Free Webinar! Narrative Development Beyond Story Grammar September 13, 2011

Join us for this live event on Tuesday, September 13, at 4:00 PM (EST)!

Register now for our FREE webinar, “Narrative Development: Beyond Story Grammar,” presented by Maryellen Rooney Moreau, MEd, CCC-SLP, of MindWing Concepts, Inc.

Abstract: When we think about “narratives,” we often only think about naming the parts of the story, sequencing actions and whether that story has a beginning, middle and end. Narrative development goes beyond the basic story. Instruction and intervention in narrative development can improve your students’ skills in oral and written communication. Narrative development can help students with perspective-taking, problem solving, answering “why” questions, and comprehending and communicating the emotions, motivations and plans of characters in stories and in life’s social interactions. It provides a way to teach the often elusive concepts of main idea, plot, cohesion, temporal and causal connections, and summarization. This type of instruction and intervention can help speech-language pathologists give every child - regardless of age, ability or culture - the skills to think, communicate and learn effectively in order to achieve academic and social success.

The following quote was in an article in the most recent publication of The ASHA Leader. It truly exemplifies and supports the methodology that Maryellen will be speaking about in Tuesday’s Webinar: “Oral narratives are a natural bridge between oral and literate language. Narrative skills and the language skills needed to produce quality narratives are interspersed throughout the Common Core Standards. One effective RTI approach for SLPs is to provide intervention focusing on narratives. The SLP provides Tier 1 supports in the classroom through modeled lessons with the whole class. In Tier 2/3, the SLP provides small group intensive intervention that simultaneously targets the story grammar and deficient language skills. Using oral narratives in an intervention model builds a foundation for the development of listening, speaking reading and writing.” – How to Fit Response to Intervention into a Heavy Workload, The ASHA LEADER, August 30, 2011 Vol. 16, No. 10.

About the Presenter: Maryellen Rooney Moreau, MEd, CCC-SLP, founder and president of MindWing Concepts, Inc., in Springfield, MA, is a speech-language pathologist and a nationally recognized presenter in the area of oral language development - specifically story grammar, narrative development and expository text. She received her bachelor's degree in Communication Disorders from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and her master's of education degree in Communication Disorders from Pennsylvania State University. Maryellen's 40-year professional career includes time spent as a school-based speech-language pathologist in the Hartford Public Schools; assistant professor at American International College; diagnostician at the Curtis Blake Child Development Center; and coordinator of Intervention Curriculum and Professional Development at the Curtis Blake Day School for children with language learning disabilities, all in Springfield, MA. She created the Story Grammar Marker® and Braidy the StoryBraid® after years of research and practice, and was awarded two United States Patents. Her methodology, which encompasses narrative development and expository text, helps children across the globe to think, communicate and learn!