How to Help Your Child Write Their First Public Speech

Depending on your child's age, you can either become quite involved, or else, step back and let them take charge of their first public speech. Very young children will need extra support from their family. You may not have a great deal of personal experience in giving public speeches, but you can help them in many ways. Here's how.

Research the topic

Once you know the topic your child will be giving a public speech in, you can then tailor the research much more effectively. For example, if the public speech will be based upon elephants in Africa, you can help them find out about the environment the elephants live in, the climate, the food they eat, their size, weight and so on. Once they have found out some facts and figures related to elephants, they can separate each of the points into separate parts of the speech to discuss. These can then be turned into short paragraphs, that will make up the bulk of the speech.

Outline

An outline is very useful for public speeches. Ask your child for more information about their speech. Has the teacher already provided an outline to work from? Teachers usually like to provide a framework that they want children to work closely from, so that it is in line with the school's requirements. If so, this will make the public speech easier to put together, as it will provide structure.

Introduction

Help your child create an introduction that is brief, but lets the audience know what will be discussed during the speech. They can do this by mentioning four to five points that will be explained in greater detail during the speech.

Main body

The main body of the talk will go over the points mentioned in the introduction and elaborate more on them. It will include details, facts, figures and other relevant information.

Conclusion

The conclusion is the part of your child's speech that will tie up any loose ends and bring the speech to a satisfactory end. It is not the time to start talking about a different subject. It should contain a summary of the topics discussed and how the speech has addressed these points.

Practice

Even if your child feels confident about giving their first public speech, it will still be a good idea to go through a few practice runs with them. You can do this by pretending you are the audience and letting your child go through their presentation. If there is an allotted time limit, you can help them to make sure they do not go over time by using a stop watch. If they go over their time, you can help them cut out unnecessary information.

Audience

For your child to give a good public speech, they will need to know their audience well. So if Sarah is just 10 and will be talking to other 10 year olds, she already knows her audience. It is not a good idea for parents to script their child's public speech for them. Not only is it dishonest, as it is not their child's own work, but it may not be understandable to the right target audience. Encourage your child to use easy to understand words and phrases. Simple illustrations can also help classmates to become more attentive to the public speech.

It can be exciting for parents to help their children prepare for their first public speech. They will feel a real sense of accomplishment when the public speech has been written out and rehearsed and even more so once the public speech has been delivered. However much help you offer though, make sure it is your child's own work.