By Dave Griffiths
Journal Education - I recently had the pleasurable challenge of working with seven Navy SEALs on communication skills. They were fine young men, and their writing and presentation skills varied based on their educational level, from a GED to a college degree. But all of them were eager to learn. Why, you may ask, would these highly trained elite warriors want instruction in effective business communication? I mean, how much writing or public speaking are you going to do if you're guarding the president of Afghanistan or training indigenous fighters in mountain strongholds?
The answer is: Plenty. The fact is that they're not always in the field. When I worked with them, they were doing weapons and tactics evaluations at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group in Virginia Beach, Va. In other words, they were doing staff work, and staff work requires communication skills.
For one thing, they had to write reports and memos to their civilian superiors in, for instance, Washington, and they had to phrase their writing in terms that non-combatants can understand on one reading. For another, once they're deployed, they often find themselves briefing ambassadors and visiting dignitaries. One of the SEALs even had to make a presentation to President George W. Bush.
So that's why they asked me to help them: All the hard-won knowledge in the world has little value if you can't develop the communication skills to share it with the people who set policy, spend money and make far-reaching decisions. And those people are busy, so communication training, whether for writing skills or presentation skills, has to focus on brevity, clarity and getting to the point.
For any writer, that starts with the "five Ws and one H" that rule the thinking of even the rawest cub reporter at any newspaper: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. I was gratified to see that the SEALs had already been trained to answer those questions as they approach so-called "sitreps" (situation reports) involving tactical situations.
I told them that the same logic applies to all varieties of business communication: Tell the readers what you want (or what you want them to understand) and then tell them why that's important. Then you can start backing up your premise with details.
Makes sense, doesn't it? The SEALs called it "bottom line up front." Unfortunately, that leaves the acronym-happy military with...BLUF.
Well, at least they're trying, aren't they?
My website is http://www.davegriffithscommunications.com/. I've worked with government, nonprofit and private-sector clients on business communication skills -- from effective writing to presentation skills to media training. My writing skills training and media and presentation skills training clients range from the Coast Guard to the Department of Homeland Security to the Veterans Administration to the Energy Department to Navy SEALs.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_Griffiths
http://EzineArticles.com/?Presentation-and-Writing-Skills-Training-Yields-Effective-Business-Communication-Skills&id=3275526
Sunday, November 22, 2009
What to Do With a Stuttering Child
By Darren Blair
Many children go through a period of stuttering or stammering, this is the same thing, between the ages two and five. They try repeatedly to utter the sound or word they want to use. They may repeat the first letter of a word several times, or a whole word, or may even become so stuck they can't utter a sound.
A great many children stutter at some time in learning to talk. By understanding its causes you may help prevent it becoming a persistent habit.
A young child's stuttering is the signal of too much nervous tension, making him lose control of the delicate muscular balance he needs for speech. That's why in this early stage, you should do nothing directly about correcting his speech, such as having him say the word ore sentence over again. Your job is to find out what making him to be tense. This may not be simple since the cause can be varied and far removed from the spec itself.
An emotional shock or fright sometimes results in stammering. Your task here is to build up his feeling of security after disturbing experience. Let him pour out his fear and anxiety and don't try to correct his stuttering as he tells it. Help forget the nasty shock by giving him pleasant experiences to enjoy a family outing, or a new plaything. Are your demands too much for him?
A regular routine is really needed here; keep movies and parties to a minimum. Violent displays of jealousies, fears in fact any sign of emotional insecurity should be examined carefully and handled with patience. When there is constant quarreling between parents, lack of harmony in the household, the child's speech development may be deeply affected. Emotional security is your child's main need. The periods at which stuttering is most common after the two to three year of age is when he enters school and at adolescence both times to big adjustments to life.
Check out http://www.rotatorcufftreatment.net/ for rotator cuff treatment and rid yourself of the crippling pain.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Darren_Blair
http://EzineArticles.com/?What-to-Do-With-a-Stuttering-Child&id=3287176
Journal Early Childhood - What is Baby Sign Language?
Journal Early Childhood - There's good news for parents and babies and its welcome news indeed.
It's called baby sign language. The lack of a means for communication between a parent and a baby has always been frustrating for both parties. A parent hears their child crying and is helpless to understand what the baby wants. They do the standard checks, like feeling the diaper for wetness or putting their hand on the baby's head to check for fever. If neither of those turn out to be the problem, the child continues to cry and the parent tries to comfort the baby, not knowing what else to do.
With baby sign language, the lines of communication become open and helps put an end to this frustration. What is Baby Sign Language? Baby sign language is a new form of communication, combining hand gestures with word association. By using these gestures, for more detail visit to http://www.baby-care-book.com/ parents are able to teach their children how to communicate what they want, before the child is able to speak. The learning abilities of children are limited to their senses such as sight, sound and touch. Because the learning method combines all of these senses, it is easy for the parent to teach and the child to learn.
How do you Teach Baby Sign Language?
Teaching your child this communication skill is done by a method called modeling. Linking simple words with gestures does this. Your child might be too young to actually be able to make the gestures, but you can still begin to teach them the meaning of them. This way, when they are older and have better command of their bodies, they will already know the gestures to use to communicate with you. For example, whenever you are about to feed your child, for more detail visit to http://www.create-super-baby.com/ before you do, say "eat" and make an easy hand gesture like pointing to your mouth. Make sure your baby can clearly see the gestures, so they can remember them.
Another good word to teach is "more". When you are rocking your child or doing something else that you know gives your baby pleasure, stop periodically and say "more", before beginning again. Also begin associating these words and signs with objects. Before handing them an item like a ball, say "ball". Start slowly and add on words gradually. This gives the baby time to learn and remember what you are teaching them. It's important not to try to force them to learn these gestures. Let them pick it up at their own pace. Teaching your baby sign language is rewarding and by the time they are actually able to speak, they will already know the right words to use to let you know exactly what they need.
Source: http://www.articledepot.co.uk/
It's called baby sign language. The lack of a means for communication between a parent and a baby has always been frustrating for both parties. A parent hears their child crying and is helpless to understand what the baby wants. They do the standard checks, like feeling the diaper for wetness or putting their hand on the baby's head to check for fever. If neither of those turn out to be the problem, the child continues to cry and the parent tries to comfort the baby, not knowing what else to do.
With baby sign language, the lines of communication become open and helps put an end to this frustration. What is Baby Sign Language? Baby sign language is a new form of communication, combining hand gestures with word association. By using these gestures, for more detail visit to http://www.baby-care-book.com/ parents are able to teach their children how to communicate what they want, before the child is able to speak. The learning abilities of children are limited to their senses such as sight, sound and touch. Because the learning method combines all of these senses, it is easy for the parent to teach and the child to learn.
How do you Teach Baby Sign Language?
Teaching your child this communication skill is done by a method called modeling. Linking simple words with gestures does this. Your child might be too young to actually be able to make the gestures, but you can still begin to teach them the meaning of them. This way, when they are older and have better command of their bodies, they will already know the gestures to use to communicate with you. For example, whenever you are about to feed your child, for more detail visit to http://www.create-super-baby.com/ before you do, say "eat" and make an easy hand gesture like pointing to your mouth. Make sure your baby can clearly see the gestures, so they can remember them.
Another good word to teach is "more". When you are rocking your child or doing something else that you know gives your baby pleasure, stop periodically and say "more", before beginning again. Also begin associating these words and signs with objects. Before handing them an item like a ball, say "ball". Start slowly and add on words gradually. This gives the baby time to learn and remember what you are teaching them. It's important not to try to force them to learn these gestures. Let them pick it up at their own pace. Teaching your baby sign language is rewarding and by the time they are actually able to speak, they will already know the right words to use to let you know exactly what they need.
Source: http://www.articledepot.co.uk/
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Baby Can Learn to Read - Your Baby Can Read and it is Easy!
By Sandra Cummings
Are you ready to find out how a baby can learn to read and how you can get your baby to read? Do you want to know how to give your baby a better chance and a head start in life? There are many ways to teach a baby to read and you can have your baby ready for kindergarten much sooner than most children are. Here is what you need to know.
First, if you want your baby to read, then you have to start to understand that it is possible. You can start with your baby very early on and you can start teaching them how to recognize words at a very young age. You can even begin with this within the first year of your babies life. This will help them to understand and recognize words very early on.
The second part of how a baby can learn to read is very interesting. It is amazing how advanced the human race is and how quickly your baby can learn to read. You need to understand that the sooner you start the better and there are programs that are perfect to help your baby start reading before they are even 2 years old. This will change their life forever and make the quality of life much better for them.
The last thing you need to know is that because of the society that we live in where the television and the internet are the ones that rule you need to make sure that your baby can read. This is very important because if they are interested in books and reading early on, then they will be much better off because they will enjoy reading and that is the key to learning and to school.
Click Here to discover the top Program to Teach Your Baby To Read!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sandra_Cummings
http://EzineArticles.com/?Baby-Can-Learn-to-Read---Your-Baby-Can-Read-and-it-is-Easy!&id=3007042
Cursive Writing - Teaching Handwriting to Children
By Louise Atheling
The fashion for cursive writing comes and goes. Many years ago all children were taught to write in an elaborate cursive script, requiring many hours of weekly practice to perfect. Over the years as other subjects began to crowd out handwriting lessons in the school curriculum this gradually gave way to teaching a basic print style of handwriting (ball and stick). Many people now believe that keyboarding skills are more important than good handwriting. Others believe that even computer keyboards will soon be defunct with speech recognition software becoming more popular.
However, many schools do still teach cursive writing. Traditionally schools teach children a simple print style of handwriting first, moving on to cursive at a later stage. This has the advantage that the initial letter shapes are less complex to write and most of them match the style of letters which children come across in their reading books. One disadvantage is that children spend many hours practicing one style of handwriting only to be told after two or three years that they now need to write in a completely different style. As any teacher or parent knows, it's very hard to get children to 'unlearn' well-established habits, whether it's thumb-sucking or a writing style.
A growing number of schools is teaching cursive letter formation right from the start. There are a number of advantages to this:
Children need to be given lots of opportunity to write. The first word most kids will want to write is their own name. Parents can help by providing a good handwriting model for children to trace over at first, then later to copy. One way is to write the child's name using a light color then the child can trace over it with a darker color.
Dotted letters are very effective for handwriting practice too. You can buy handwriting practice books but they won't be personalized for your child so you may want to consider getting a dotted font for your computer. Make sure you get the same style as your child is using at school to avoid making handwriting more complicated for them! It's easy to install a font on your computer and then you will be able to create name cards or type out a little story your child tells you. Once printed out the child can trace over the dotted letters.
Probably the most important point is to supervise children closely whenever they are writing. That way parents and teachers can ensure that the child has a good tripod pencil grip for control. Supervision should also ensure that children start each letter in the right place and move the pencil in the right direction. Getting the letter formation correct is much more important than neatness in the early stages. If children get into the habit of starting a letter in the wrong place or moving in the wrong direction, for example drawing the letter o in a clockwise direction instead of anti-clockwise, these habits will easily become ingrained and very hard to correct later.
You can find free handwriting worksheets here. If you would like to have a go at making your own handwriting worksheets, you can download a range of handwriting fonts for parents and teachers here. They're available for instant download and are self-installing on Windows PCs so that you can get started straight away.
Louise Atheling is an experienced family learning teacher.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Louise_Atheling
http://EzineArticles.com/?Cursive-Writing---Teaching-Handwriting-to-Children&id=2885834
The fashion for cursive writing comes and goes. Many years ago all children were taught to write in an elaborate cursive script, requiring many hours of weekly practice to perfect. Over the years as other subjects began to crowd out handwriting lessons in the school curriculum this gradually gave way to teaching a basic print style of handwriting (ball and stick). Many people now believe that keyboarding skills are more important than good handwriting. Others believe that even computer keyboards will soon be defunct with speech recognition software becoming more popular.
However, many schools do still teach cursive writing. Traditionally schools teach children a simple print style of handwriting first, moving on to cursive at a later stage. This has the advantage that the initial letter shapes are less complex to write and most of them match the style of letters which children come across in their reading books. One disadvantage is that children spend many hours practicing one style of handwriting only to be told after two or three years that they now need to write in a completely different style. As any teacher or parent knows, it's very hard to get children to 'unlearn' well-established habits, whether it's thumb-sucking or a writing style.
A growing number of schools is teaching cursive letter formation right from the start. There are a number of advantages to this:
- Children only have to learn one way to write letters so they get lots more practice in the desired style
- Children are not taught 'bad' habits that they will have to unlearn later
- Cursive letter shapes are more distinctive than print which reduces the chance of reversal mix-ups e.g. b/d
- Cursive from the start is recommended by many dyslexia specialists
- There is no messy transition stage to dent children's confidence as they progress from print to cursive
Children need to be given lots of opportunity to write. The first word most kids will want to write is their own name. Parents can help by providing a good handwriting model for children to trace over at first, then later to copy. One way is to write the child's name using a light color then the child can trace over it with a darker color.
Dotted letters are very effective for handwriting practice too. You can buy handwriting practice books but they won't be personalized for your child so you may want to consider getting a dotted font for your computer. Make sure you get the same style as your child is using at school to avoid making handwriting more complicated for them! It's easy to install a font on your computer and then you will be able to create name cards or type out a little story your child tells you. Once printed out the child can trace over the dotted letters.
Probably the most important point is to supervise children closely whenever they are writing. That way parents and teachers can ensure that the child has a good tripod pencil grip for control. Supervision should also ensure that children start each letter in the right place and move the pencil in the right direction. Getting the letter formation correct is much more important than neatness in the early stages. If children get into the habit of starting a letter in the wrong place or moving in the wrong direction, for example drawing the letter o in a clockwise direction instead of anti-clockwise, these habits will easily become ingrained and very hard to correct later.
You can find free handwriting worksheets here. If you would like to have a go at making your own handwriting worksheets, you can download a range of handwriting fonts for parents and teachers here. They're available for instant download and are self-installing on Windows PCs so that you can get started straight away.
Louise Atheling is an experienced family learning teacher.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Louise_Atheling
http://EzineArticles.com/?Cursive-Writing---Teaching-Handwriting-to-Children&id=2885834
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
RSS Feed (xml)
