Asking for help

What this pack teaches

That help has to be aimed at somebody who can give it, and that saying which bit is stuck is the part that makes it arrive.

Asking for help is the skill that unlocks every classroom, and it is the one most often read as not trying. A child sitting still with an unopened lid is often mid-ask: they have signalled, and nobody has picked the signal up. Naming the stuck bit — “I can't get the lid” rather than “I need help” — is what turns a signal into help arriving.

• Say what the stuck bit is.
• Ask the person who can actually help.
• Help arrives when somebody knows about it.
• Pointing at it counts as asking.
• Asking early is easier than asking late.

How to use this

• ·Sit next to your child rather than opposite them. This works best as a thing you do together, not a thing you set them.
• ·Read the speech bubbles aloud if that helps. Nothing here needs to be read independently.
• ·Talk about the picture before the buttons. “What's happening here?” is often more useful than the sorting itself.
• ·Five situations is a session. Stopping after two is a fine session too.

Practising away from the screen

• ·Get stuck on purpose in front of your child and ask them for help. Being the one asked is how asking stops feeling like a confession.
• ·Practise naming the stuck bit rather than the whole task. “The lid” and “the third word” are askable; “my homework” is not.
• ·Agree on one help signal at home — a card, a hand up, a word — and answer it every single time you see it.

Things you can say in the moment

• Tell me which bit is stuck. Is it the lid, or getting it open, or something else?
• You can say “I've had a go and I'm stuck on the second one.”
• Mrs Taylor is at the front. You could go up and hold the sheet out to her.
• If you don't want to say it, bring me the thing and point. That is a whole ask.

What not to push

• ·A child never has to speak to ask for help. Pointing, bringing you the thing, a card or a hand up are all real asks, and each of them gets answered.
• ·Doing it alone is not the better answer. A child who asks on the first try has solved the problem in the fastest way available.
• ·Nobody has to ask a stranger, or a teacher they find hard. Picking who to ask is part of the skill, not a way out of it.

If this pack is hard today

Do the asking half only and skip the sorting. Set up one stuck lid a day and let your child ask you in any way they like, and answer it straight away. The cards are for when asking already works sometimes.