These activities can be used to improve skills in spoken or written language in specific areas that often give language learners difficulty. Also included are lists, developmental hierarchies, goals, drills, scripts, background information, and research related to each area. There is much more yet to be uploaded, so check back often!
Just as it is in teaching reading, repetition is a key factor in successful language acquisition. One often evident hurdle for children with language learning disorders is a lack of interest in practicing skills which require repetition for effective learning. Varying the exposures to the skills, as well as varying the means of repetition, is a valuable way to learn difficult language skills. Normally developing children learn language only through repeated exposure and practice using language in different circumstances. The same is true with children with language learning difficulties.
These activities are meant to promote the type of communication necessary to communicate effectively in the classroom. Too often children with communication difficulties simply give up when faced with a challenging task. Too often kids with communication deficits simply remain quiet when asked to explain their knowledge, even when that knowledge exists. For some children language is a wonderful tool that can open countless doors, while for others it stands as a frustrating wall between themselves and others. The activities on this site are meant to chip away at that wall.
Just as it is in teaching reading, repetition is a key factor in successful language acquisition. One often evident hurdle for children with language learning disorders is a lack of interest in practicing skills which require repetition for effective learning. The intent of Free Language Stuff is to provide language learners with meaningful exposure, practice, and repetition to increase these skills that children need to successfully communicate, and to provide activities to practice in an interesting way.
Speech and language pathologists, special education teachers, and regular education teachers all can benefit from having an arsenal of tools to teach skills such as grammar. My hope is that the activities within this site can be a valuable addition to this arsenal. Puzzles have long entertained children while reinforcing critical thinking skills.
Many of these activities can also be used to help with auditory comprehension. For example, the sentences of a sentence search can be read aloud to the student that has trouble reading. The student is required to listen to the sentence, hold the sentence in working memory, and match the words in the written sentence to what he or she has just heard. Not only does this give practice in comprehending sentences with target language structures, it gives highly structured practice in auditory comprehension of sentences (and reading).
Cues given can be easily manipulated. For example, in a sentence search or sentence drop, the instructor can do the first part of a sentence for students that aren’t able to find entire sentences on their own without frustration.
