Abstract
Colourful Semantics, a method of developing a child's spoken and written language using colour, symbols and Makaton signs, was originally devised by Alison Bryant, who writes a useful foreword and explains the thinking behind the approach. The resource pack was created by Forth Valley NHS Speech and Language Therapy Service in conjunction with education professionals for use by Speech and Language Therapists, Teachers and other professionals supporting children's language development.
The resource pack was written for children aged 4–8 years but can be adapted for older children, and can be used with individuals, small groups, and whole classes. The pack contains ready-made session plans which can be easily differentiated to suit a range of ages and abilities meaning it is a very flexible resource.
The first chapter provides comprehensive instructions about how to introduce and use Colourful Semantics with individual children. It gives clear guidance of how to introduce the concept of a verb and step-by-step instructions of how to introduce ‘Who’, ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘To Who’, ‘When’, ‘Why’, and ‘How’ using the materials provided. Instructions of how to use the approach to integrate adjectives into sentences, further developing sentence structure, are also provided. The instructions are written in such a style that a beginner to the Colourful Semantics approach would easily understand.
The main section of the pack is dedicated to using the approach with a whole class and/or small groups, supported by detailed session plans. These provide session-by session aims, clear instructions, suggestions for differentiation by giving ideas for ‘step up’ and ‘step down’, as well as signposting the reader to the cue cards, worksheets, and story planners etc. needed for each part of the session, contained in the Appendices. Chapter 2 consists of three sections; whole class session plans for 4-6 year olds, and 5-8 year olds, followed by a section containing small group session plans.
All the resources needed to implement the Colourful Semantics approach are provided in very clearly organised Appendices in the back of the pack. These include cue cards and sentence templates, story planner grids, sentence building resources, and A5 and smaller sized vocabulary cards. The cue cards and vocabulary cards are printed in black and white to enable the user to prepare them according to the colour code used in their area, as this can differ slightly. The silly sentence and picture description worksheets which are also in the Appendices are a great way of scaffolding children's written skills using the approach. Finally, the printable board games provided are a useful resource to support children to consolidate their knowledge and understanding of ‘wh’ questions and verbs. Online resources can also be accessed via the Routledge website which includes resources using the current colourful semantics colours developed by Alison Bryant as well as a further, adapted colour coding system adopted by NHS Forth Valley which aligns with other published narrative resources. Accessing the online resources can be tricky to navigate initially, requiring registration and inputting an emailed access code, but it is worth doing as all the resources can be downloaded in one go and saved to the user's system.
Although Colourful Semantics is a highly valued and useful approach to developing children's language skills, one of the disadvantages has always been the time it takes to find and prepare the materials, and this is the main advantage of this comprehensive resource pack. Everything needed is provided in the pack itself or via the online resource portal which will undoubtedly save precious time. Everything can be easily adapted for different ages and abilities too, adding to its value. It is also the first Colourful Semantics resource that provides session plans and step-by-step instructions, this is extremely valuable for busy practitioners.