As Far as Words Go: Activities for Understanding Ambiguous Language and Humor

This title includes CD-ROM with printable game cards and game board! Understanding ambiguous words, phrases, and sentences is an important part of reading well, communicating skillfully, and enjoying humor based on word play. With this seven-unit activity book - filled with creative, ready-to-use activities based on jokes and puns - students will learn how to decipher the language ambiguities they encounter inside and outside the classroom. Ideal for use with students in the upper elementary grades through high school and beyond, ""As Far As Words Go"" is what speech-language pathologists and education professionals need to: improve students' literacy and communication skills, including semantic, metalinguistic, and pragmatic skills; help students correctly interpret multiple-meaning words and phrases, such as homographs and homophones, idioms and proverbs, and metaphors and similes; teach a wide range of students, especially those who have language or learning disability, or are learning English as a second language; make learning fun with dozens of activities and a printable board game; work with students in small group or one-to-one settings; and, promote development of the skills students need to decode language complexities and humor cues independently when they occur in everyday language. To help professionals use the activities successfully, this book includes enlightening summaries of relevant research, background information on the language concepts, and specific techniques for presenting the activities and helping students generalize new skills in other settings. SLPs and educators will also get the practical content they need to implement the activities and assess student progress (see box).