2 3 step directions

Teaching How To Follow 2- and 3-Step Sequential Directions

This is a guest blog post by Holly, a school-based SLP, all about teaching how to follow 2 and 3-step sequential directions!

Teaching Sequential Directions

Do you have students on your caseload that can follow one-step directions pretty well, but–as soon as the complexity increases–that accuracy goes out the window?

If that’s the case for you and your students, you’re not alone! There are plenty of factors that influence the ability to follow complex directions: hearing/vision, executive function skills, language comprehension, grammar, student level of interest, task complexity, and sequencing, just to name a few. These areas were reviewed in further depth in a previous post on following simple directions — a lot of that info applies here, too!

Complex instructions are relevant for students across the grade-span. Like many domains of communication, the milestones related to following directions are geared towards younger children:

– Between 1-2 years of age, kids generally follow familiar one-step directions with support (Linguisystem, 2014)
– Between 2-3 years, children can follow two-step commands (Linguisystem, 2014)
– Around 4-5 years old, kids typically understand sequential terms (e. g., first, next, last) and respond to three-step directions at home or school (ASHA)

We know, of course, that the importance and complexity of instructions don’t end at age 5. Whether you work at an elementary, middle, or high school, following instructions serves as a major foundation for learning. These skills are also incredibly valuable for students working on vocational skills and transition plans. (Imagine your first day at a new job! There are countless tutorials to follow and procedures that you’re expected to get the hang of!) So how can we support our students no matter what level they’re working at?

In a previous post on following simple directions, we outlined the process of assessing this skill, selecting meaningful targets, using visuals and strategies, plus designing structured and contextualized intervention.

Now we’re taking it a step further by teaching how to follow multi-step, sequential directions! We’ll review different types of complex directions, plus how to teach and strengthen this skill in therapy.

Types of Complex / Multi-Step Directions

Not all directions are equally complex — that’s why it’s important to figure out what strengths and challenges are impacting a student’s ability to follow along with instructions. Here are a couple examples:

Conditional Directions: If you ride the bus after school, line up here.

Spatial Concepts: Take a seat at the nearest table and face your chair towards the front of the room.

Temporal Concepts: Before you sit down, hang up your bag on the wall.

One Action, Multiple Objects: Grab a packet, glue stick, and a pair of scissors from the table.

Multiple Actions, One Object: With your pen, circle the word you don’t know, then underline any clues that will help you figure out what the word means.

Multiple Actions, Multiple Objects: Pick out a book, bring it to the checkout counter, and present your student ID card to the librarian.

The more concepts embedded into a set of instructions, the higher the demands placed on language and working memory will be.

For a deeper dive into assessing these skills, check out the prequel to this blog post and browse through the assessment materials available through the SLP Now membership! There’s a Smart Deck to quickly probe students’ accuracy in following 1, 2, and 3-step directions.

Teaching Multi-Step Directions in Therapy

How do you feel about using anchor charts, visuals, and compensatory strategies in therapy? From kindergarten through high school, I’ve found that these kinds of support make a huge difference for students.

Visuals

When teaching a new skill, it can be helpful to use visual aids to represent a concept. This is because many of our students are already challenged by auditory or written comprehension (Law et al., 2017), so we can use this teaching phase as an opportunity to play to any strengths! This might involve using pictures, symbols, photos, or other visual supports when teaching a skill. Here are some of my favorite visuals to use with complex instructions:

Strategies

When helping students strengthen skills in an area, it takes time and practice. Strategies can be taught, practiced, and used the very same day — that kind of success can be really motivating for our students when they’re starting out! Over time, using rehearsal/visualization techniques has also been found to improve students’ abilities to follow directions (Gill et al., 2003).

These handouts (included in the SLP Now membership) are great for partnering with teachers and working on self-advocacy skills for students.

Targeting 2 & 3-Step Sequential Directions (In Therapy & Beyond!)

Once you’ve selected your targets and reviewed the skills and strategies you’ll be working on with your students, now comes the fun part… Practice!

Games

Introduce a new game or tweak a familiar one, emphasizing the importance of listening to the instructions

Recipes

Can you think of a multi-step activity that is more functional than following a recipe? Our speech-language rooms don’t often come equipped with extra space, so your recipe could be as simple as making trail mix. However, if your school has an area dedicated to cooking skills or a kitchen space that you can borrow, try incorporating it into your therapy activities!

Calendars

Try filling out a planner, agenda, or calendar with students. The working memory demands are high here (e.g., note that your spring break is from April 4th-8th, and your book report is due the following Monday), so it emphasizes the importance of using external strategies, such as writing down details!

Vocational Activities

When working with older students and developing transition plans, identify what kind of job skills involve complex directions (e.g., bagging groceries involves sorting items based on weight/shape/temperature, organizing them into a bag, and placing the bags into the cart). This is a great opportunity to incorporate your students’ interests!

Other Curriculum-Based Activities

To support carryover throughout a student’s school day, collaborate with other teachers to see what activities involve complex directions. In a framework developed by Wallach (2014) and Kamhi (2014), we see that a contextualized approach to targeting these skills can be the most effective!

I hope this post has been helpful for you! Do you have any other questions or ideas for targeting multi-step directions? Feel free to comment below — thanks for stopping by!

References

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.) What should my child be able to do? Four to Five Years Old. Retrieved from https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/45/.

Gill, C. B., Klecan-Aker, J., Roberts, T., & Fredenburg, K. A. (2003). Following directions: Rehearsal and visualization strategies for children with specific language impairment. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 19(1), 85-103.

Kamhi, A. G. (2014). Improving clinical practices for children with language and learning disorders. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 45(2), 92-103.

Law, J., Dennis, J. A., Charlton, J. J. V. (2017). Speech and language therapy interventions for children with primary speech and/or language disorders. Cochrane Database Systematic Review.

Wallach, G. P. (2014). Improving clinical practice: A school-age and school-based perspective. Language, Speech & Hearing Services in Schools, 45, 127–136.

30 Fun 2 Step Directions for Preschoolers

“Put your slippers on and grab a spoon for your cereal.” Easy to do, right?

For adults and older kids, following directions that have two steps can be quite an effortless task. For toddlers and young preschoolers, following multiple directions is a skill that takes time and maturity.

You can practise this skill in a fun way by using these 2 step directions for preschoolers.

What are Two Step Instructions?

Following directions that include two tasks is an important listening skill for children to learn. This helps them play games, follow instructions and procedures in the classroom and fit in socially with friends.

Being able to follow two-step instructions involves developing different types of skills.

Working memory is about holding onto information in order to use it. We want to be sure that kids can follow one-step directions effectively before moving ahead to giving them two steps to follow.

Auditory processing skills are also very important for enabling kids to follow directions they hear.

For example, auditory memory refers to when kids remember what they have heard, to use that information later.

Auditory closure helps them “fill in the blanks” when they have missed hearing the complete direction and auditory figure-ground aids kids in tuning out background noise to hear instructions. [source]

Speech therapy addresses not only how well children speak in words (expressive language) but also how well they understand what they hear (receptive language).

The receptive aspects of speech therapy are connected to auditory processing, and getting lots of practice in following directions is helpful to build those skills.

Verbal reasoning and vocabulary skills are also essential for children to comprehend your instructions. They must understand the words you are saying to be successful.

When Should a Child Follow 2 Step Directions?

At what age should a child start listening to and following one-to-two step directions?

At 24 months of age, many children can follow two or even three-step directions, especially those that are related, such as picking up two specific toys to put away on a shelf.

Although they can do this, research shows they choose to follow through only about half the time.

At around age three, most kids effectively follow two-step directions.

So then, when should a child follow 3 step directions?

Four-year-old children are usually able to follow through on three-step instructions, especially those that are given in a logical order.

[source]

How do I Teach My Child to Follow Multi-Step Directions?

It’s important to talk to your children often, giving voice to your own thought process as you move through your day. Verbalize what you observe about your child’s movements throughout the day, as well.

Read to your children, pointing to illustrations, and urging them to name objects.

How do you teach following instructions?

Listening skills in early childhood are very important and must be practised. Here are some tips:

When giving your child instructions, state them clearly, in simple language, and give your child enough time to respond.
Look at them when giving directions, and make sure they are looking at you.
Restate or clarify if your child has not followed through on the instructions given.
Model the correct actions, if necessary.
Praise your child when they follow through on a single instruction and they will eventually build the ability to follow multiple part instructions.
Don’t start giving 3 step directions until your child has mastered 2 instructions.

A list of 2 Step Directions for Preschoolers

Some of the following examples include 2 step directions with prepositions or spatial concepts, such as “on,” “under”, and “over.”

These types of words address the relationships between objects or between objects and individuals and can help teach positional language.

Make a game out of requesting that your children complete two actions. You can also make it fun by using these directions in familiar games that require giving directions, such as “Simon Says” or “Follow the Leader.”

You could also play “Broken Telephone,” to see if the last person who hears the directions can follow through successfully.

Another fun game is Listen and Draw. Give multiple directions that your child must follow to draw the picture you describe.

[source]

Here is a list of instructions suitable for preschoolers:

1. Sit down on the floor and close your eyes.

2. Touch your head and turn in a circle.

3. Stand up and pretend to be frozen.

4. Bounce the ball and say your name.

5. Do a jumping jack and then sit on the chair.

6. Hop on one foot and smile.

7. Place the teddy bear under the table and sit on the chair.

8. Walk along the fence and sit on the swing.

9. Reach your hands over your head and clap your hands.

10. Stand next to Grandma/Grandpa and hold onto their hand.

11. Draw a yellow sun above the green grass.

12. Draw blue water next to a brown beach.

13. Touch your toes and then spin around in a circle.

14. Wash your face with this cloth and comb your hair.

15. Spread peanut butter on one slice of bread and place the other slice on top.

16. Pull your blanket up on the bed and arrange your stuffed animals.

17. Take a book out of your bag and set it on the table.

18. Lie down next to Mom/Dad and close your eyes.

19. Take off your mittens and hang them up to dry.

20. Point to your eyes and say your name.

21. Point to your lips and smack them together.

22. Turn off the TV and place the remote on the coffee table.

23. Stomp your feet and say, “I’m a dinosaur!”

24. Choose a book from your shelf and read it to your doll.

25. Cover your eyes and say, “Boo!”

26. Turn around in a circle and then sit down on the grass.

27. Wave goodbye to me and walk to the door.

28. Climb up the steps and then walk back down.

29. Fetch your school bag and put your lunch box inside it.

30. Wash your hands for dinner and come back to sit on a chair at the table.

These are just a jumping-off place to start your mind working! Involve your children and challenge them to make up their own directions and ask you to follow them!

Check out these other listening activities for kids to get even more practice!

Get FREE access to Printable Puzzles, Stories, Activity Packs and more!

Join Empowered Parents + and you’ll receive a downloadable set of printable puzzles, games and short stories, as well as the Learning Through Play Activity Pack which includes an entire year of activities for 3 to 6-year-olds.
Access is free forever.

Signing up for a free Grow account is fast and easy and will allow you to bookmark articles to read later, on this website as well as many websites worldwide that use Grow.

3 steps to help you find your calling in life

February 2, 2021BooksMotivation

A simple technique from the author of the book "Destiny" Alexander Rey.

Alexander Rey

Author of the book "Destiny", psychologist, screenwriter, illustrator. Developed an effective test training that helps people find their calling.

Every person has his calling, there are no exceptions. Everyone has the ability to do the job in which he can best show himself. The problem is that it is not so easy to understand what it is. After all, you won't know until you try.

Psychologist Alexander Rey offers a three-step methodology: awareness, direction and action. Let's briefly talk about it and the exercises that you can do right now.

Everything worthwhile has been brought to life through the three steps method. Without even knowing it, through trial and error, people themselves go through these three steps and improve their lives.

Step 1. Awareness

There won't be any changes in your life until one fine day you wake up with the thought that it's time to change something. In order not to wait for this beautiful day, you can do smarter - ask yourself the right questions.

You need to start with three main questions:

What is wrong in life and in you?
What do you not like?
What and how would you like to change?

And here is the first exercise. Write 3-5 points about each area in your life. If nothing immediately comes to mind, think about each item for as long as it takes.

What do you not like and what do you want to change?

In a relationship with a partner: __________
In family relationships: __________
In relationships with children: __________
In relationships with parents: __________
In work: __________
In your abundance: __________
In your own character: __________
In your body: __________
Healthy: __________

This list is your starting point. Rey advises turning to him from time to time to track progress and remind yourself which areas of your life need change.

Step 2. Direction

Just realizing that there are things in your life that you don't like is not enough. You need to understand what to do with this fact next. At this point, it is important to find the right direction.

One possibility Rei talks about is finding purpose through action. When you don’t know what you want to do, try everything at random, someday you will be lucky. But it takes too much time and resources.

Another way is to connect your own experience. To do this, do a simple exercise.

1. What would you do if you were rich?

Imagine that you are obscenely rich. You can write down this amount - the amount of money you need to feel completely secure. You are so rich that you can do whatever you want.

Write down five things you would like to do. But it should be just a matter (and not idle activities like “lying on the ocean”) that requires your participation. Your goal is to come up with a job that will make you happier.

__________
__________
__________
__________
__________

2. What would you do if you were poor?

And now let's go from the opposite. Imagine that you were fired and you had absolutely no means of subsistence left. Think of five things you can do to make a living. Keep in mind that this is your chance to start over with a clean slate, so pick things you love.

__________
__________
__________
__________
__________

3. What activities make you happier?

And the last task. Write down five favorite things that you are ready to do for hours on end. List your hobbies and interests, inactivity does not count.

__________
__________
__________
__________
__________

The correct course is hidden in these three lists. Read them carefully again and decide where you will move.

Step 3. Action

The most important step. Without it, the previous two steps will remain just dreams. Choosing a direction will help you set specific goals. Break goals down into specific actions. And act.

All that is required is measured daily work, tiny but real steps.

The Purpose Training Book is a collection of helpful tips with illustrations, exercises, and a diary to track progress. Perhaps it is she who will give you the necessary impetus and inspire you to change.

Buy the book

passing points, budget places, choose

Registration
Input

Please select who you areI am an applicantA student up to grade 10I am a parent of an applicantI am a school teacherI am a university employeeCollege studentSpecialistBachelorMaster

By registering through this form, I agree to the privacy policy and agree to the processing of personal data.