Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Speaking Skills for gifted children

Although I work privately with many kinds of children to enhance language arts-related skills, my greatest passion is advocating for more opportunities for Gifted Children to learn how to communicate orally about the ideas that interest them. If a gifted person cannot communicate in a way that others can and want to understand, many of his or her best ideas may be lost to us all.

I'd like to know what others are doing to foster speaking skills, especially among students in grades K-8.

I look forward to reading a variety of approaches!

Interesting question, and a topic that's been on my mind lately too.

I'll be very interested to hear people's ideas. I think that this is one of those topics that tends to get overlooked.

When DD7 was 2 or 3 communicating her thoughts and ideas was a challenge. Not because she couldn't explain things, but because she seemed to think that she had to use "grown up" words when explaining things to adults. Once we convinced her that she could just use "her words" and not ones she thought adults wanted to hear she was much more understandable. (by her words I mean words that she usually uses, not special ones)

We also had (and sometimes still have) difficulty stopping her from repeating herself when she has said something that she doesn't think explains her ideas "just right". She will then reword her ideas multiple times, or simply repeat herself until her words sound right to her, or she thinks that everyone completely understands her.

The most difficult part for her was not that we as parents would cut her off and try to get her to think before she repeated herself again, but that other people she was talking to would start ignoring her because they had lost her train of thought. (It turns out that the person was usually so amazed at what she was trying to explain that they had not heard her completely because they were too busy being shocked by her ability to talk and express herself. )

DD is linguistically amazing, so her ability to verbally express herself is not usually a problem. Getting her to stop talking and explaining things is more often the issue.

I attended a university where the math program was taught using the Socratic method. Every day you had to go up to the board and do several problems, present them orally, and then defend your work in front of the teacher and the class. You also had the opportunity to critique others' work orally.

Some days you had to just present orally - no written presentation was allowed. And no notes.

I know a French Physicist who had much the same education in France. His oral skills are phenomenal.

I don't know how this would work at the K-8 level, but it is something to think about.

June,

Interesting question, indeed. Some vague ideas:

-- I think reading and analyzing fiction could help. You can help kids notice the narrative; help them notice how clear narrative with a combination of short and long sentences, etc. is more appealing, inviting, etc.

-- One thing that really helped me write clearly was that I did a ton of research on functional literacy, and what a crappy job we can do about communicating critical information (this was specifically in the health education realm, but it is widely applicable). We would do interviews and focus groups with patients and doctors about what the patients needed and wanted to know; we'd note how the patients talked about stuff; and we'd rewrite health information to make it clearer (and, when appropriate, simpler). I think you could apply this to K8. Have them rewrite the Pledge of Alligiance or Declaration of Independence or schoo attendance policy, etc., etc. Have them think about how they would want stuff communicated to them -- or, perhaps in terms of gifted kids, how they would communicate to someone younger than them. If they get some part wrong, have them rewrite and rewrite and rewrite.

--

Our charter has a great bi-weekly writing workshop. Every other week, DS and the other children take turns sharing their work. After each student shares, the others go around the circle telling the author specifically what they liked about it or ask questions about it. It really builds self-esteem in a fun way, and my DS (who was 5 this year) loved sharing with the older kids!

This has worked so well that our co-op (several families from the charter who get together once a week) has started using it in a lot of our share activities. Often the topics are open-ended, like "favorite homeschool project," so the kids are excited about what they're sharing. It's very low-key, but again gets them speaking and reacting on their feet in front of peers.

My DS5 has expressive language disorder (2E); so I figured that almost every other gifted kid spoke really well and was able to convey their thoughts easily, since being verbally precocious is part of their great stuff. Unfortunately this is something my DS struggles with, obviously. May I ask which of this forum's GT (non-2E or 2E) kids struggle with this? This is a heartfelt question; so please don't take it in any way negatively. I am interested in seeing if these kids have a hard time at a certain age, if these types are more VSL or not, do they fit into some specific grouping? I am just trying to learn and apply to help my DS along the way. Thank you! June, I apologize to you. I am not trying to steal your thread; but I would like to hear answers to your question as well as which GT kids really struggle with this. I am trying to make piece things together for my DS. Great question! Thanks.

My DS's school (which is not specifically for gifted children) seems to take this pretty seriously. I'll use US grade terminology although we're in Scotland.
K: "show and tell" - bring an interesting object (but toys were not allowed) and talk about it.
1: "Presentation". Each child chooses (with negotiation) a topic of interest relating to the term's theme. They research the topic and plan a 3 minute talk that will be interesting to their classmates. They are encouraged to use a few visual aids, e.g. pictures (and my son made a paper model of the kind of aircraft he was talking about) and can use notes but must not read out a scripted talk. At the end they pose and answer questions and discuss what was good and what could be improved about the presentation.
2+: we haven't got there, so I'm not sure what happens, but one thing I know is that all the children do English Speaking Board exams:
http://www.esbuk.org/content/Schools/Years+1+to+6.aspx

Thinking specifically about gifted issues, DS has two main problems: that he uses vocabulary that is not understood by the other children, and that many of the things he's interested in are not of interest to his age-peers. He's learning fast how to deal with the first, with some gentle encouragement from his teacher. (This is hard to handle tactfully, though, and it relates to recent discussions here about how to discuss their giftedness with children. I noticed my DS refer to the other children in his class as "the children" the other day as though he were not one of them!) The second is more intractable. He simply doesn't get the chance at school to talk about his main interests, and it's not clear how he could. We just try to make sure he has the chance to talk with much older children and adults, not just with us, whenever possible.

New Mexico has several chapters of Toastmaster Jr. They don't have an age requirement, as long as your child can sit and listen to others, they can come. In the beginning the young ones tend to observe but it doesn't take them long before they're right in the thick of it.

At my son's school, they have an academic fair every fall where all the students (K-12) create research posters and answer questions about them to parents who are milling about the fair. Last year, the kindergarteners did research on sea life. My son had to find and memorize three facts about manta rays and present them to a small group of parents. It was his first public speaking experience and he was pretty stressed out about it beforehand, but he was also quite proud of having done it when it was over. I think it's great that they're starting early.

Drama and improvisation are also a regular part of the curriculum, beginning in kindergarten (a full time drama instructor rotates among the classes), which I think goes a long way to improving speaking skills.