Talking Points: Discussion Activities in the Primary Classroom

Talking Points: Discussion Activities in the Primary Classroom encourages and supports classroom discussion on a range of topics, enabling children to develop the important life-skill of effective group communication. Children who can explain their own ideas and take account of the points of view and reasons of others are in the process of becoming truly educated. This book offers a straightforward way of teaching children discussion skills within the framework of a creative curriculum.

The book provides an introduction on how to help children learn the skills of group discussion, offering six essential Talk Lessons to use in the classroom, alongside suggestions on how teachers can plan their lessons with a talk focus, set learning outcomes and create their own Talking Points to suit topics they are teaching. The main body of the book contains the Talking Points resources which are an excellent, tried and tested way of stimulating and supporting extended talk about a topic. The Talking Points in this book offer model for teachers to create further Talking Points for their own classes. The Talking Points included here offer discussion in several curriculum areas including:-

• Science
• Literacy
• Philosophy and creativity for children
• History
• Mathematics
• Art and Music

This invaluable book offers engaging, stimulating and thought provoking ideas for children to pit their wits against, promoting skills in discussion, analysis, reasoning and interaction. It is highly beneficial reading for teachers working in Key Stage 2, head teachers and those responsible for staff development, as well as students on teacher training courses and graduate training programmes.

Lyn Dawes has extensive teaching experience and is currently Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Northampton, UK, and visiting lecturer at Cambridge University, UK. Her previous publications include Creating a Speaking and Listening Classroom: Integrating Talk for Learning at Key Stage 2 and The Essential Speaking and Listening: Talk for Learning at Key Stage 2, both published by David Fulton.

Paul Warwick, author of the science information notes which accompany the Talking Points, is Senior Lecturer in Education at Cambridge University, UK, specialising in science education.