Learning new concepts and words

Difficulty detecting the speech sound and syllable structure of words

This may be presented as difficulty in detecting (phonological awareness) "holding onto" and storing the form of new words as they are learnt, particularly when made up of several syllables. Acquiring these skills is essential for success in 'phonics' teaching. 

Phonological awareness difficulty impacts the learning of phonics which impacts literacy skill development. 

Support strategies:

• Address the underlying difficulty by analysing phonological awareness skills. Provide a phonological awareness programme before the child experiences failure in their phonics lessons and becomes de-motivated. 
• Address phonological awareness difficulty as this may also have a negative effect on vocabulary learning. 
• Develop specific awareness of individual consonants relating to how the sounds are made. 
• Use cued articulation signs to support awareness of individual speech sounds. 
• Analyse the structure of words in terms of syllable awareness, initial sound, final sound, vowel awareness and sound sequence.

Resource: "Cued Articulation" by Jane Passy. 

Difficulty detecting speech and sound patterns

This could be presented as difficulty detecting features such as rhyme. Being able to detect rhyme is important for literacy skill development. Learning speech sound patterns (rhyme) aids spelling using analogy techniques. 

A child with phonological awareness and concept learning difficulties may struggle to learn to detect rhyme. 

Strategies to support: 

• Play rhyme detection games. Start with two picture pairs to be matched such as king/wing and dog/log.
• Teach rhyme detection as something heard and not seen in letter patterns. This allows the child to understand the concept. 
• Use visual symbols (For example Widgit symbols) to show there are two parts to the word - onset and rhyme. One part is different and one part is the same. 
• Use a Talking Tin to record the onset and another to record the rhyme. Generate other initial sounds to record on Talking Tins but keep the one rhyme. Blend them together and declare "they rhyme". 
• Give lots of experience with rhyme in wordplay and storybooks. 
• Teach explicitly as this can be a difficult concept for many children to understand so they can detect rhyme independently. 

Difficulty learning, understanding and retaining new concepts and vocabulary

A child may present this by needing many more exposures to new words, how they are spoken, and how they are used to learn and retain them. 

In particular, difficulty can be experienced when learning abstract concepts. Psychological concepts, meta words (such as 'mental verbs') and time concepts are among them. 

Strategies to support: ​

• Select the level of vocabulary you feel is within the child's grasp. 
• Teach words in isolation and in context. 
• Build from concrete to abstract vocabulary. 
• Explicitly pre-teach before expecting to apply the vocabulary to a task or context. 
• Analyse the structure of words as described within the 'Difficulty detecting the speech sound and syllable structure of words' section above. 
• Analyse in terms of units of meaning such as prefixes, root words and suffixes. 
• Use conceptual pictures such as 'Widgit' symbols to help convey meaning. 
• Use visual prompts and support. 
• Relate each target word to previous world experience and to the new context it is to be used. 
• Activate using the words in games, drama and a variety of contexts and activities. 
• Review frequently to ensure the word and its meaning can be recalled. 
• Remember effortful retrieval aids further retrieval. 
• Keep logs of words learnt to aid review and only delete when sure the word is fully integrated into the child's knowledge and use. 
• Ensure class word walls include words and pictures/symbols. Create a personalised word wall.

Resources:

• "Word Aware 2" - Best used as a whole school approach to vocabulary learning. 
• "Word Aware 3" - Teaching vocabulary in groups for ages 6 to 11 years. 
• "Vocabulary Enrichment Programme" - Targeting ages 8 to 18 years. 

Difficulty understanding double or multiple word meanings

A child may present this as a lack of awareness of words that have double or multiple meanings. This is especially the case where one has a more literal meaning and one has a more psychological meaning. For example cold (temperature) and cold (emotionally). This may be presented as a revelation when this feature of our language is explained to exist.  

This can also be presented as difficulty in thinking flexibility when listening to connected speech. This could lead to the child accessing the incorrect meaning and losing understanding of what is being said. 

Strategies to support:

• Introduce explicitly the concept of double word meanings that can be readily depicted. Present picture pairs to the child, for example, bat/bat or leek/leak.
• Play matching or pairs games with the homophone pictures. 
• Give sentences where the child has to point to the correct picture/meaning of the word as used in the sentence. 
• Later move on to teaching double word meanings where one meaning is more abstract or physiological. For example, cold/cold or patient/patient. 'Widgit' symbols are good for showing many of these contrasts. 
• Support in the classroom by anticipating confusions where double word meanings arise. This will occur frequently as our language has lots of double/multiple word meanings.