Available to buy from the Discover Inclusion website

Some children have difficulties understanding and/or using spoken language. These difficulties may be on-going and persistent, resulting in a diagnosis of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). It is estimated that there are two children with DLD in every average class of 30 children(1). Children with DLD often have difficulties learning to read, spell and use written language as well as difficulties related to communication.

 

The Rainbow Speakers Packs provide sets of structured, adult-led resources that work on developing the child’s spoken language, specifically the order of words in simple spoken sentences. It is suitable for pupils with moderate to severe and complex needs. These children may need teaching and support to put together and say sentences to carry meaning and so, communicate effectively.

 

There are three activities in the pack: Colourful Sentences, The Big Scene and Silly Sentences. The main activity is called Colourful Sentences. In this activity pupils organise picture cards and arrange them make a sentence which they then say out loud. The picture cards are colour-coded, following a modified version of the Fitzgerald Language Key. Visuals are commonly used by Speech and Language Therapists to support pupils to develop an understanding of oral (spoken) language structure.

 

The complete Rainbow Speakers series is made up of two packs which gradually build up the child’s spoken language:

 

Foundation Pack: Levels 1-7

Level 1               Who? (subject of the sentence - noun)

Level 2               What doing? (action - verb)

Level 3               What? (object of the sentence - noun)

Level 4               Where? (place)

Level 5               What like? (adjective)

Level 6               How? (adverb)

Level 7               Definite articles ‘a’  ‘an’  ‘the’

                           What next? (connective) ‘and’

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Progression Pack: Levels 8-12

Level 8               Plurals

                           Auxiliary verb ‘is’  ‘are’

                           How many? (quantity)

Level 9               Where is it? (preposition)

Level 10             Who(se) is it? (pronoun)

                           Auxiliary verb ‘am’ 

Level 11             When? (time)

Level 12             Did what? (past tense)

                           Auxiliary verbs ‘was’ ‘were’

                           What next? (connective) ‘because’

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