Video: Learning to copy

﻿Hello everybody. My name's Emma, and welcome to today's lesson. I'm looking forward to today's session, and I hope you are too. I can't wait to get started, but before we do, just a quick reminder. We here at Oak are here to support any approaches that you might already be using and any work you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have any questions, please do contact your child's school or usual speech and language therapy team. In today's session, I'm going to be talking about how we learn to copy. We're going to think about how copying actions can help you. And then we're going to play a game called mirror me. Throughout the session, I'll be sharing some top tips for adults so that they can help you develop your understanding of language through copying. So for today's session, you'll need a mirror and some of your favourite music. Adults, you'll need some writing equipment and the downloadable resource that's available with this lesson on the Oak website. Make sure that you're in a quiet place for this lesson, and that you won't be disturbed. Turn off any distractions or notifications that you might have running on your device, and make sure that you and your adult are seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay, let's start with some talking and thinking about learning to copy. Copying is an important skill because it gives the child the opportunity to practise a skill or a concept. By practising , it allows the child to then make their own attempts. Copying is when we do something that the other person is doing in the same way. Let's play our first game. It's called mirror me. Children, it's time to put on your music and have a bit of a dance. You and your adult are going to try and copy each other while you're dancing. Adults, you start by copying the child first. This might encourage them to copy you. Once you've had five minutes copying each other's dance moves and having lots of fun, come back to the video and press play to continue. Copying your child in their play and following their lead is a great way to keep interest and engagement high. Children need adults to model language to help them to begin to understand, and copying games provide a great opportunity for this. Modelling language while we're copying them, or they're copying us, provides another hook to help them match the word to meaning. So let's sing the song "Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" now. If you don't know the actions, you can copy the adult. Adults, once you've had a few turns singing "Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," come back to the video and press play to continue. Welcome back. We're going to play another game mow. I'd like you to find a mirror that's big enough for both you and your adult to look in. Look at yourselves in the mirror, and try making some funny faces. Can you copy each other's faces? Adults, you could use this opportunity to label and comment using one or two key words. This will be really fantastic to reinforce the words that you were using when you were singing "Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." When you've had five or so minutes of mirror me more, come back to the video and press play to continue. There are lots more copy me games included in the downloadable resource, which is available on the Oak website with this lesson. But here are a few ideas. You could create opportunities for copying pretend actions, like swimming, jumping, or running. Again, great for being able to label the action that's happening. You could create copy games where you and your child imitate actions with puppets or toys. Or you could even have a go at copying drawings or paintings with colours and lines. These are great activities for turn-taking as well. So you copy the child, and then the child copies you. Pause the video here to have a go at one of the activities on the previous slide. Don't forget to provide one or two key words to label or comment throughout. And if you need to remind yourself of the activities, you can either pause on the previous page, or you can head to the downloadable resource for a few more ideas. When playing copy me games, it's really important that any language, spoken language, that we're using is being reinforced with visuals. Whether this is symbol or picture based. We can reinforce any words that we're introducing with a picture or a symbol to add an extra hook and really bring it to life. We should try and avoid questions or testing though, at this point in time. We're not aiming to test or check the child's understanding at this stage. What we're working towards is offering the most enriching multi-sensory and motivating language environment that we can. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson, but a really big well done on all the fantastic learning and copying you've done today. Adults, if you can identify three important things that you've learned from today's lesson, that would be great. And children, don't forget to ask your parent or carer to share your work with your teacher so they can see the fantastic progress that you're making with your understanding of words and language. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you, but take care, and enjoy the rest of your learning. Bye bye!

Worksheet: Learning to copy

Completed: Learning to copy

Copying is important because it gives children to opportunity to practise a skill or concept.

This then allows them to make their own attempts. 

Copying is when we do what the other person is doing.  Modelling words when children are copying what we are doing provides another ‘hook’ to help them learn the meaning of the word we are saying. 


Learning to copy

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