Join the MindWing Community
Enter your email and receive newsletter updates, specials, coupons.
- Home
- About Us ▾
- Methodology / Research ▾
- Focus Areas ▾
- Shop by Category ▾
- Workshops / Professional Development ▾
- Learning Resources ▾
- BLOG ▾
Enter your email and receive newsletter updates, specials, coupons.
All MindWing products incorporate Story Grammar Marker®’s patented icons to give children a visual, kinesthetic tool for help with “WH” Story Grammar questions and common graphic organizers. The SGM® delves into the “why” question: motivations, feelings, plans—all necessary for the development of critical thinking skills. The colorful, hands-on tools enable children to externalize the macrostructure of the story so they can concentrate on literate language features (microstructure).
The reason that MindWing’s methodology is so unique and child-friendly is the visual, kinesthetic, tactile tools, comprised of a series of patented icons that are colorful and meaningful. MindWing’s tools are three-dimensional, non-linguistic representations of narrative and expository structures. Children can see, touch and move these icons to cue them for the “Wh” questions about stories and help them to recognize text structures in content area selections.
MindWing Concepts provides highly interactive professional development workshops and multi-sensory materials for public school districts, private schools, early childhood settings and parents.
Our goal is to give every child—regardless of age, ability or culture—the skills to think, communicate & learn effectively in order to achieve academic and social success.
Video is 55 minutes long, but well worth viewing, with lots of tips for teaching. Along with Cindy Milner of Pathways for Parents, Maryellen Moreau explains the Story Grammar Marker icons using Braidy the StoryBraid. Clicking on the video will open another browser window to watch on YouTube.
$ 9.95
Braidy the StoryBraid® empowers children with the ability to tell their stories! And, the Super Braidy® Superhero Cape provides a motivating way to develop your students’ (child’s) storytelling superpowers!
Communicative competence and confidence is essential for social-emotional learning, language processing, academic conversations, writing, argument, problem-solving, critical thinking and SO much more in school and in life.
This Super Braidy® Cape is a creative, engaging and exciting way to encourage and reward the use of Braidy® in therapy and in the classroom. This bright red and deep violet satin cape, fastened at the neck with Velcro, sports the “Super Braidy” crest across the back.
Included are 9 Lessons, a downloadable Super Braidy® Storytelling Certificate, downloadable Story Starter Cards and the lyrics to the vibrant, catchy The Braidy® Song that is available on CDBaby, GooglePlay, iTunes, or wherever you get your digital music. Empower your students with Super Braidy® Cape!
$ 11.95
The SGM® Thinking Bubble Supplement highlights the six most common mental state (thinking) verbs: know, think, remember, realize, believe and understand.
The “Bubble” is designed as a bookmark/magnet that can be affixed to the hypotenuse of the Critical Thinking Triangle® on the Teacher Story Grammar Marker® Manipulative and provide the visual, kinesthetic representation of “thinking verbs.”
With the “Bubble” attached, the Teacher SGM® tool will have the physical representation of the Mental States/Thinking Verbs that have been present on our printed manuals and materials for many years.
The product includes the SGM® Thinking Bubble Supplement which contains explanations of the 6 most commonly used Mental State (Thinking) verbs,
The supplement also explains applications to areas such as social-emotional learning, trauma-informed strategies, academic conversations, social interaction, state standard demands, Theory of Mind, sentence building and complex language processing.
Clip your SGM® Thinking Bubble to your Teacher Story Grammar Marker® today to complete your Critical Thinking Triangle®!
$ 29.95
This set includes Narrative and Expository Mini Magnets AND Stickers: (1) SGM® Mini Magnets, (25) SGM® Icons Stickers, (1) ThemeMaker® Magnetic Snaps!, (25) ThemeMaker® Sticker Snaps!
This new set includes 3 NEW items. You get the 4th item for FREE ($38 sold separately). These mini magnets and low tack, reusable stickers are for use in therapy, small group, individual work, paired work and in classroom settings.
Item No. 03 027
$ 89.95
Get started by focusing on Oral Language Development for young children in early childhood settings (PreK- 1st grade), using Braidy the StoryBraid®, an engaging way to help young children tell their own story and re-tell stories. The Braidy® Manual shares how to implement Braidy® using children’s literature, activities, drawing, maps for narrative development, transitions, conflict resolution, conversations, personal narratives and problem-solving.
Our Friend Braidy Interactive Poster is a motivating hands-on tool that appeals to early childhood education students. The iconic structure of Braidy scaffolds narrative and oral storytelling following the developmental sequence of language acquisition. Targeted lessons foster meaningful conversation skills, problem-solving, and comprehension for your youngest students! A must-have for early childhood educators!
Item No. 01 000-QStart
$ 44.95
Set includes a 2-sided 11x17 Discourse and Thought Development Chart with DoK/Bloom’s 2-sided Taxonomy Wheel
Guide Book is Also Available By Itself Item No. 07 020
This Guide gets in-depth how to analyze text complexity using the Model of Text Complexity Triangle; Quantitative Measures, Qualitative Analysis and Reader and Task Considerations. Close Reading, SGM®/ThemeMaker®-style is also explained for helping students access complex text. Since their inception in the early ’90s, Story Grammar Marker® and ThemeMaker® have been used to tackle the case of complex text, as is evident in the included Discourse and Thought Development Chart that delves into content complexity for both narrative and expository text, as well.
Item No. 07 200
$ 9.95
Set of 25. The SGM® icon stickers have many uses. Each sticker strip has 13 stickers. Each individual sticker image corresponds to an icon of the Story Grammar Marker®. Each icon represents a part of a narrative episode: character, setting, initiating event, feeling, plan, mental state, planned attempts (actions), direct consequence, and resolution.
Popular uses for these stickers are in individual and paired editing and revision of student writing/drawing and also putting the stickers on pages of children’s literature to identify the page that depicts that particular part of the story. The stickers are low-tack making them able to be used multiple times. They can also be used to…
Item No. 03 022
$ 8.95
Each of the 8 ThemeMaker® Magnetic Snaps is a small magnet (ranging from 2"x3"–3"x3") depicting each of the expository text structures found in the ThemeMaker®. Each individual magnet image is a “snapshot” of the 8 ThemeMaker® expository text structures:
They can be used in therapy, classroom centers, push-in, small groups, and for individual students to assist them in accessing expository text, such as in textbooks, non-fiction books, websites, research.
Here is an example of their use with Alaska’s Three Bears.
Item No. 06 026
$ 78.95
Jump right into using the icons of the Story Grammar Marker® to tackle expository (information) text. The ThemeMaker® Manual explore the 7 expository text structures of description, list, sequence, cause/effect, problem/solution, compare/contrast and persuasion/argument. The ThemeMaker® Student Tool contains the SGM® Complete Episode, the Critical Thinking Triangle®, the 7 Expository Text Structures and Inferencing. To make text structures and their contents visible to learners, use our NEW SGM® Mini Magnet Set.
$ 179.95
"Learning is social and emotional. Decades of research in human development, cognitive and behavioral neuroscience, and educational practice and policy have illuminated that major domains of human development—social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic, academic—are deeply intertwined in the brain and in behavior. Moreover, all are central to learning and success." (www.aspeninstitute.org/, 2018) The Story Grammar Marker® is a cognitive-linguistic-social-emotional-academic approach with the goal of giving children the ability to be successful in school and in life.
Narrative Development provides the structure needed for children to “tell their story,” self-regulate emotions, and achieve goals - paving the way for problem solving and conflict resolution - all aspects of social emotional development. “Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.” (casel.org)
Narrative Language Competence using the SGM® Approach fosters:
The materials included in this set assist teachers SLPs and specialists with help children with the Social Emotional Learning processes. It’s All About the Story and use of the Teacher Story Grammar Marker® Manipulative focuses on the components of the narrative episode. Making Connections, the SGM® Thinking Bubble and the Critical Thinking Triangle in Action Set fleshes out the elements of the Critical Thinking Triangle (kick off, feelings, mental states, plans) necessary for perspective taking, empathy building, and problem solving. Facilitating Relationships focuses on building central coherence, social problem solving, conversation initiation and repair, and social cognition. The SGM® Stickers can be used to make bookmarks for each student or for student journal entries, depending on age and ability.
The components of a narrative episode enable children to:
***$196.70 if each item is purchased individually.
$ 139.95
Academic Conversations include a set of conversational concepts that can be modeled and practiced to help all students engage in extended meaningful conversation about narrative or informational texts. (Zweirs, 2011) The skills include the following:
($155.85 value)
Academic conversations are important oral language uses to develop the deep comprehension task of interpretation of the content of a story. This “group interpretation” and discussion results in content needed for ultimately writing about the character’s challenge/trouble or problem, and then, how the character ultimately deals with it and moves on in life.
This is a multifaceted language processing task which requires students to respond in an expository way: state a claim, elaborate, clarify, support own and add to others’ ideas, challenge perspectives, paraphrase (“I think you mean….”) and summarize.
Deepening Discourse and Thought is road map for using Story Grammar Marker® with a selection of quality children’s literature for in-depth analysis which is necessary for building the narrative and expository language competency necessary for academic conversations.
$ 164.95
Different from the SGM® Quick Start (our starter set) or the full Story Grammar Marker® Kit (geared for classroom use, grades 2-5), this Story Grammar Marker® KICK Start contains 7 vital SGM® materials that an SLP or specialist would need to “kick start” implementation of this approach across elementary grade levels and ability levels.
The Story Grammar Marker® Teacher manipulative is a hands on, multi-sensory tool for developing narrative language competence. It has colorful, meaningful, patented icons that represent the macro-structure of a story episode. Stories are the human mode of thought (Bruner) and provide a context for thinking about problems and making plans, and for sharing our thoughts, feelings, ideas, dreams, hopes, memories and beliefs in both academic and social situations. The SGM® addresses expressive and receptive language, reading comprehension, writing, pragmatics, perspective-taking, critical and creative thinking, social communication, executive functions, and self-regulation of emotions. It can be used in all tiers of intervention and instruction (MTSS).
The SGM® Manual contains the “how to”, the research base, the methodology, developmental stages of narratives, student maps, children’s literature analyses, ELL/cultural aspects, and suggested book lists. Stories for Teaching and Modeling Narrative Text Structure provides 5 stories analyzed up to the Complete Episode of narrative development for getting started with using the SGM® Approach and for quick assessment. The SGM® Stickers can be used in comprehension, writing/editing, for bookmarks and more! The Critical Thinking Triangle in Action Set and the SGM® Thinking Bubble are visual, kinesthetic tools with activities for deep thinking about the elements of kick-offs, feelings, plans, and mental states. The Cohesive Tie JAR-gon contains a creative, engaging group activity for learning how to use conjunctions to glue the elements of a story together. Each basic conjunction also contains a more complex synonym (ex. BUT and HOWEVER).
***$181.75 if each item is purchased separately
$ 109.40
The Talk to Write, Write to Learn™ Kit is designed to improve listening, reading/comprehension, and expository text comprehension and writing for students in grades two through six.
Item No. 02 005-QStart
Download the Complete Product Catalog
MindWing Concepts, Inc. is the owner of U.S. Patent 5,658,150 and Pending Application Number 29/284061. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
MindWing Concepts Icons are Protected Under "Portfolio of MindWing Images" U.S. Copyright Office Registration Number VAu 1-300-209
See Also “Maryellen’s Musings” Blog
Valentine’s Day is a great day to celebrate kindness and friendship with our students. We have provided many Valentine’s Day themed Story Grammar Marker® lessons over the years. This past fall, we shared a lesson created by a colleague in Baltimore using the “There Was An Old Lady…” collection. The Valentine’s selection of this collection is There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Rose. Download the lesson plan here: Character, Settings and Sequencing with Braidy®: Themed Lessons Using “There was an Old Lady…” Series.Another lesson is based on the “Llama Llama” series with the selection, Llama Llama, Be My Valentine. Here is the link to that lesson: Valentine’s Day Activities With Llama Llama and Gilroy Goat...
The practice of providing model narratives in order to scaffold personal narratives from students is one that is supported in our literature. Pamela Hadley (1998) describes conversational mapping, or “give a story to get a story,” as critical in language sampling, and these principles can be extended to intervention activities. Westby and Culatta (2016) suggest similar procedures: “Clinicians can model the telling of event narratives and ask children to relate their own experience about a similar event. One clinician told of a time when she did not close the door on her hamster's cage, and the hamster escaped and was never found. The telling of that experience elicited a child's story about a time when he had pet crickets in a cricket cage and the family cat got into the cage and ate the crickets.” We should remember that not every model needs to be a complete episode, though I realized after a recent trip to Utah’s National Parks that I had one ready-to-go. Additionally, this model also demonstrates the synchrony between Story Grammar Marker® and Zones of Regulation®.
Enter your email and receive newsletter updates, specials, coupons.
© 2020 MindWing Concepts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
