More thinking about why

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 here at Oak are here to 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're doing a little bit more thinking about explaining why. We're going to have the opportunity to explain what we think, and I'm going to be giving you some ideas for activities that you could complete at home to continue to work on this skill. So for today's session, all you'll need is some writing equipment. But 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 the background of this device, and then make sure that you and your adult are seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay, let's start by doing some talking and thinking about why. As we know, the Blanks Language Scheme was developed by Blank, Rose, and Berlin. It's a highly structured approach to encourage children to develop their verbal reasoning skills. Over the last few lessons, we've been focusing on Level 1, 2, and 3. In Lesson 11, I introduce you to Level 4 of the Blanks Language Scheme. Here I've included a few of the questions and examples of the types of language that you might be expected to use and understand at Level 4 of Blank's levels of language. So pause the video here to get yourself ready for our first activity today. We're going to look at some pictures. We're going to talk about each picture with your adult. How is this boy feeling? Pause the video here while you discuss this with your adult. And how is this man feeling? Pause the video here to discuss this with your adult. Now take a few moments to think about how you know how those characters are feeling. With each picture, talk about how you guessed what the boy and the man were feeling. When you finish, come back to the video and press Play to continue. Being able to talk about why you think something might happen or is happening is a really important skill. Let's focus on it throughout the next couple of activities. I'm going to show you some pictures, and I've also included five questions. These questions are designed to help you look at the situation, have a think about what is happening, and how you know what's happening. It will also give you the opportunity to make some predictions about what might happen next. So pause on each picture and consider the five questions with your adult. When you finish talking about each picture, press Play to move on to the next. Here are a few other things to think about. Maybe you could try explaining this with your adult. Pause on each page to talk about the question. The first one is to think about explaining what happens if you forget to water a plant. The next challenge is to explain why can't teapots be made of chocolate? Our last one, why can't you use a teaspoon to row a boat? Remember, we want to create a language-rich environment for our children, where they're accessing words and problems in fun and natural ways by creating as many opportunities for explaining predictions and explaining our solutions to problems with supporting our children to develop their verbal reasoning skills. But remember, adults, most of the questions that you're asking your child should be at the level that they can succeed and understand. So if your child's not quite at the Level 4, predicting and problem solving stage, then you can go back to the earlier lessons to consolidate some of the skills at Level 1, 2, and 3 of the Blanks Language Scheme. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson, but a really big well done on all the fantastic explaining that you've done today. Don't forget to share your progress with school. And if you'd like, you could ask your parent or carer to share some of your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter by tagging @OakNational, so I can see some of the lovely progress that you're making 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.

More thinking about why

More thinking about why

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

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