Building word-retrieval and independent word learning in K-12 kids

I get a ton of questions about how to support kids who have weak word-retrieval, so I wanted to share a powerful technique you can use to address this. 

When kids have poor word-finding skills, it’s often because they’re not engaging in the internal dialogue needed to pay attention to important features of words and store that information efficiently. The key to boosting these skills is to help kids develop this internal self-talk needed to learn words independently. As an SLP or other professional supporting kids, you can’t teach kids every word they need to know. 

What you really need to do instead is to give them the metacognitive skills they need to learn words independently. That’s why in this episode, I wanted to share a special Q & A session that I did for the members of Language Therapy Advance Foundations.

In this Q & A I discuss:
✅My go-to strategy for boosting word-finding (hint: this DOES NOT involve drill activities that encourage rote memorization). 

✅How to help kids develop the internal dialogue they need to keep learning words, even after they leave your therapy room

✅Is there a place for drill-based activities (like rapid naming of categories, associations, and synonyms)? If so, how does it fit into an effective language therapy protocol?

✅How to use semantic feature analysis to boost student engagement and get kids excited about words, so they actually look forward to sessions.

In this episode, I mention a blog post where I outline an example of how to do semantic feature analysis for adjectives, which is an activity I use to improve word-finding. The videos in this post are taken directly from the Language Therapy Advance Foundations member’s area, so it’ll give you a sneak peak of what’s inside the program. You can check out that post here. If you want to learn more about how to boost students’ word-finding and vocabulary, as well as improve their ability to learn independently, check out the Language Therapy Advance Foundations enrollment page here. The De Facto Leaders podcast was formerly the “Are they 18 yet?®” podcast. As of November 2022, the name of the show has changed, and we’ve shifted from a focus on parenting to a focus on supporting clinicians and educators to design effective services for kids (but parents are still welcome to listen). Episodes published before November 24, 2022 will still contain some of our old branding. 

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

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