The Power of Too - Ep. 94
Have you ever wondered how the simple word “too” can shape a child’s comprehension of the world around them? In this podcast I delve into this overlooked adverb and discuss why it’s a powerful tool for understanding, comparing, and explaining. Plus I share practical ideas for teaching the power of too in therapy. I explore why mastering the word is particularly helpful for children on the autism spectrum, and how the nuances of language can open their world.
--- Useful Links ---
Making Movies, Making Inferences
Story Retelling Activity: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Music: Simple Gifts performed by Ted Yoder, used with permission
Transcript
Welcome to The Speech Umbrella, the show that explores simple but powerful therapy techniques for optimal outcomes. I'm Denise Stratton, a pediatric speech language pathologist of 30 plus years. I'm closer to the end of my career than the beginning, and along the way, I've worked long and hard to become a better therapist. Join me as we explore the many topics that fall under our umbrellas as SLPs. I want to make your journey smoother. I found the best therapy comes from employing simple techniques with a generous helping of mindfulness.
Hello fellow speechies. You're listening to The Speech Umbrella podcast. I'm always amazed that our language has the capability to convey very fine nuances, and kids who don't understand how to communicate those nuances are at a great disadvantage, which is why we're all in this business, to help those kids. The more I dive into developing grammar, the more aware I become of the power of small words to communicate both big meanings and small nuances. I think I could do a whole series about small words and big meanings. I haven't done that yet, but this is my second podcast about a single small word, so maybe it's destined to be.
Today's episode is about the word 'too', that's t o o, the adverb. Not to be confused with t o. Episode 58, to Infinity and Beyond is all about the power of t o, the infinitiive to. Imagine my surprise when I discovered how very important t o o is to comprehending deeper meaning. Today's episode is called The Power of Too, and we're taking a look at the critical nature of comparisons.
The infinitive to, that's t o is also going to make an appearance as the two toos often go together. Is that too many toos to process? Okay, enough with the word play here, here's what we're covering today. A description of adverbial too, a description of infinitive to, why is this important, and treatment ideas.
The adverb too t o o can mean excessively or also, while the infinitive to, that's t o, focuses on the idea of an action. For example, she wanted to make a cake, expresses a plan, a direction for the future. It's critical to describing a character's intentions in contrast to what the character actually did. And for more about infinitive to, listen to episode 58.
Well, what's the big deal with adverbial too? Here are three ways it's critical to language development, and there may be more, but these are the three I thought of. It's used to express the idea of excessiveness, we use it to be able to make comparisons, and we use it to provide explanations.
I first realized the power of too when I was making book narration movies with a client. I realized some of her explanations of character behavior were not as fully expressed as they could be. Because of that, she was missing out on a complete understanding of what was happening and why. By the way, if you want to know more about narrating movies for language development, listen to episode 82, that's called Making Movies, Making Inferences.
But getting back to this client, we were narrating a book called Joey Runs Away. Joey's a young kangaroo who is supposed to clean his room, but he takes one look at it, decides it is too messy and runs away. Instead, he tries to find a new home in various places, including an a pelican's beak, but that was scary because the pelican flew too high. When he finally finds his way back home, he decides to clean his room. As I was listening to her narration after the session, wondering what was missing, it hit me like a thunderbolt that none of her explanations included the adverb too. Instead of saying his room was too messy, she merely said it was messy. She said the pelican flew high rather than too high, and she was at a total loss to explain why Joey decided to clean his room after he came back rather than before. That would require her to comprehend that he only believed it was too messy to clean. And after his unpleasant experiences, he changed his mind.
It was then that Joey decided it was better to listen to his mother than to run away. I told you infinitive to would hook up with adverbial too. For example, it was too messy to clean until after he learned it was better to listen to his mother than to run away. Then I started looking at another book narration she had done with the book Round Robin, about a bird that eats too much and becomes too fat to fly. And I realized she hadn't used adverbial too there either. And I thought, how did we even get through that movie narration without her using adverbial too? When you start seeing something, you can't stop seeing it, and then you wonder how you ever missed seeing it in the first place.
Here's some other things I started to see. Without the ability to use adverbial too to explain excessiveness, it's hard to compare nuanced situations. For example, a bird might be just a little bit fat and still able to fly, but at some point it would be too fat to fly. A bird might eat too much one day, but only eating too much day after day results in being too fat to fly, which is emphasized in the book that he ate and he ate and he ate, but she kind of missed that nuance. There are nuances all over the place that she was missing and circling back around to the combination of the infinitive and adverbial forms, some explanations demand the use of both, otherwise you're left hanging, asking too messy for what? Or too fat to do what? Without that, your understanding is incomplete.
Also, the power of too makes it possible to understand different characters' realities. Some food might be too spicy for one person, but fine for another, for instance. An experience that is too scary for one character could be exhilarating for another. You get the drift. These nuances are really important for a narrative comprehension, let alone friendships and relationships. How do you understand that someone has a different perspective than you, unless you can compare the different situations and the different feelings about things. So what can we do to teach this very important adverbial too? My first step was to help my client understand the meanings of the three different 'to' forms, because we also have the number two and how confusing can English get?
We did a bunch of word sorts and fill in the blank sentences just to make sure she understood how they were each spelled and how they were each used, and I also went over the comparative 'er' ending with her as in bigger, louder, et cetera, to make sure she had a basic understanding of them because now I was tuned into how critical it is to be able to make comparisons of all kinds.
Then we retold Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and she started to get the hang of it, you know, too hot, too cold, too soft, too hard. It's all over the place in Goldilocks. So she got tons of practice. And it does take a lot of practice for someone who hasn't used adverbial too, and Goldilocks was just the start. After that, just my being aware of her need to improve in this area helped me include it in our regular narrative work.
This client happens to be on the autism spectrum, and while not using the adverb too could apply to clients with a variety of language issues. I think the nuances communicated by it are critical for children on the spectrum. I think it's something we really need to look at because they might be really missing the boat on that. I have a pdf of Goldilocks and the Three Bears in my store at thespeechumbrella.com and on TPT. So head on over there if you find yourself in need of a way to teach t o o.
Well, that's it for today. To summarize, adverbial too expresses excessiveness and enables comparisons and nuanced explanations of characters, feelings, plans, and choices. Who knew too could say so much? When you master too, the nuances take care of themselves. That wraps things up for today. If you want a transcript or the links for today's and every other episode, you can find them at thespeechumbrella.com slash blog. Take a minute to browse around my store and sign up for the free resource library. I know you'll find something that will help you with your kiddos. Tell your fellow therapist about the podcast, leave me a review and let's connect on social media. I'm dstrattonslp on Instagram and the speech umbrella on Facebook. Check out my videos on YouTube too. There's a lot of great stuff under the speech umbrella. See you later!
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