Beginning to understand others

Speech and language therapy

﻿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 are here at Oak, are here support any approaches 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, we are going to be thinking about how we can understand and make predictions about other people. You might've heard the phrase, putting yourself in someone else's shoes. That's what we're going to be working on today. I'm going to be sharing some ideas for activities that you can work on at home to help you develop the skill, to make progress with your verbal reasoning. So for today's session, you're going to need a book, some pictures of social situations and some picture cards of everyday activities that you might have completed over the last couple of weeks. So before we begin, find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for the lesson. Turn off any distractions or notifications that you might have running on your device, and then make sure that you and your adults are seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay, let's start by doing some talking and thinking about understanding others. As we know, The Blank Language Scheme was developed by Blank, Rose and Berlin in 1978. So far, over the last couple of lessons, we focused on level one, two and three of the Blank Language Scheme. In the last two sessions, we've been focusing particularly on level three. In lesson eight, we focused on the early sequencing and retelling skills involved at level three of the Blank Language Scheme. In lesson nine, we focused on making simple predictions. In today's lesson, we're going to be focusing on talking about what other people and characters feel. People communicate messages with their words. But they also give messages away, with things like their facial expression, body language, and tone of voice. Pause the video to get ready for your first activity. We're going to try, reading some people, based on their body language and facial expression. How do you think this man is feeling? What is his body language telling you? Pause the video here to discuss this with your adult. When you're ready to continue, press play. I think, something good might have happened to this man, and that maybe he's feeling happy. Do you agree? When you're ready to continue, press play. People's facial expression, body language and tone of voice are like clues that help us to read how they are feeling. We can also try and put ourselves in other people's possessions to think about how we might feel if it was happening to us. This helps us to understand other people's perspectives. Now is the time where we're going to read your book. Gather up your favourite book or story and read this with your adult. It could even be an episode of a favourite TV show or a movie clip. Now that you've got your book or TV clip, let's have a think about this and talk about an event that happened in this story. With your adult, talk about what happened, where it happened and who was there. Remember to go back to the book or the TV clip to help you answer these questions. Pause the video to complete this task. Now with your adult, we're going to think a little deeper about the characters in the book or the TV clip that you chose. I'd like you to talk about what the characters are doing, were there other characters who responded to this and was that anything that characters did or said that might give you a clue about how they're feeling. Pause the video to complete this task. Use the downloadable resource to help you describe the events in your book or the TV clip in more detail. When you're finished, come back to the video and press pay to continue. So, using the information you've talked through with your adult, now have a think about the characters feelings in the TV clip or the book that you chose. Pause the video here to complete this task. When you're finished, come back to the video and press play to continue. Now I've got another short task for you. I'm going to share two short stories. They're what I would like to call, Uh Oh Situations! They're about things that have gone wrong. Use the downloadable resource to think about what happens in each story and how the characters might be feeling. Maybe, you can think about what might happen next or, how to solve the problems. Pause the video on each slide to read through the short story, using the downloadable resource to think about what's happening. When you finish with the story, press pay to continue to the next. Remember, we want to create a language rich environment for our children in as many situations as possible. Accessing words in fun-filled and natural ways means they're more likely to stick. By creating opportunities for our children to predict and interpret their owner's perspective as well as others will really help to develop verbal reasoning skills. But remember, most of the questions that we're asking your children should be at level that they can succeed at. There are hints and tips for scaffolding strategies in the downloadable resource and also in some of the earlier lessons. We need to make sure that all of the activities that we're completing through this module are successful for our children. So, wherever we can, we need to be modelling and scaffolding so that the experience is always positive. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson. But a really big, well done, and for your hard work today. Don't forget to share your progress with school. And if you'd like, you could also ask your parent or carer to share some of your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, or tagging @OakNational so I can see your progress as well. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you. But take care and enjoy the rest of your learning. Bye-bye.

Beginning to understand others

Beginning to understand others

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

Lesson slides

Lesson details

Key learning points

Equipment

Licence

Lesson video

Worksheet