Tuesday Tip - Visuals on a lanyard

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss using visuals to gain students' attention and enhance communication, especially for those with autism, auditory challenges, etc., by keeping them handy on a lanyard.

Video Transcript

So it's Tuesday and that means there's another tip coming your way. Being a teacher is really hard and getting children's attention can be one of the most challenging things that we do. Today I want to talk about the power of visuals to do that.

If you have a noisy class, and let's face it, I'd love to meet a group of kids who aren't noisy given the right circumstances. But if you have a noisy group of children and you find that you're using your voice to gain their attention, well, that can be slightly challenging. If you have children who have autism, who have auditory processing issues, who have a hearing impairment, who are tired, who have suffering from trauma or all of these things that don't make them immediately able to access the verbal instructions you're giving, then visuals can be your best friend.

Now I'm wearing a lanyard today because I want to show you my visuals that I have, um, these are just very well worn and they're getting a bit crusty and I might need to change them. But on my lanyard, I have my zones of regulation colours so that I can have that accessible to have a conversation straight away. Um, I also have these pictures that a teaching colleague, the colleague next door gave me. Um, and so we have listen, we have line up, we have carpet time. So I only have here what I want to use. I don't have, you know, 45 different visuals because you can't find them.

So if we're, if I'm trying to get the children to settle sitting on the mat and they're chatting with each other or wriggling or whatever and there's a particular student who I know I'm going to have to say their name 2,500 times, and you all know who that student is, where you have to say their name over and over again. Well, the visuals work wonders.

Visuals cut through everything else. They cut through emotions. They cut through any of the auditory processing challenges that children might have. And when they won't respond to your voice, they will respond, more than likely, to a visual. And so here's one of my favorite ones, which, Oh my goodness [shush]. Because what we do as teachers is, in trying to get children's attention and we're doing it over and over, we sound cranky.

And then by the time we've got everyone listening and we've been stand up, sit down, cross your legs, what are you doing? Stop talking, all of those things. And then we switch into learning mode. The kids are sitting there saying, well, she's just yelled at us for the last however long.

So, doing this manages this, which is your wellbeing and emotions and supports the students. It sets them up for success. Putting your visuals on your lanyard means that they are always handy. If you have them separate and not attached to you in some way, they are way across the room, right in the moment where you need them, and you won't be able to access them.

So today's tip, use your visuals to communicate, put them on the lanyard so they're nice and close to you. It'll help you. And it'll help your students. See you next week. Bye bye.

Want to know more?

Click here to find out more about using visuals.

Click here to find out about 'I Do, We Do, You Do' meeting 'Do, Talk, Record'.

And click here to find out more about communicating with your students.

Ready to help students with their writing?  Join the Resource Room today.