Turn-Taking and Topic Maintenance

I will be guest posting soon over at all4mychild soon about turn-taking during play and conversationally.    Stay tuned about updates regarding that post!  To celebrate, I have created another activity pack and freebie to use!

Another aspect of pragmatic language is keeping the conversation going and on the same topic!  This can be extremely difficult!  I like to take conversations in my therapy room and see if students can identify the topic.  Using this concept in mind, I created a fun download that can be used to teach topic maintenance and conversational turn taking.  Introducing, Monsters Make Sense!

How to use this download?  Students must sort the conversational sentences (questions and answers) to the appropriate topic.

Once sorted, they can work together (if a group) to rearrange the sentences in the appropriate order so it makes sense.

Now you have a dialogue!  Can your students act it out?!  Can they keep the conversation going and add to it!  If you give them new topics (soccer, summer, chores, etc.) can they come  up with a list of questions they can ask related to that topic?

Review worksheet: practice this new skill with this fun matching worksheet.  Students need to draw a line to connect the question/answer to the correct topic.  You can use this for homework or at the end of a lesson to review!

I hope you can find this download useful in your therapy rooms!!!  Check it out here!

Visuals always help students understand when it is their turn and what to say to indicate that their turn is finished and another has begun.  I use Boardmaker to make these visuals. 

Grab your copy of this freebie here!

How do you teach turn taking and topic maintenance??