New Material: Topic Targeters, keeping a conversation going

I have a number of students that are working on holding a conversation for a certain number of turns.  Before my students can do that, I've found it's helpful to take the time to teach my students how to maintain a conversation.  Many of my social language kids will be asked a question, and either respond with a yes/no, or with an unrelated comment.  Now, technically, they did take a conversational turn. But the conversation tends to die off, or the onus falls to another student with stronger social language skills to continue.

With my older kids, I have introduced a topic target during our language sessions. It's a great, quick visual to provide feedback, and it definitely makes a difference with my students.  They do a better job monitoring and sticking to a topic (and using a transition if they want to talk about something else) when I have the target out.


My younger students aren't quite ready for that level of independence with conversations.  We need more structure and concrete examples.  So I've created the Topic Targeters.  It's not really meant to be a game, but with some of my first and second graders, I've made it into one.



The premise is pretty simple. There are four variations on a response to the same comment or question. Students rate how "on topic" each one is, using the target below (after I laminate and cut apart the arrows.  you can use velcro or sticky tack to stick the arrows to the target for safe keeping).

For the above example, I would consider the one in the top left corner to be off topic because the second boy wasn't really listening, I'd probably give it a blue.  The top right, I would give a green, because it's not really an appropriate answer. Bottom left would get a perfect shot from me, and bottom right would get a blue ring, because it's completely off topic.


For my kids that are points-oriented, I assign points to each ring of the target, 1-5.  When they pick a card and figure out where it is on the target, they get the points for that ring of the target.

You can get Topic Targeters at my TpT store.  It includes 32 cards, the target, and a helpful suggestion list for do's and don'ts to keeping a conversation going, in the event that your kiddos need a little more teaching on the subject.

Happy targeting!