functions
• Start with easy learning activities and gradually increase the challenge as the child seems ready
• Be realistic about your expectations-follow your child's lead in terms of what he/she is developmentally ready for
• Focus on your child's strength not his/her weaknesses
• Share something that was hard for you to learn
• Project a positive image of your child's ability in the future

More notes below from the course about building your child's self-confidence.

• Value and give your full attention to your children's play activities
• Listen to your children-watch for times when your child is open to talking-don't pressure them to talk if they don't want to
• Reinforce your children's learning efforts by describing what they are doing
• Praise your children's efforts as well as their success
• Follow your child's lead when talking to them or playing
• Spend regular daily time with your children

When Reading:

• Ask open-ended questions
• Avoid commands and corrections, offer help when he/she wants it
• Create opportunities for children to retell stories that they have memorized
• Encourage children to write their own stories or to tell them to you
• Read to children often and allow them to see you reading
• Encourage children to make up stories and act the out

For my homework this week it was to spend time with your child or children and putting the above into practice, remembering to do the activity your child wants to do.
For my home work i did writing some letters with my child, she was happy that she had learnt something new.

Your should write this down:

• Date
• Time Spent
• Activity
• Child's Response
• Parent's Response

Week 2

This week the cause was about PLAY here's a few notes i made

• Follow your child's lead
• Pace at your child's level
• Don't expect two much-give your child time
• Don't compete with your child
• Praise and encourage your child's ideas and creativity-don't criticize
• Encourage in role play and make-believe with your child
• Be an attentive and appreciate audience
• Use descriptive comments instead of asking questions
• Don't give too much help-encourage your child's problem solving
• Reward quite play with your attention
• Laugh and have fun

Read the above and put it into practice. It can only work if you want it to. Again we got some work to take home with us, and again it was to spend time with our child or children and to put the above into practise.

Week 1

First week of the cause was just telling us what we would be doing in the following weeks to come. We was each given a note book to jot information down. The first task was to write down what we wanted to get out of this cause. Now only you know what you want to get out of it.
Examples: want children to stop fighting, want to spend more time with your children, want your children to get on with each other.
Mine was to build up self esteem of child. We got a task to do at home it was to play with your child for 20 minutes doing jigsaws or colouring or what ever your child wants to do. Just get involved in what they are doing.
So i wrote in my book week 1 My Goal: Build up self esteem of child.
I then went home and through the week spent 20 minutes with my child doing different activities and she loved me spending more time with her i could see it in her face how happy she looked and how happy i felt.

Children's Needs

My eldest daughter as a speech problem, she is 4 years old nearly 5 and is at full time school. She does not speak at the level she should be speaking, and the teachers find it difficult to communicate with her. She is a shy little girl anyway, but she goes all day without speaking to anyone. Her teachers are very worried about her.
She attends speech therapy weekly and to me she is coming along well, better than she was 6 months ago. But she still won't speak at school.
School suggested i go on a Webster stratton cause. It is held at my daughters school, it is a 12 week cause and i go once a week. There are other parents there who have problems with there children weather its communication or behaviour. They give you excerisers to do at home with your child to help build that relationship with your child.
I will up date my blog every Wednesday with information about what i have learnt on the cause. Please feel free to email me with any questions and i will try my best to answer them for you.