Language Experience

  

  

In life, it's easier to talk about something that you are familiar with or about something that you have done, than to talk about something that you have never experienced.  This is exactly what we aim to accomplish in the oral preschool class.  During an activity that we call language experience, we aim to give our students, real-life experiences that they can talk about at home or anywhere else.

Each experience provides the preschoolers with an activity that will encourage them to communicate effectively with their peers & other adults using spoken language.  During the activity, the preschoolers are exposed to the language of many different smells and tastes as well as other sensory input.  We also model our language in a way that encourages our students to communicate with others effectively.  In the end, because our students have actively participated in this activity, they should be able to talk about the experience with others.

While the activity is the same for each child, the instructional goals are individualized so that the entire experience is purposeful and challenging for each student based on his or her current language level.  The speech pathologists and I carry out these language experiences in a small group on Wednesdays & Fridays.  The lessons are planned to compliment our class's monthly themes so that the preschoolers have extra exposure to our targeted vocabulary words.  While we don't always have a tangible product at the end of the experience, we take pictures of the process to include in a book that will go home with each child.  Please read this book with your child and see how much he/she can tell you about the experience. 

Here are a few examples of some of our preschoolers' finished products.  Remember, it's all about the process and the learning experience itself, not the final product.  :)