As I was wrapping up my last annual IEP reviews for the year and creating goals for the next year, I found myself in a land of wh-question type goals.  To be at this point with my kiddos is so exciting because they have made leaps and bounds to get to these types of activity levels.  I took a good look at the typical developmental milestones and wanted to share with you a resource you may not be aware of to help with these goals.  I had also gotten many requests during my last Instagram takeover for more resources that parents could use at home.  Using my trusty Early Childhood Developmental Chart by Judith K. Voress and Nils A. Pearson, I combed the communication columns to review these scaffolding skills.  As I mention in my videos, this is a chart of SELECT developmental milestones for children birth to 5 years of age and should not be used as a sole indicator of normal or abnormal development.

Developmental Communication Milestones

 I went through the milestones and chose the ones that I felt fit the scaffolding pattern to wh- questions and eventually category identification:
Between…

• 18-24 months of age: child can point to 15 or more pictures of common objects when they are named
• 24-30 months of age: child identifies common objects described by their use (ex: “Show me what you eat with.”)
• 30-36 months of age: child responds to “who” and “whose” questions, asks “what” or “where” questions
• 36-42 months of age: child can answer questions when told a short story
• 48-54 months of age: child can state similarities between objects (ex: “How are juice and milk alike?”)
• 54-60 months of age: child can respond to questions involving time concepts (ex: “When do you eat dinner?”)

Resources and Activities to Support these milestones

Check out the next three videos on ways to support your students both at home and when you return to school.  Being able to label objects and pictures (whether receptively/expressively/verbally or through an alternative mode of communication), ask, and answer wh- questions is so incredibly important in life and school! My passion for this skill began when I was a newer teacher working with a second-grade student on wh- type common core standards.  I realized that she was not yet able to discriminate between these important concepts, making learning targets at this grade level and below incredibly difficult until she gained those skills.  Start as early as possible!

You can find the links to the Wh- Question cards here and the Wh Boom Cards here.  Happy Teaching!