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.
$ 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
$ 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:
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 for ultimately writing about a character’s challenge/trouble or problem and 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.
The Discourse and Thought Development Chart shows how to deepen knowledge through narrative and expository discourse with use of Bloom’s Taxonomy and/or Webb’s Depth of Knowledge for questioning and discussion. Oral Discourse Strategies breaks down the components of building academic conversations: predicting, clarifying, questioning, summarizing and connecting – for students who need explicit teaching. My Fantastic Words provides a visual thesaurus for vocabulary building and Non-Fiction Comprehension Cliffhangers provides a context for thinking about non-fiction stories that are embedded with expository information. 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.
Includes:
$155.85 if each item is purchased separately
$ 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.” This way the Teacher SGM® tool will have the physical representation of the Mental States that have been present on our printed manuals and materials for many years. It comes with 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®!
$ 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!
$ 99.95
This group of materials includes three of our best-selling and most foundational products. At conferences and conventions, colleagues ask, “What are the basic items I need to get started with Story Grammar Marker®?” This Story Grammar Marker® Quick Start is the answer. Get started TODAY!
Includes:
Learn More About The SGM® Manual
Includes:
Learn More About Stories for Teaching...
The Teacher Story Grammar Marker® is a 24-inch manipulative with removable patented icons. The marker is designed to assist education professionals in the instruction of narrative development to their students.
More About The SGM® Teacher Manipulative
Item No. 03 200
$ 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
$ 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
$ 194.95
Braidy the StoryBraid® Kit is an exciting and creative way to introduce and target instruction on the patented narrative icons of the original Story Grammar Marker®.
Item No. 01 000E
$ 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
$ 44.95
For those “fans” of Story Grammar Marker®, Braidy®, ThemeMaker™ and Talk to Write, Write to Learn™ who may not be interested in the Autism Collection books and activities, you now have the opportunity to incorporate these NEW games and activities into your classroom and therapy.
The Game Set includes:
Product Item No. 04 100
$ 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.
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
This year brought those of the speech-language pathologist ilk to Orlando, which I have come to think of as the land of simulated Character and Setting. Inside the more sedate but still stimulating conference halls, MindWing’s tools were shared by a number of presenters including me! In Developing Expressive Language In Preschoolers: Strategies to Increase Utterance Length and Complexity (Mentis, Howland, Graham), the authors described their integration of Braidy the StoryBraid® into a language and literacy program for preschoolers, providing graduate student clinicians with wonderful experience in targeting language in the context of stories and play. The presenters recommended a number of books used within their program, moving from emphasis on simple to more complex story grammar and microstructure...
Here in Western Massachusetts, we just had a Thanksgiving weekend storm that dropped 2 FEET of snow in our backyards! It reminded us to share with you links to our past blog posts that contain winter-themed lessons and downloads. Also, we included a comprehensive list of favorite winter-themed books. At left is Maryellen and granddaughter Casey (aged 5) with their snowman.
Enter your email and receive newsletter updates, specials, coupons.
© 2019 MindWing Concepts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
