First came across this terminology cognitively when my twin boys were about two years old, and miserably behind the “average” in their oral language skills, or so I thought. As we discovered, both boys were quite receptive (in terms of vocabulary, about six years ahead of average, it turned out!), but it was the expressive aspect of language they struggled with. They understood many more words than the average two-year-old, but spoke far fewer words than their age-appropriate peers.
Both Alex and Simon are quite "normal" now, when it comes to both speaking and listening to understand, but the concepts of expressive and receptive language are ones I am newly interested in, as they pertain to this project. A major part of the way Dale and I propose to teach math next year involves oral language. Students need to be able not only to understand the math terminology in all five strands of the math curriculum, but they need also to be able to articulate their thinking, using topic-specific words, and organizing their ideas in a way that makes sense to their peers and to us, their teachers.
With this in mind, I am embarking on my next reading quest… over the weeks ahead, I hope to digest the following three documents, and report back via this blog:
With this in mind, I am embarking on my next reading quest… over the weeks ahead, I hope to digest the following three documents, and report back via this blog:
1. Talk About Listening Another one of the LNS Monograph series, this one, I hope, will round out my understanding of “Grand Conversations” (GC), which I recently read. 2. Peel's Transformational Practice A document on accountable talk (unfortunately this one is not accessible online, I don’t think, unless you are a Peel employee, then it is under the TP chiclet – if you’re on “the inside”, you’ll know what that means, lol!!!) 3. Conference Handout about Grand Conversations Found this one online. Or maybe it was our IT resource guy who found it? Either way, it looks like a nice summary and possibly application of what I found before, in the LNS monograph on GC. |
But first, I promised myself I’d read about integrating technology, so you’ll have to wait for the Oral Language folks… or read ‘em yourself using the links above!