The Art of Talking with Children by Rebecca Rolland, Ed. D.

AIMS Virtual Professional Development Event

Attendees will be able to receive Illinois Gateways Approved Training Hours for attending; must be registered through event site.

Attendees will be able to receive AMS Professional Development Hours for attending; must be registered through event site.

Especially post-pandemic, so many children are in need of more support and facilitation to communicate, relate, and bond effectively with others. Through everyday conversation, we have opportunities to help children shore up their social skills and relationships, even while enjoying themselves and building their kindness, confidence, and creativity. This interactive talk will offer a Montessori-based framework for a new "art" of talking with children, based both on child development research and on stories from individual children, teachers, and families. Participants will leave with a toolbox of clear, easy to implement strategies that they can use with children every day. Also, they will come away with a framework of what "rich talk" looks and sounds like, so they can enhance their interactions over both the short and long term.

Rebecca Rolland is the author of The Art of Talking with Children (HarperOne, 2022), a book designed to support educators, parents, and caregivers in enhancing their interactions with children, which will be translated into over 11 languages. She is a nationally certified speech-language pathologist who has worked clinically with populations ranging from early childhood through high school and provided teacher professional development. She teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard Medical School. She served as the Academic Learning Specialist at Kingsley Montessori School and as an Oral and Written Language Specialist in the Learning Disabilities Team at Children's Hospital Boston. She has an Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology from the MGH Institute of Health Professions, and a B.A. in English from Yale.