School Start Year 1

Targeted Intervention for Language and Sound Awareness

Catherine de la Bedoyere, Catharine Lowry

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351330251
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

This highly practical resource is designed to be used with children who need additional help in developing communication skills in Year 1. It offers a carefully structured group intervention which can be delivered by teachers or teaching assistants and is designed to boost language and sound awareness skills

School Start Year 1 includes:

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• detailed advice on how to set up the programme and identify children who may benefit;

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• a structured programme of 30 Language group sessions;

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• a structured programme of 30 Sound Awareness group sessions;

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• activities and learning objectives that link with the Primary curriculum;

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• 56 resource templates that can be photocopied or downloaded from the website;

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• templates to monitor each child's objectives and an end of year evaluation.

Activities are supported by colourful and original illustrations to engage children's interest and are themed around topics such as animal antics, detective stories and the seaside. An additional 5 template sessions are provided which can be used to extend the programme into Year 2. The authors provide clear guidance on how to use the resources and include an FAQ section for schools, parents and Speech and Language Therapists.

This latest resource is a follow on to the hugely popular School Start and Pre-School Start and has been successfully piloted in schools. This is an invaluable resource for primary school staff that encourages good collaborative practice between teachers, teaching assistants, inclusion co-ordinators, SENCOs, speech and language therapists and parents.

Part 1
Introduction

How to use this resource

This book is divided into four parts as follows.

Part 1 Introduction

Part 1 provides information on how to deliver the School Start Year 1 programme. This programme is designed so that it may be delivered by a school. The school may be supported in the use of the programme by:

• the local speech and language therapy department
• the local authority that promotes School Start Year 1 in all of its area

Part 2 Session Sheets

Part 2 contains all of the Session Sheets needed in order to deliver the programme (also available at www.routledge.com/cw/speechmark).

Part 3 Resource Templates

Part 3 contains the Resource Templates for Language and Sound Awareness referred to in the Session Sheets. Templates are produced in the book, so that they may be easily photocopied. The accompanying website also provides all of the templates, including those that are in colour so that they may be easily saved on the school computer and printed when required. There is a full list of the templates that are available in the List of Resource Templates in Part 3 (pages 93–202).

Part 4 Programme Delivery Templates

Part 4 contains all of the checklists, record sheets and handouts needed when delivering the programme. These can either be photocopied or downloaded from the website.

Overview of the programme

School Start Year 1 is a targeted group intervention to boost the language and sound awareness skills of children in Year 1 who are delayed in these areas of communication. It aims to help children catch up so that they may be ready to access the learning environment of the classroom. These children are believed to require additional support that is over and above the support that all children receive in the classroom (universal care).

This provision recognises that children needing targeted support require:

• small group settings to learn new skills with focused adult support
• teaching that follows the typical sequence of development
• reinforcement and repetition of new skills over a long time frame (one year)
• help to transfer new skills into everyday life.

The programme consists of:

• A screening checklist to confirm the identification of those children.
• A structured programme of 30 Language sessions that teaching assistants will find quick and easy to follow; delivered in groups once a week (plus a further skeleton five sessions that may be adapted to suit any topic in year 2)
• A structured programme of 30 Sound Awareness sessions that teaching assistants will find quick and easy to follow; delivered in groups once a week.
• Activities and learning objectives linked into communication at home and in class.
• Monitoring of each child’s objectives and re-administration of the checklist in July.

The National Curriculum in England: Primary Curriculum 2013

School Start Year 1 is a targeted intervention that is designed to help children achieve the attainment targets described in the National Curriculum in England: Primary Curriculum (UK Government, 2013) by the end of Key Stage 1, Year 1. School Start Year 1 will enable children to develop their Language and Literacy skills; spoken language, reading, writing and vocabulary development. The programme offers teachers a response to children with communication needs to overcome potential barriers to learning and social inclusion. The programme addresses:

• Understand and use complete sentences
• Understand and use vocabulary
• Story telling
• Ask and answer questions
• Conversation and interaction
• Auditory Discrimination
• Sound Processing (awareness and manipulation)
• Auditory Memory
• Syllable and Word Repetition

Who is involved in delivering the School Start Year 1 programme?

Teaching Assistants and Inclusion Assistants

School Start Year 1 is written in such a way that teaching assistants (or inclusion assistants) are able to deliver the programme. It is recommended that there be up to four children in a group, led by one assistant. Schools generally prefer to use teaching assistants who are working in Year 1 as they are then in the best position to support the transfer of skills learned in the session into the classroom.

Inclusion Coordinator (INCo)

The school’s INCo (or Special Educational Needs Coordinator, SENCo) is key to leading the school’s commitment to the programme and will allocate time to the teaching assistants to prepare and deliver the programme. The INCo will need to oversee the programme throughout the year to ensure that its operation is smooth: for example, the timetabled slot for the sessions and the place where the sessions will take place should be kept consistent. The INCo can also take responsibility for evaluating the programme’s effectiveness in order to present a case for its continuation in successive years.

Year 1 class teachers

The Year 1 class teachers will be involved in identifying children they are concerned about at the start of the academic year. Some schools may be able to identify the children at the end of Reception Year, for example using data from the School Start reception year checklist. They may also help the teaching assistants in completing the Language Sessions Checklist and the Sound Awareness Sessions Checklist for Year 1. Once the programme is running, the class teacher can increase the programme’s effectiveness by helping children to use their new skills in the classroom (see ‘Transferring new skills into the class’, page 9).

Speech and language therapists

The programme may be supported in school by the local speech and language therapy team or local authority support services. In this instance, the school may request support to set up the programme, identify the children, deliver the programme and use appropriate signing systems. In some areas this form of support may be given at intervals; for example, the therapist, or speech and language therapy assistant, may co-deliver a six-week block of sessions at the start of the programme and then observe a session, giving feedback, later on during the year.

The children

School Start Year 1 is designed to boost delayed language and sound awareness skills in Year 1 children. These children are likely to already be identified as having special educational needs during reception year. However some may not have been referred to speech and language therapy or previously identified as having special educational needs. School Start Year 1 uses the small group format to promote all aspects of communication to prepare children for the learning demands of the National Curriculum and social demands of the classroom.

Children who are disordered in both language and spoken sounds (affecting speech and literacy) tend to benefit from both the Language sessions and the Sound Awareness sessions. However, there is often a distinct group of children who have disordered awareness of spoken sounds that impact upon speech and literacy, yet have age-appropriate language development; these children will typically only require the Sound Awareness sessions. Where children attend both Language sessions and Sound Awareness sessions, it is beneficial if the groups run on different days.

Children with known speech and language difficulties

Children who are already known to the speech and language therapy service because they have speech, language and communication needs will benefit from School Start Year 1 as a part of their package of specialist intervention. For these children the speech and language therapist may recommend additional forms of support but for many School Start Year 1 may be sufficient to ensure progress.

Occasionally, children known to the speech and language therapy service do not meet the criteria for inclusion in the programme using the checklist. These children will have made progress so that they no longer require targeted input and the school may monitor their communication with universal support in the classroom.

Children with additional special educational needs

Children, who have a range of special educational needs including communication difficulties, may benefit from School Start Year 1 in addition to other forms of specialist provision. Sometimes the extent of a child’s difficulties only becomes apparent for the first time in the small group situation of School Start Year 1. The child may fail to make the expected progress on the programme, relative to the other children. In this instance, it is suggested that the teaching assistant initially discusses their concern with the INCo, who may recommend the activity be presented in a different way, to better suit the child’s learning style.

Children with difficulties in social communication

Schools sometimes want to include a child with a social communication difficulty (for example, an autism spectrum disorder) in School Start Year 1. This is only recommended if the child has additional difficulties with language and/or sound awareness. The school will also need to decide whether the child has reached a stage of social development at which he may benefit from learning in a group situation: for example, is he able to cooperate and attend in a small group? If not, he may need to access the programme in an individual session. If school staff are in doubt they can ask their speech and language therapist for advice.

Children with English as an additional language

School Start Year 1 is not recommended for children who have English as an additional language (EAL) or are bilingual, and no other difficulties, because the programme will progress too slowly. However, it can be appropriate when a child has EAL together with vulnerabilities in language or sound awareness.

Implementing the programme

Timetable for the year

School Start Year 1 is delivered throughout Year 1 as follows.

Autumn term (first two weeks of September)

• Children are identified as potentially suitable for the School Start Year 1 Language and/or Sound Awareness group.
• Children are screened using the Language Sessions Checklists and/or the Sound Awareness Sessions Checklist.
• Set-up and training meetings take place between the Inclusion Coordinator (INCo), class teachers and teaching assistants to plan the groups.

Remainder of the autumn term until end of the summer term (October–July)

• Language sessions 1–30 and/or Sound Awareness sessio...