100 % Speaking and Listening

The book is a complete oral communication program that will entertain and energize students while providing them with valuable lifelong skills. It includes a cd with all material from the book in reproducible form. The program addresses the oral language benchmarks for ages 11 - 13 and helps students with special needs meet their individual speech and language goals. Through guided conversations, discussions, and presentations, students will learn strategies to help them: LISTEN with empathy and understanding SPEAK with confidence, clarity, and power EXPRESS ideas in an organized and persuasive way FIND exciting ideas to talk about GIVE opinions with respect DESCRIBE experiences using rich, varied vocabulary and vivid descriptions WORK together as a community of speakers and listeners The program teaches students to use metacognitive self-talk prompts, called Peptalks, to direct their efforts toward clear, personal oral communication goals: I speak slowly and clearly. I make pictures in my listeners’ minds. My voice fills the room. It doesn’t matter if I’m wrong or right. I’ll try. Each lesson includes an activity that places students in a challenging communication situation, as well as a list of suggested Peptalks to help students overcome the communication challenge. At times there are specific ideas for when to introduce a particular Peptalk in the lesson, but in general, the best time to present a Peptalk is at the moment it’s needed. Reproducible ready-made Peptalk cards are provided at the end of every unit. It’s up to you to decide which cards to give individual students. Allow students to color and decorate the cards you give them. (You may want to duplicate the cards for each unit on a different color paper so they can be easily sorted.) Blank Peptalk cards are also provided so students can make up their own personal self-talk prompts. You may want to encourage students who write more fluently to help those who are having difficulty.