Speaking and Listening
Speaking and Listening
Speaking and listening is a form of literacy that, as with other forms of literacy, we believe students need practice to develop. Scarsdale elementary teachers provide student-centered learning experiences that encourage participation in meaningful social activity. Through thoughtfully planned and varied daily interactions, our learners build speaking and listening skills. By engaging in interactive discussions, students enhance their ability to participate in exploratory discussions, where they are listening, questioning, and thinking flexibly. Focusing on the development of speaking and listening is important because the act of verbal expression can be a rehearsal for the written expression that will come later.
Comprehension and Collaboration
Through collaborative opportunities to engage in academic discourse such as book clubs, partnerships, interactive read-aloud, and turn and talk, we give our students a platform to develop their stamina and to become active listeners and speakers. These peer talk experiences involve listening carefully in order to remember what has been expressed. Careful listening skills allow students to:
add to their knowledge base
develop questions
engage in critical thinking and discourse
evaluate the content of the spoken information
provide evidence to support their evaluations
partnerwritingconf.MOVFifth-grade students set goals and self reflect in a collaborative peer discussion.
Fourth-grade student's Ignite gives an example of formal presentation speech
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
In order to express their own understandings, our students are guided toward delivering their ideas clearly with specific word choice, using oral, visual, and multimedia formats. They may work with a variety of groups and partnerships to develop new knowledge or opinions and to synthesize their ideas.
Fluency of expression is modeled and encouraged. We guide our students to speak clearly and stay on topic, using appropriate pacing, volume, and grammar. Through varied opportunities for presentation, both formal and informal, our students can demonstrate their understanding of concepts and ideas and provide examples or evidence to support them.
A fifth-grade student demonstrates the effects of technology in a formal presentation using a self made common craft video.
Lifelong Practice
Our goal is for students to become competent, functional adults, and to develop their thinking, writing, speaking, and listening skills throughout their education and beyond. By having the ability to listen to others and to think flexibly about others’ points of view, students learn to understand the world around them, beyond their own experiences. In turn, the practice of listening and thinking in this way enables our young learners to become more articulate in speaking, conversation, and written work.
digital literacy video.movHere, a kindergarten student is practicing fluency.
IMG_4750.MOVThe video above shows a student led discussion on a class read-aloud book.
Martha_Capstone.mov