Five reasons why raising money for Cued Speech UK is good for you!
It’s that time of year again! Like many of us, you might be feeling like you started January just as stuffed as the turkey that fed you during the Christmas banqueting season; that and all the trimmings, puddings, chocolates, cheeses, beer and… need I go on?
Now is the time to run off the goose fat and fulfil that New Year’s resolution to get fit for summer. Finding the incentive to drag yourself out of a nice warm bed to run down cold wet streets can be tough though, so you’re going to need something to help you maintain your motivation. The aim of raising money for Cued Speech UK will provide you with a focus for your efforts, knowing that you will be supporting our work and making a real difference to the lives of deaf children. Whether you’re planning to take part in your first 5K run, cycle in a 50-mile race, beat your ‘PB’ in a triathlon or even trek to Everest base camp – start 2019 in the most positive way by combining your personal challenge with supporting Cued Speech UK.
If you manage your training responsibly and ensure you’re following recommended exercise programmes, it won’t be long before you’re experiencing a whole host of life enhancing benefits!
One – lose weight
You know this already, right? However, it’s still worth saying that burning off excessive fat and losing weight provides huge benefits to achieving fitness. Fast paced exercise with intervals, like doing circuits, is the best way to burn fat and aerobic exercises, like running, help to improve metabolism.
Two – Slow down aging
Muscles and bones get heathier and stronger the more you use them. In addition, loss of muscle and bone due to natural process is delayed by exercise. Therefore, just by maintaining a fit and active lifestyle you can help circumvent the effects of osteoporosis. Staying active into your old age is achieved by maintaining your active lifestyle now!
Three – Lower blood pressure
Your arteries get just as much of a workout as the rest of your body when you exercise. When you are putting in the miles on your training run or lifting those weights in the gym, your cardiovascular system is keeping up with you and getting a good work-out to ensure your arteries are wide and flexed; exercise actually lowers your risk of developing high blood pressure.
Four – Boost brain power
Indulging in a sedentary lifestyle can put you at risk of dementia, which may be avoided by just taking part in a little exercise every day. Findings from research has shown that people who run or spend a minimum of 25 minutes a day on aerobic exercise can significantly improve their mental skills as they get older, helping them reduce the risk of developing problems with memory loss and difficulties with thinking, problem solving or language.
Five – Improve mood
Endorphins! Endorphins! Endorphins! If you get it right, who doesn’t feel great after going for a run and releasing all those endorphins into your system, which in turn boost your mood and make you feel really positive. Just what you need to get you through a dark winter’s day in January. It’s a cycle of positivity – putting in a great training session; knowing you are getting stronger and heathier; raising money for Cued Speech UK and feeling brilliant in 2019!
So, you now have five additional reasons to help you raise money for Cued Speech UK, while also achieving your personal goal; all the motivation you need to get out there and take on the challenge of your life and feel great all year!
Pledge your support for Cued Speech UK and tell us about the personal challenge you have chosen to help you raise funds for our work. You can use our contact page on our website to get in touch. We would love to share your achievements.
You can make donations to Cued Speech UK by using our Support Us page on our website
If you have a deaf child or want to learn more about Cued Speech, you can contact Cued Speech UK by phone (01803 712853), you can use our contact page or you can send an email to [email protected]. Cued Speech UK would love to see what you have to say!
Silent Night – a Visual Delight
Just when you’ve finished picking pine needles out of the carpet and the last bit of tinsel has disappeared into the vacuum cleaner, here is a little Christmas gem to inspire and delight.
This heart-warming video has been produced by Nikki Summers and Carly Simpson who run the Cue Club at Lythe Church of England Primary School in Whitby and it shows the children performing the Christmas carol Silent Night, in two visual languages, Cued English and British Sign Language (BSL).
Nikki said “The children are absolutely amazing and such a credit to themselves. They have put so much effort into learning. I run a cue club every day over lunchtimes and encourage children to pop and see me as and when they want to and then it doesn’t become onerous. I’m there every day and if they want to learn they just turn up! I tend to have friendship groups that come along and ask questions, learn, practice and then go off together to practice with friends and they just keep popping in for more. It’s a very open and informal approach but it’s working!! I am very proud of them.”
Three years ago, Nikki started using Cued Speech to support a profoundly deaf boy in her class. The boy came to the school using BSL to communicate and joined a class with hearing school-mates. Nikki explains, “I decided to teach (Cued Speech) to all the pupils in his class as they learned their phonics so that they would be able to communicate with him more easily. In doing so, I discovered that Cued Speech also supported children with speech, language and communication needs and dyslexia.” Nikki understood that Cued Speech turns the 44 phonemes of speech into visible units that can be blended to make words and sentences, giving the boy access to full English – full access because he could see the language produced visually.
Nikki continued to teach using Cued Speech with all her class of children and from her observations over the course of time, she came to believe that all the children’s progress in phonics was accelerated because they were using Cued speech the whole time, and not just to communicate with their deaf class-mate. Nikki was delighted to observe that the boy’s progress was exactly in line with that of his hearing peers.
If you have a deaf child or want to learn more about Cued Speech, you can contact Cued Speech UK by phone (01803 712853) or by email ([email protected]). Cued Speech UK would love to see what you have to say!
Hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky Cued Speech UK
What do you call a donkey with three legs? Well, the answer to this, often told joke question, is fast becoming a surprise and ‘must-have’ children’s book for Christmas. The Wonky Donkey, written by Craig Smith from New Zealand, has shot up the bestseller’s charts after Janice Clark, a Scottish grandmother now living in Australia, was filmed reading it to four-month-old Archer.
Janice struggled to read the book while erupting into fits of giggles and the video of her and Archer, which was posted in August this year, has since been viewed millions of times on YouTube and Facebook. Her laughter is infectious and has turned both her and The Wonky Donkey book into viral sensations.
Always on-trend and with a good eye for a cueing challenge, Cued Speech UK’s own CueTutor Emma Sadeghi got in touch with author Craig Smith who sent her signed copies of his book; which inspired Emma to rally the Cued Speech UK team and take on the challenge of filming a cued version of his hilarious children’s story – just in time for deaf children to enjoy over the Christmas holidays.
Take a moment to watch and share with your friends and family, the Cued Speech UK version of The Wonky Donkey, produced and filmed by Cate Calder and featuring Cued Speech users – both big and small!
If you have a deaf child or want to learn more about Cued Speech, you can contact Cued Speech UK by phone (01803 712853) or by email ([email protected]). Cued Speech UK would love to see what you have to say!
The Garfield Weston Foundation
We are delighted to announce that the Garfield Western Foundation have awarded Cued Speech UK a grant of £40,000 towards our core costs over two years.
The Garfield Weston Foundation is a family-founded charitable grant-making trust which supports a wide range of charitable activities across the UK. Established in 1958 by Willard Garfield Weston, the Foundation has donated over £960 million, becoming one of the largest and most respected charitable institutions in the UK. In the last financial year, the Foundation has donated over £62 million. The Trustees are descendants of the founder and the Weston Family takes a highly active and hands-on approach. Over 1900 charities across the UK benefit each year from the Foundation’s grants.
Find out more about the Garfield Weston Foundation here: https://garfieldweston.org/
The Garfield Weston Foundation are celebrating their 60- year anniversary. Find out about some of the special grants, activities and partnerships they have planned during the year here: https://anniversary.garfieldweston.org/
A talking point for Plymouth parents
One of the most valuable things to be able to do as a parent of a deaf child is to meet with other parents in the same situation. Knowing that you are not alone and that there are other families that can offer advice and shed some light on the confusing array of communication choices, hearing aid technologies and educational methods available, can make all the difference. Talking to professionals is a vital part of ensuring you get the best support, but it is just as important to be able meet and talk with parents who know exactly how it feels to raise a deaf child.
At Eggbuckland Vale Primary School in Plymouth, they know how important it is to enable parents to get together and they have set up a monthly parent’s group which meets in the school’s own hearing support centre, where it is providing inclusive education for eighteen deaf children from nursery age to Year 6. Teacher of the deaf, Sarah Bradley was inspired to set up the group because, as well as understanding the importance of parents talking to each other, she also understands how important early years education is for deaf children and she wants to allow parents to see models of good communication. Sarah hopes to inspire parents to learn to use visual language at home with their families and to support their deaf children’s language for learning; language that will enable their families to thrive and support their deaf children to become literate.
Sarah ensures that while parents and deaf children chat in the group, they can also see how language is made visible, and she does this brilliantly – and bilingually. Sarah invites a deaf inclusion worker Sharon Saunders to the group who, as a deaf adult and role model, can demonstrate and teach British Sign Language (BSL); the language of the deaf community. Sarah also invites Kathy Kenny, who is a parent of a deaf child herself and in her role as Cued Speech UK family support practitioner, she is able to present spoken English visually to the group by using and teaching Cued Speech; the key to literacy. Everyone is able to see how BSL and Cued Speech, used together, create a truly bilingual and visual learning environment for the group as they discover together through story-telling and creative activities for the children; and discussions and learning opportunities for the adults.
Eggbuckland Vale deaf parent’s group is making sure that families in Plymouth become the experts about their own deaf children. These families are being given to tools to become fully informed and to be able to make the very best choices about their deaf children’s futures.
If you want to find out more about the Eggbuckland Vale deaf parent’s group, you can contact Sarah by email: [email protected]
If you have a deaf child or want to learn more about Cued Speech, you can contact Cued Speech UK by phone (01803 712853) or by email ([email protected]). Cued Speech UK would love to see what you have to say!
Make your hearing aids merry for Christmas
By Lindsey Henderson
Top 3 fun and festive ideas for children
As the festive season approaches – embrace the opportunity to celebrate your child’s hearing aids with these parent tested top tips.
1. Christmas decorating kits £10.99
We love these Christmas kits from http://www.mylugs.co.uk/ Choose your festive charms from reindeers and snowfolk, to dancing Santas and cheery teapots. Charms slot easily onto hearing aid tubes. All hearing aids are catered for and kits include sparkly foil stickers, so little ones can be involved in picking their favurites.
Joanne 27, Mum of two, says:
“Elliot 2.5 did not like wearing his aids at all at first, he was always pulling them off. Everyday was a battle to get him to wear them and he would stuff them in places you wouldn’t believe. We would spend hours looking for them, I found them in the plant, behind the radiator and even in his Dad’s wellie boot!! Elliot loves Thomas the Tank and anything Cars related so I was over the moon to find the charms. Elliot helped me choose the designs from the my lugs website and now refers to his aids as his cars. I’m excited to get him some Christmassy ones as stocking fillers from Santa. “
2. Christmassy hearing aid headbands £14.95
These are highly recommended for babies and are made from a lovely soft cotton jersey fabric. The hearing aid or processor sits in a specially designed pocket keeping it soft and comfortable on the skin. Easy to clean with many designs to choose from. The Santa one is our favourite.
3. Christmassy clips £9.99
The festive season is such a busy time of year and we’re sure you’d much rather be spending time with your little ones than scouring the house for the aids or processors that have been flung off, hidden or posted somewhere. Try these awesome Christmassy clips from Etsy. https://etsy.me/2AlTID6