Jumpstart! Talk for Learning: Games and activities for ages 7-12

Jumpstart! Talk for Learning presents a collection of multi-sensory games and activities that will jumpstart children’s use of effective talk in the classroom. This book offers practical and engaging ideas ranging from brief games to extended lesson suggestions. It offers a basis for creating your own spoken language activities to match topics you are teaching and individual needs of your class.

Specifically written to help teachers with the direct teaching of talk skills required by the National Curriculum, activities in the book encourage children to:

• participate in group and class discussions

• use exploratory talk and share a range of points of view

• use talk imaginatively to develop understanding

• develop individual presentational talk

• take part in active drama sessions

Jumpstart! Talk for Learning includes a range of classroom activities that can be used in literacy lessons and integrated across the curriculum. This essential resource will help teachers develop children’s use of talk to understand one another and get things done together.

Lyn Dawes is a consultant in Spoken Language in the Primary Years, previously Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Northampton, UK and visiting lecturer at the University of Cambridge, UK.

John Foster taught English for 20 years before becoming a full-time writer. He has written over 100 books for classroom use and is a highly regarded children’s poet.