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Monday 29 February 2016

Whole Brain Teaching in Speech


Last fall I fell upon the Whole Brain Teaching method and thought it was genius! It seems like such a simple idea but it really seems to works wonders. In their words: At the root of Whole Brain Teaching is a large amount of highly structured, educational tomfoolery. Students learn the most when they are having fun. Whole Brain Teaching classrooms are full of task-focused laughter. Humor and games are used to increase the number of times students repeat core information and practice basic skills. Our classes are highly disciplined and tightly organized because students have more fun following our rules, than ignoring them. 



 I wish every teacher used it or at least hears about it- I am sure it would make all of their lives easier. Since then I have wondered how I could incorporate it in speech? I started looking around and saw that Allison from Speech Peeps came across it too.




The basics of WBT are (click to learn more about it here)
  • Class? Yes!
  • Teach, OK!
  • Switch?
  • Mirror 
  • smiley face vs. frown face - scoreboard for managing behavior
Here are a few of the Whole Brain Teaching Ideas that I think will really enhance speech therapy:

Teach- ok!- this is great time for students to use their sound correctly in conversation or for them to teach you their newly acquired language skill. If you are working with students one on one you can have them teach you the goal/target.

Here is an intro video showing you the basics!


Switch- this technique is great when you have groups. The children who "get" the concept are able to explain it in a different way than you have and if anyone is struggling its another opportunity to learn! Listen to the kids at this point so you can fill in any information! Remember to chunk- don't speak more than 30 seconds!
The only thing that won't work in speech is having the child raising their hand to speak (because that is why they are here and that's what they are working on.)  ;)


Let me know if you are going to try it in speech!


Cheers,
Mindy

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