Language, Literacy, RTI Blog

Coming Late Spring: the Story Grammar Marker® App: You are A Star Reporter!

Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

It has been a long time coming, but MindWing Concepts has partnered with three talented Speech Language Pathologists: Meghan Graham, Karen Head and Jill Perry of All4MyChild (www.all4mychild.com) to create the Story Grammar Marker® App! All4MyChild is the creator of The Bag Game©, the Social Adventures© App, Talking Train© and Fun Timer©. They have used Story Grammar Marker® extensively for years. As regular readers of our Blog know, Sean Sweeney (www.speechtechie.com) has written many, many Blog entries where he teaches how to incorporate Story Grammar Marker®, ThemeMaker® and our other products with various Apps and web-based technologies. His expertise, enthusiasm and ingenuity has always been an inspiration to MindWing, helping us to see how this platform is a "must" for SGM®. It will be exciting to now see the use of Story Grammar Marker® in its own App format. Thanks to the creativity and technical knowledge of all4mychild.com, the SGM® App has become a reality.

Maryellen Rooney Moreau (photo, left with the "splash screen" of the new App), creator of Story Grammar Marker® is very excited to be working on this App. She said "We always wanted a technology product. The advent of the App World really gave us a platform for making a digital version of Story Grammar Marker®." The intention of this App is twofold. Moreau continued "The Story Grammar Marker® that I created 22 years ago was ahead of its time. This visual, kinesthetic tool still is helping and will continue to help children think, communicate and learn as it always has done." First, the App will be a digital version for the IPAD. It will still give the ability to touch, move and interact – which has made the original version so unique. Second – there is so much more! This App has motivating animation such as blinking eyes, a kicking sneaker, a glowing star and a beating heart. By pinching out the icons, the prompting "Wh" questions will be visible to correspond to the SGM® maps. It is developmental: from the descriptive level (characters and settings) all the way up to the complete episode of a story, so it can span many grade and ability levels. This App will also give the clinician/teacher/parent/child the ability to type, draw, import images and/or import photos for each part of the story. It also has a feature to practice oral language by doing an audio recording the story at the end and being able to see/hear that story being read in a "newscaster" scene. The final product (the story and the audio clip) can be emailed to parents or to record data. There is also a tutorial for those not familiar with SGM® or the narrative developmental sequence.

In honor of the launch of this new Story Grammar Marker® App, we will be RAFFLING off a NEW IPAD with the SGM® App loaded onto it!!!

The raffle will be held the day we official launch the App so get your entries in soon!

There are 4 ways to qualify for entering the raffle. If you want your name entered 4 times, you can do all 4!!

Become a FaceBook Fan of MindWing Concepts https://www.facebook.com/mindwingconcepts?fref=ts.
Leave A Recommendation Comment on MindWing Concepts' FaceBook page https://www.facebook.com/mindwingconcepts?fref=ts.
Become a Follower of @mindwingconcept on Twitter.
Click here, fill out the form and in the COMMENTS section write: IPad Raffle and under that, write us a short Success Story or Testimonial about your use of any of MindWing Concepts’ materials.

Spread the word to your friends and colleagues – everyone is eligible! Good luck!

Exploring Action Sequences with Apps and the Common Core Standards

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:14:00 GMT

The narrative skill of describing and sequencing actions that can occur within a particular place is so relevant to the classroom curriculum, most recently redefined with the arrival of the Common Core State Standards. The classroom itself is a place where children learn, play, read, write, draw, listen, laugh, and sometimes argue, not necessarily in that order! Nearly every academic topic could be framed as an action sequence, while many children requiring narrative language intervention can get stuck at the previous level of naming- the descriptive sequence. We can help scaffold them to the next level using Story Grammar Marker® and strategies from Mindwing's recent book, The "Core" of the Core: Using Story Grammar Marker® and Other MindWing Concepts Tools To Support Students in Meeting Grade-Level Common Core State Standards.

While there are many contexts in which we can develop action sequences, using photos, books, and play activities, among others, in this post we will take a look at a series of free apps that can be used to engage students in narrative language. In addition, this post provides access to a FREE sample of question prompts from The "Core" of the Core that can be used in conjunction with these action-packed apps!

Bamba! Apps has created a series of applications for iPad in which kids play in different settings, including a pizza parlor, burger joint and post office. Each app is structured so that kids can make choices as each action is performed, and since the apps are highly visual and language-neutral, they provide a great context for eliciting speaking and writing, specifically within an action sequence structure. Let's take a look at Bamba Post Office (again, FREE), and the action sequence that it naturally constructs:

After first entering the post office, kids choose a package and place an item to mail in it:

Then they write a card, wrap the package and send it to a friend (including the possibility of accessing the camera to send it to someone really special):

Finally, they give it to the friend, who shouts YAY!

This is a great app to engage young students, and is also a good one to develop turn-taking skills when used with a group. I'd encourage you to check out the others in the series, including Bamba Pizza and Bamba Burger.

The Questions "Center" Activity Cards from The "Core" of the Core provide a structure for eliciting language in different ways before, during, and after using these apps. The questions align with standards in different strands, including Speaking and Listening:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.4 Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.6 Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation. (See grade 1 Language standards 1 and 3 here for specific expectations.)

A sample of the Activity Cards is embedded below, along with an introduction to the materials:

Common Core Questions for Action Sequence by

Introduction To Questions "Center" Activity

The questions refer to the developmental sequence of narrative and expository text which parallels the progression of the Common Core State Standards. The "core" of the Core is oral language development. All of MindWing's tools are rooted in oral language development at the Discourse language level, where sentences are organized to form a structure for communication. As such, our maps and hands-on tools serve to prepare the student for literacy demands in the language modalities of Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening and Language… along with gesturing and thinking skills. The questions in the boxes are for "Centers" or "Stations" and are designed to follow instruction/intervention. They collectively address and support specific standards and are to be used with the lesson, text or book currently being used in the classroom or in therapy. The complexity of the responses to these questions depends upon:

the child's ability
the purpose of the teacher or interventionist
the complexity of the text chosen

Exciting news! MindWing Concepts has told me that that they are coming out with a Story Grammar Marker® APP this May! Stay tuned….

Sean Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP, is an SLP and technology specialist working in private practice at the Ely Center in Newton, MA, and consults to local and national organizations on technology integration in speech and language interventions.His blog, SpeechTechie, looks at technology "through a language lens." Contact him at sean@speechtechie.com.

A Gift to a Character!

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:47:00 GMT

‘Tis the season! No matter what one’s religious beliefs are, the holiday season involves giving, and this is a context that is ripe for critical thinking, description, perspective-taking, and social scripts. It can be quite difficult to engineer learning situations in which children are giving each other actual gifts, what with the need for stores, money, and the fine-motor aspects of wrapping. However, technology can cut through some of that sticky tape for us and provide us with a virtual-gift-giving activity!

I first learned of the Gift Wrap App (FREE for iPad) on The Speech Guy, Jeremy Legaspi’s great blog (be sure to follow it on its own or as part of your use of the SLP Blogs Bundle). Jeremy is a whiz at describing how to “app-dapt” certain gems in the app store, and he mentioned this app, which allows you to overlay rippable “wrapping paper” over an imaged “gift,” as a means to “target language, articulation, or pretty much anything!” Indeed, any app that allows kids to interact with imagery has pretty much limitless contexts and therapy applications.

In that line of thinking, I knew it could be used in conjunction with Mindwing’s tools such as the Braidy, the Story Braid or Story Grammar Marker Character Maps. Your lesson could look like this:

First, have your students interview each other using the Character Map as a guide. Character attributes such as appearance (what someone often wears, for example) and especially likes/dislikes can lay the groundwork for an inference about what he or she might like for a gift. If it is difficult to split kids up to do this in secret, you could also think about giving a virtual gift to a book character or a teacher.

Next, show your students how to save an image to the camera roll using Google Images (click here to see how). This easy process is what makes any “creation” app virtually limitless.

After that, using Gift Wrap App, tap Add a Gift Image, Allow the app to access your photos, and the saved image will be on your Camera Roll. Have the student select an image, swipe to pick a holiday wrapping paper style, then tap Wrap.

Finally, you are ready to have kids “exchange” gifts. This provides a good opportunity to work on scripts for the exchange (even what to say if one secretly does not like a gift)!

As a variation of this lesson, you can have kids give each other absurd gifts to work on causal/descriptive language, or use this app throughout the year at birthday or other holiday times...You can also consider having kids gift something as a response to a Six-Second Story, taking advantage of the listening skills and inferential thinking opportunities within that task.

Happy Gifting!

Sean Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP, is an SLP and technology specialist working in private practice at the Ely Center in Newton, MA, and consults to local and national organizations on technology integration in speech and language interventions. His blog, SpeechTechie (www.speechtechie.com), looks at technology "through a language lens." Contact him at sean@speechtechie.com.

Put the Story on Stage with Puppet Pals!

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 05:00:00 GMT

By Sean J. Sweeney CCC-SLP

There are a great many easy-to-use apps for iPad that fall into the category of digital storytelling. This may sound like a daunting concept, but digital storytelling is just using technological tools such as digital pictures, video, audio, animation, or drawing in order to convey a story or information. Apps that combine these tools use the intuitive interface of the iPad to bring together different kinds of content in an engaging process of creation- all with your fingertips. Even better, these apps provide a great context to utilize Mindwing Tools such as Braidy, the Storybraid, Story Grammar Marker, Thememaker and their accompanying story or expository planning maps.

In this post I am going to focus on Puppet Pals, an app you can use to record a “staged” production with characters and backdrops. It is similar to Toontastic, but has the advantage of allowing you to add any photo to the scenes, allowing for limitless contexts. It also ups the difficulty level over Toontastic (and may be your go-to for older kids, though they still tend to like Toontastic) because you need to record one long scene rather than discrete pieces of the story. Use of planning maps and narrative elements is even more important for this reason, to keep the process fun and not frustrating.

Puppet Pals has so many uses, but story retelling is a terrific start. Any story can be represented and narrated in Puppet Pals by first saving images from the Internet to use as characters and backdrops. Kids could be great “photo editors” in these cases and practice language by stating why they would like to use particular photos. Although Puppet Pals is free, the $2.99 “Director’s Pass” purchased in-app is required to allow you to add your own photos.

As an example, I am going to use the picture book This is the Van that Dad Cleaned by Lisa Campbell Ernst, which relates the progressive messifying of the family van by a car full of kids, who eventually pitch in and help make it clean again. The book has a great story structure that could be retold at several levels of narrative complexity (e.g. an Action Sequence, Abbreviated or Complete Episode) and it also has a nice message aligning with Social Thinking® concepts such as Expected and Unexpected behaviors and avoiding “Just Me” thinking.

Check out this video showing you how to use the app, and happy puppeteering!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He consults to various organizations on the topic of technology integration in speech and language. He is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, a founding editor of the blog TherapyApp411, and a regular contributor to ASHAsphere: The Blog of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association and the ASHA Leader.

Another Successful ASHA Convention in Atlanta!

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Well, another ASHA Convention has come and gone and we are on our way into the holiday season!

We enjoyed ASHA ATLANTA!

Thanks to our graphic designer, Bill Noss, our booth was colorful and inviting.

We enjoyed seeing so many friends and colleagues and met so many new SLPs! We want to thank our team at the booth for all of their help in answering questions and explaining Story Grammar Marker® to SLPs visiting the booth.

Jennifer Spokas, Lisa Fuller, Linda Lafontaine, Bill Noss, Maryellen Rooney Moreau, Gerry Moreau, Kim Barberini and Sheila Moreau.

Judy K. Montgomery visited the booth and met with Maryellen Rooney Moreau about their NEW BOOK coming in 2013 that is for University and College professors and their graduate students. More information about this new book is coming soon!

The session presented by Maryellen Rooney Moreau and Linda Lafontaine, The SLP and Literacy Night: Supporting Common Core State Standards was very well received. People LOVED the book Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini and illustrated by Howard Fine. Linda did an amazing job of demonstrating Literacy Night and Maryellen shared the research base of the SGM® methodology and how it supports the Common Core State Standards. The handout is posted at this link for people to download. Click to Download the Handout.

Have a happy Thanksgiving! DISCOUNT CODE REMINDER: Use code ASHA12 for 20% off all products through December 31, 2012. SHOP NOW!

ASHA ATLANTA 2012

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 20:38:00 GMT

We are looking forward to seeing you at ASHA this week!

Please visit us at Booth #1220 for raffles, special offers and to say hello! Also, you can get our new Character Mini-Magnets (below) FREE with the purchase of our new book: The “Core” of the Core.

We would love to see you at our session #1441: “The SLP & Literacy Night: Supporting Common Core State Standards” by Maryellen Rooney Moreau, M.Ed., CCC-SLP and Linda Lafontaine, M.A., CCC-SLP, Saturday, November 17, 9:30am-10:30am. Below is a link to the pre-convention 3-page handout that is also posted on the Convention website (a more complete handout will be made available to participants after ASHA).

For more information, download: ASHA ATLANTA 2012 - Session 1441

If we miss you in Atlanta, we are coming to the West Coast in January!

REMINDER: Workshop Open to ALL!

The “Core” of the Core: Using Story Grammar Marker® to Support Common Core State Standards

Vancouver, WA, Saturday,1/05/13, 8am-3:30pm at the Red Lion Hotel (15 min from downtown Portland)

Visit www.mindwingconcepts.com/workshops to register! 0.06 ASHA CEUs available.

Hope to see you soon!
Maryellen Rooney Moreau and Sheila Moreau

NEW! COMMON CORE BOOK and FREE LESSON

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

“At the core of the Core is really that child sitting in a classroom at Memorial School on Main Street, Anywhere, USA. We can never forget that within the clamor for more intensive instruction within and across academic disciplines and grade levels, is the small voice of a child…waiting to be heard.”
— Maryellen Rooney Moreau, June 14, 2012 —

NEW BOOK on SGM® and Common Core State Standards Implementation

The aligning of the Common Core State Standards with MindWing’s methodology can provide effective, evidence-based interventions to help students who are “at-risk” and those with identified disabilities to develop the communicative competence necessary to meet grade level standards and be prepared for college and/or career. In light of this goal, we have a new book which we have written to:

Demonstrate the proven 20 year track record of Story Grammar Marker® and how it applies to the Common Core State Standards and meets today’s curricular demands
Encourage collaboration among professionals and parents to support all students in reaching grade-level CCSS including those who are considered at-risk, those for whom English is a second language, those with Autism and those with other identified disabilities
Provide concrete lessons and activities aligned to specific CCSS (in reading, writing, speaking & listening) to be used as interventions in therapy, at Centers and/or for whole class instruction

Communicative Competence: The Goal of the CCSS

An overarching goal of the CCSS is Communicative Competence; putting together words, phrases, and sentences to create conversations, speeches, email messages, articles and books. Without Discourse there is a developmental gap - there is not an efficient connection to literacy and communicative competence.

The Common Core State Standards involve:

Incorporating all types of text (narrative & expository)
Integration of the language processes of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing
Oral Language as the foundation: the “Core” of the Core

The Story Grammar Marker® and related tools can help you in all three areas.

Please use the link below to download an excerpt from the NEW book The “Core” of the Core. This excerpt uses the story There’s An Owl in the Shower by Jean Craighead George. This book is a mentor text for writing and for the use of the Critical Thinking Triangle® for perspective taking and development of the causal relationships within a story. Information, in the form of expository text structures, is included within this story by the author in order to provide background/ world connections and to assist students in the integration of narrative and expository text. Such integration allows for opinion making and persuasive thought, the ultimate goals of the CCSS. Enjoy!

Click to download "There's an Owl in the Shower"

The “Core” of the Core Book is coming out in October – pre-order your copy today with a 20% Discount using code CCSS12 (Discount valid through October 31, 2012).

Taking Paper out of the Story

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 14:50:00 GMT

By Sean J. Sweeney CCC-SLP

The arrival of the iPad has presented us with all kinds of opportunities to boost the engagement factor for our students. In many cases, students will be more engaged in what we would consider “paper and pencil” tasks when we “app-itize” them utilizing some of the tools available as free or cheap apps. For example, in recent posts on my blog SpeechTechie, I discussed how the iBooks app could be used to excite students about printed materials and also present PDF files that are often provided with published intervention materials (you don’t need to read those posts to understand this one, but they provide some related information).

Mindwing Concepts has also had the vision to supply their customers with electronic files for many of their published materials (i.e. the manuals for Braidy, The Story Braid, Story Grammar Marker and other products), and the PDFs contained on the accompanying CD-ROMs give you a great way to use your iPad to build narrative language skills! In this post I will show how you can transfer these PDF files to your iPad and use a simple annotation app to take some paper out of the equation when completing story mapping activities with your students. You’ll find that in subtracting a little paper, you’ve added a LOT of fun. Here’s how to do it!

1. To begin, you will need to install the app neu.Annotate+ PDF ($.99) on your iPad. There are some free PDF annotators, but I have not found one that works as well as the very economical (but not exactly easy-to-say) neu.Annotate+ PDF.

2. You will then want to transfer a PDF story map, using the disc provided with your manual, to your iPad. For the purposes of this post I have used several from Braidy, The Story Braid. Using a desktop or laptop computer, insert the disc and attach the file to an email. You will want to send the email to an account that you have set up in the iPad’s mail app. Here is how to set up an account in that app if you hadn’t yet done so (don’t be insulted by the source of that info, we’re not judgin’ and it was the best explanation I could find)!

3. Check your email in your Mail app on the iPad. You will see the PDF file as an attachment to the email. Tap to download and tap again to open the PDF file.

4. When the PDF displays on screen, tap the “Share” button in the upper right corner, then “Open in...” and “neu.Annotate +PDF.” This will load the PDF into the annotation app so you can complete the story map.

5. Use the toolbar to add text to the story map as shown below.

6. You can customize the color and size of text and lines as shown below.

7. Here’s the completed story map, telling a story about summer travel:

8. Annotated PDFs as you have created above CAN be shared via email to be sent to parents or printed. This is done by tapping the Share button in the upper right corner.

9. neu.Annotate +PDF also gives you a fun drawing tool you can use with activities such as the Border Drawing Sheets accompanying the Braidy manual. For example, following the same procedures you did above, you can use the element of Setting to elicit Actions that relate to the plan of “keeping busy at the airport.”

Using the drawing tools, above we illustrated how the student watched planes, read his book, went to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal, and played in the Play Park until it was time to leave on the plane.

10. It’s important to note that you can zoom in on the drawing to make your finger-scribbles a bit more precise!

11. Finally, when you tap on Home and see your whole library, note that you can keep “clean” copies of your story maps saved in the app, and Duplicate them to create ones that you work on with students.

I really hope you enjoy this foray into PDF annotation, a process that doesn’t sound fun at all but totally is!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He consults to various organizations on the topic of technology integration in speech and language. He is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, a founding editor of the blog TherapyApp411, and a regular contributor to ASHAsphere: The Blog of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association and the ASHA Leader. Sean recently joined Smarty Ears Apps and is working on creating apps for language and literacy development.

Why MindWing’s Materials and Methodology Are Truly CCSS-Aligned

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 20:12:00 GMT

In light of our upcoming July 17th workshop in Natick, MA called The “Core” of the Core: Using Story Grammar Marker® to Support Learning Challenged & “At Risk” Students in Meeting Grade-Level Common Core State Standards, we wanted to share with you a response sent to Maryellen by a colleague who is a Reading/Language Arts Specialist K-8 in a school district in Connecticut. She explains why she thinks that MindWing’s materials and methodology are the only ones that are truly “CCSS-aligned!” This message shows the concrete and practical way that our methodology supports the CCSS, which is actually the basis for the workshop on July 17th in Natick.

Hi Maryellen,

So nice to hear from you! I am doing very well and I have to tell you, I think of you every day! Your resources have proven to be invaluable to us as we have tried to dig deeper to instruct students in language, comprehension, and writing. But now as we are trying to unwrap those Common Core State Standards, OMG - we are all so grateful that we have Braidy®!! Key words for specific types of text, cohesive ties, "story sparkle" - not to mention a deep understanding of macrostructure - it is all there!!

In Kindergarten we have started a daily center specifically devoted to those 70 mini-lessons of yours in the Braidy® manual. We have experimented with an assessment that we hope to implement next year: the teacher reads "Mrs. Wishy-Washy" by Joy Cowley to a child, then uses your rubric as s/he retells the story back. We will implement this in the winter and spring.

In first grade, we have been experimenting more with your graphic organizers for expository text from the Talk to Write, Write to Learn®. For next year, we will adapt them a bit to make them more "first grade friendly (bigger lines for writing). Also next year, our new goal is to get students to show their understanding of the complete episode through an oral retelling of a story by the end of the year. Just yesterday, I finished creating an assessment on iMovie using "The Bear's Toothache" - the book you introduced to us. In the fall, winter, and spring, students will watch this movie and record their retelling into the computer. Then all of us first grade teachers will meet to listen to the recordings, rate them together on your rubric, and discuss next steps for instruction. The recordings will go into the students' electronic portfolios and may even be sent home to parents to show growth from fall to spring!

In second grade, we have assessments that require students to read a story with a complete episode and write a retelling. As the year progresses from fall to spring, the Braidy® scaffold with which they are provided gets less and less.

In third grade, we have divided the year into several "genre" units. We start with fables to review episodic structure as well as the genre. Then we move into fairy tales, folk tales, mythology, and novels. How else could we help students to understand character complexity, motivation, and moral if not for Braidy®??? Next year, we will begin to integrate more of your graphic organizers for expository writing from Talk to Write, Write to Learn® and ThemeMaker® for main idea/details, sequence, cause/effect, compare/contrast... and then finally working in your persuasive maps for those opinion pieces (not sure now if they will work for grade three at this point in time, or if we will have to move them to grade 4 and 5).

At every Common Core workshop I attend, I tell people about MindWing’s materials. They are a Godsend!

And with everyone marketing their materials as "CCSS-aligned" – you ((MindWing) are the only one who can truly say it!!!

Thank you so much for all you do.

All my best,

For more information about our workshop on July 17th in Natick, please click here.

To inquire about us coming to your school district to provide this workshop, please click here and fill out the form.

The “Core” of the Common Core State Standards

Fri, 25 May 2012 20:30:00 GMT

With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, how do educators provide effective interventions to help students with identified disabilities, learning challenges, who are at risk, or on IEPs to meet grade level standards?

Provide oral language development interventions
Support interrelationships between reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language
Collaborate with SLPs, teachers, specialists families and administrators

At the “core” of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is oral language development because oral language provides the foundation for literacy. The CCSS were designed to prepare students for success in college & careers and ultimately to be able to compete in a global, technology-driven economy. In order to ensure this success, students must be literate – or, competent in speaking, listening, reading, writing and thinking. The link between literacy and language development is the “discourse” level of language which is made up of narration, conversation and exposition. It is within discourse that the Story Grammar Marker® (narratives), Six-Second-Stories® (conversation) and ThemeMaker® (expository text) can provide the most effective intervention to bridge the gap for those students with identified disabilities or for those at risk of not meeting grade level standards. The CCSS call for students to develop “Communicative Competence” which is putting together words, phrases, and sentences to create conversations, speeches, email messages, articles and books. Students are required throughout ALL standards to (using academic language) interpret, argue, analyze, organize, conclude and persuade through conversation, discussion, writing and debate. There is also a strong emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration with peers. In order for students to meet these requirements, oral language development – particularly at the discourse level is essential.

Speech/Language Pathologists are uniquely prepared to provide intervention in the area of language development. However, it is in their collaboration with teachers and specialists that will impact student progress and academic & social success the most!

The goal is for ALL students (including those with identified disabilities, those who are English Learners, those who are “at risk” and those children with Autism) to receive the most effective interventions to help them to develop the communicative competence necessary to meet grade level standards, achieve academic & social success and be prepared for college and/or career. Through collaboration among SLPs, teachers and specialists all using Story Grammar Marker®, Six-Second-Stories® and ThemeMaker® methodologies to provide intervention in oral language development; this goal can be attained.

Click here for Boston area summer workshop information:

The “Core” of the Core: Using Story Grammar Marker® to Support Learning Challenged & “At Risk” Students in Meeting Grade-Level Common Core State Standards
Tuesday, July 17th 2012
Natick, MA

You (as a character) Are A Social Detective!

Fri, 04 May 2012 19:33:00 GMT

On the heels of Autism Awareness Month, I wanted to highlight a product that provides a terrific complement to use of the Story Grammar Marker® for treatment of social learning and narrative deficits for students with autism spectrum and related disorders. You Are a Social Detective is a CD-ROM product (compatible with Mac and Windows systems) created by Michelle Garcia Winner of Social Thinking® in conjunction with the folks at Social Skill Builders. The program is based on the popular comic of the same name, which provides a visual primer on basic social thinking concepts such as expected and unexpected behaviors and their effects on others, “thinking with the eyes,” and making “smart vs. wacky” guesses. Many children on the autism spectrum require explicit and consistent teaching of these concepts and coaching in their application across the school day. Using this video modeling program allows for instruction across many leveled lessons, as students view video situations and apply the key skills to identify expected and unexpected behaviors, zoom in on clues about others’ thoughts and feelings, predict the outcome of social scenarios, and utilize social behavior mapping strategies.

I have been using this program with groups of students over the course of this year, and I have been impressed by both the amount of content provided (allowing students to build skills over many exposures) and students’ positive response to the material across a range of age levels. The engaging interface has really grabbed students’ attention, and I continually hear as my groups begin, “Are we going to do Social Detective today?” The pace of the program is arranged perfectly so that 3 or 4 video clips and accompanying discussion questions can be tackled in one session, followed by a brief interactive arcade-style game, and still allow for another activity in the course of your 30-minute session (the program saves student groups’ progress within the levels so that you need not repeat video clips). The structure of the program also allows plenty of room for clinical scaffolding; this is not an activity that students are meant to complete independently. Rather, they will need your assistance as a clinician to focus on key details within each scene and verbalize what has occurred (and what might occur next) thought their “Social Detective” lens.

One key tool that can be applied to analyze each video scene is, of course, Story Grammar Marker! Each scene presents kid characters (though they vary in age and, notably, so do the expected behaviors for different age levels) who are in different settings and experience a kickoff! As the program progresses, you move from deciding if the portrayed reaction was expected or unexpected for the situation, to making smart guesses about reactions, plans, and the feelings of the characters. I find each video clip to be an excellent place to employ the Universal Magnet Set to teach and reinforce use of the narrative icons toward the analysis of each scene, like so:

This serves as a great complement to the material provided, and does not end up being repetitive of the questions asked within the program. Rather, use of the narrative icons provides an additional visual and language-based support to help students understand what they saw, while building narrative skills and use of the cohesive ties that link the narrative icons: when, but, so, because, etc. The lessons in You are a Social Detective also, naturally, align well with the activities in the Mindwing Autism Collection that apply narrative elements toward understanding social interactions.

A demo of the program can be viewed here (Flash-based, so not iPad-friendly). I hope you will check out this great program!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP, an SLP, instructional technology specialist and consultant, works in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He is the author of the blog SpeechTechie, a contributor to the ASHA Leader, and recently took on a role as Product Development Manager for Smarty Ears Apps.

Using SGM and Thememaker for Project-Based Learning

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 21:04:00 GMT

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a recent trend in educational design, and involves presenting students with real-world contextual tasks that relate to curriculum areas. PBL is a great approach for Speech-Language Pathologists and Special Educators to employ as our students benefit from having their learning relate to personally relevant and functional content. To learn more about PBL, watch this great video from Common Craft. One tool that has been integrated as a kind of PBL is the “Webquest,” a set of web pages that outline a task and provide web-based resources for its completion. Webquests are not new, and teachers have been developing them for some time. There is a particular Webquest that I wanted to share with you in this post, particularly because it is one you could use in classroom, small group, or even individual language therapy while integrating Story Grammar Marker® and Thememaker® tools in the process.

The webquest I speak of is called the Tantalizing Adjectives Webquest, originally designed by Ann Ryan. The task presented is as follows:

You and your partner are very excited about having the opportunity to create a menu for your themed restaurant. Since this is a new experience for both of you, there are certain tasks that you will need to accomplish.

They include:

Review the definition and types of adjectives
Analyze and evaluate online menus
Decide on the theme for your restaurant
Choose the types of food you would like to serve
Write descriptions using adjectives
Use an online dictionary and/or thesaurus to improve word clarity
Create a menu

Kids love food and going out to restaurants, and will be instantly excited when you present this task to them! The Webquest provides necessary links and resources on its “Process” page, but you can always feel free to supplement these as you’d like (a few suggestions to follow).

So, where does the SGM® come in? First of all, I use it to outline the scope of the project, and each session we recap our progress and what is left to do using the SGM®. This provides the students with multiple exposures to the icons and the “story” of our project.

Additionally, when you arrive at the stage of the project that provides models of themed restaurants, you can use the SGM®/Thememaker® Descriptive setting map in multiple activities. First of all, it provides a framework for breaking down the idea of “theme” so that students have a strong descriptive model of a realized theme. After reviewing the examples provided, students can complete a Descriptive Setting map for one of the restaurants.

In this part of the activity, I supplemented the Webquest by displaying two resources. First of all, there is a wonderful video describing T-Rex, a restaurant in Downtown Disney in Orlando, Florida. This provides an example of a fully realized theme, and can be used with a Descriptive Setting map to model the process. Another fun extension activity is to look at the website for S’MAC in NYC. This macaroni-and-cheese themed restaurant provides yet more examples of strong menu descriptions, and you can introduce the concept of “teaser” and “clincher” statements within the descriptions here, e.g. “Be swept away by the Mediterranean Sea...” for Mediterranean Mac and Cheese. However, for decor, S’MAC is not really a realized theme, so you can have kids brainstorm what would improve it, yet again using a Descriptive Setting map. Mine came up with: cheese-shaped furniture and lighting, macaroni-shaped table legs, waitstaff dressed in yellow and orange, and a macaroni fountain!

After exploring themes with your students, you can have them work with their group to brainstorm themes and select a theme. The Thememaker List Map comes in handy here:

Later, students work to describe what their restaurant will look like, and begin to think about menu items, using a Setting Description Map:

I have done this project a number of times in the past, and making a traditional poster for the menu works quite well. However, this year I am thinking of using Glogster with the students to make the final project. I will plan to update you in a later post, hope this project was interesting to you. You can find a resource of other Webquests here.

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.

This Vacation Week, Take the Kids to a New Setting: Disneyland!

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:13:00 GMT

In the Northeast at least, February means school vacation week, and who doesn’t like Disney? Disney’s parks are based on its countless characters and, of course, narratives, and the company recently released a FREE iPad app that allows children to explore Disneyland. Disneyland Explorer (iPad only) provides a touch-navigable visual environment allowing kids to visit a huge variety of themed settings (Adventureland, Critter Country, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Tomorrowland, and so on, and that’s only in Disneyland proper) as they tap to reveal additional photos, videos and music. The app is naturally designed to lure tourists to Disney’s parks, but in the process it provides a primer in the element of Setting, providing a context for clinicians to develop students ability to describe locations, themes, and even genres!

Exploring Tomorrowland provides a great opportunity to target setting description and graphic organizer use with use of Mindwing’s Story Grammar Marker and Story Maps!

Link to Story Map: Click Here

Mindwing’s Setting Maps are flexible and adaptable depending on which categories you choose to target with your students. Use of these maps with Disneyland Explorer would also lend itself to using a more inferential approach and describing with the 5 Senses!

After visiting Disneyland’s more traditional worlds, the app can also take you to “a bug’s land” (lowercase as the movie title was) and “Cars Land.” Any of the locations you visit would be accompanied well by books or movie clips that you can use to build students’ narrative skills.

For another take on Disneyland Explorer, check out this post at Smart Apps for Kids, with a quote: “My oldest son loves this app. LOVES. He has told me numerous times that this is his favorite app. Not his favorite free app. His favorite app...period.”

We hope you like it too, and enjoy your vacation...whenever it is!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.

Simple Comics for More Advanced Language

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:16:00 GMT

At the elementary school level, we all can attest to seeing students who, narratively, get stuck at what we might call the “andthenandthenandthen” stage. The official name for this stage is the Action Sequence, and it is comprised of Characters, Settings, and a series of Actions with little variation in conjunction use. These students benefit from structures and contexts to move them into using to more complex story elements and cohesive ties such as when, because, and so. Mindwing’s narrative maps, particularly the Reactive Sequence and Abbreviated Episode Maps can provide that structure: (*Maps can be found in the Story Grammar Marker® Teachers’ Manual and the Talk to Write, Write to Learn™ Teachers’ Manual )

To construct a story where a character is in a particular setting when a kickoff occurs, so he/she reacts in a certain way.

To construct a story in which a character is in a particular setting when a kickoff occurs, so he/she has a feeling about it and makes a particular plan, resulting in a conclusion.

While these maps provide a structure, instructionally we also need a context. Comics are one way to provide that! Kids love comics, and narratively they tend to be shorter and work according to these structures. You can of course easily draw 4-panel comics, but there are a couple of great technology resources that you can employ to scaffold students to the next narrative level.

First up, MakeBeliefsComix (yes, I spelled that right) is a great simple web app you can use to make comics. This Flash-based (therefore, non-functional on iPad) website allows you to drag and drop characters, backgrounds, props and word/thought balloons into a scene. I recently used this site in a classroom to develop narrative as well as the social thinking™ skill of “defeating GlassMan ® moments.” From Think Social Publishing, this concept relates to using self-talk and other strategies to regulate our responses to small problems across the day. Kids in the class received instruction on narrative structure and thinking strategies, and were asked to make a comic showing a character experiencing (or defeating) a GlassMan moment, basically a Reactive Sequence or Abbreviated Episode:

Mindwing’s Universal Magnets used to show what can happen in each panel, along with strategies the students could show the character using in a Plan to “defeat” a problem.

The super-simple MakeBeliefsComix site allows you to “Select emotions, objects, scenes, balloons and panel prompts to tell the story.” The resulting cartoon can be saved by emailing it to an established email account:

One students’ creation depicts Abraham Lincoln dealing with the kickoff of losing his bird companion by using self-talk!

This lesson could also be accomplished using the new iPad app Big Nate: Comix by U! HD ($4.99, separate version for iPod is priced at $3.99), based on the popular book series. Like many iPad apps, this one opens with a great tutorial and works similarly to MakeBeliefComix, allowing you to tap and drag all the necessary elements of a fun story!

Story Mapping and Seasonal Cheer

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:55:00 GMT

The holiday season creates a lot of excitement for our students, no matter what holiday they celebrate! This mood can lead to a lot of language and, of course, the opportunity to develop narrative using Story Grammar Marker®. In this post, I’ll be mentioning a couple of resources you can use to acknowledge the season (in varying degrees of sectarianism) while reinforcing use of narrative elements and SGM® icons.

The first is a brief Pixar-like animated short I stumbled across in my blog-surfing routines; I am so glad I found it! As I described in a previous post, wordless videos can be an engaging way to have students “fill in” the language that is not used in the video, while also identifying emotions signaled by nonverbal cues. Check out Impossible Present, a great complete episode narrative to map, especially with elementary aged students who can handle the “unexpected behaviors” (Social Thinking®) and the brief flash of kid-buttocks! It’s all good when a laser is involved, right?

Impossible Present from Royale on Vimeo.

This story can be mapped as follows or using an earlier developmental level of narrative (e.g. a simple action sequence or reaction sequence):

Open publication - Free publishing - More language

The video also presents a great opportunity to talk about expected reactions (modeling the icons used in a narrative reaction sequence) to receiving or, in this case, finding a gift, and perhaps place them on an Incredible 5-Point scale:

5- Extremely Negative Reaction (saying something rude about the gift)
4- Mildly Negative Reaction (e.g. “I already have one of these,” making “a face”)
3- Neutral Reaction (saying nothing)
2- Positive Reaction (smiling, saying “Thanks! I can use this to...)
1- Enthusiastic Reaction (“WOW!”)

For other holiday fun, check out the iPad/iPhone/iPod app ClickySticky Christmas Sticker Book ($1.99), which allows you to create all sorts of picture scenes with students, including the following:

a decorated living room (think SGM® or Braidy® Setting map...)
outdoor winter activity scenes with simple animations (SGM® or Braidy® Action Sequence map, anyone?)
a customized snowman, Santa, or elves (what Characters to describe using SGM® or Braidy® Character Maps!)

Tap and Drag to assemble characters, then tap the Play button for subtle animations that will prompt action words...

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.