Dear Parents,
Our last home projects for this school year are coming up soon, and I would like to take a few minutes to update you on what we have been working on with your children as far as presenting goes.
We have noticed that many of the children bring in amazing projects, however, when they present them they have a hard time reading the information that is on their board/power point etc. In their best effort to convey the information, they are not making eye contact with their audience, nor are most of them speaking loudly and clearly. As a result a lot of our friends are losing interest and stop being engaged. Students feel success when presenting when they see an engaged audience.
We have been working with them on using their poster boards/papers as a guide instead of as a “book” to read to the audience. We have been practicing using pictures only to tell a story or convey information. Through these efforts we have noticed that all of the children were more interested in hearing about the topic, were more engaged during the presentation, asked relevant questions afterwards, and in general seemed to retain more of the information presented. More importantly the children feel so proud of themselves when they see the audience react that way!
That said, we would like this last home project to be a picto-presentation; meaning that the poster board, power point etc should only contain pictures, which the children then will use as talking points. We also encourage questions during the presentation to help spark the audience’s interest. Here is some information about why we feel a picto-presentation would be perfect to get the children started on engaging presentations.
“Firstly, the places where pictograms are used are typically places where there’s a necessity to convey a message quickly, like for example a stop sign that helps to prevent an accident. Secondly, a pictogram needs to be memorable, and since an “image speaks a thousand words”, it serves this purpose much better than text, in terms of memorability. In other words, a pictogram tells a story very fast without someone needing to actually read anything.” -Successful Presentations for Elementary Students
Having your child use a few note cards with their own handwriting and their own sentences or key words that can help them remember what they want to say is a good way to remember their key info. Our goal is for your children to be able to stand in front of a group and re tell the information they learned through their research without reading directly from a typed text or excerpt. We truly believe that learning to speak and share information at a young age enables children to grow into young people that are not afraid to speak, and express themselves in front of a group. This is a skill that when learned at an early age will hugely benefit your children for the rest of their school career. Please take a few minutes at dinner or bedtime to have your child retell to you or their siblings five key points that they think they would like to present to the class when the time comes.
We will be using this presentation rubrik to give the children a little bit of feedback. I will be sending a copy of it home today, so you have something on hand to help your child practice.
Home Project information:
Level 1: A bird of your choice
Level 2: A planet of your choice
Level 3: A dinosaur of your choice
Home projects are due the week of May 2.
Thank you for all your support with this, and helping your child become a successful presenter!
Ms. Lacey and Ms. Marleen