We see many students in speech-language therapy, who have difficulty with categorizing; especially as the categories get less concrete and more conceptual. Often a student who can name 3 animals cannot name 3 oval things, or 3 green things, or 3 things that are found in a cave. (I’m not sure where that last one came from.)
Categorizing is an important language skill for all students to develop. Our understanding of vocabulary - which we need for reading comprehension, listening comprehension, and even conversations - is dependent upon our understanding of how words are related to one another.
In speech-language therapy, we spend a lot of time working on these semantic relationships, beginning with basic categories, and moving through more and more specific groups.
Categorical relationships go beyond knowing which group a zebra or table belongs to. Items can be categorized by descriptors (soft things, striped things, sweet things) or by personalized features (things I like).
I have an activity - Cool Language Activities for Speech Therapy - that I like and have made available in my TPT store. If you'd like a free sample, grab it here.
Keep on talking. And, come see me at my blog.
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