Narrative

April is Autism Awareness Month, and here on the blog we wanted to showcase a connection between Mindwing’s tools and interventions that target social learning for children with autism!

Over the past year since its release, I have found The Incredible Flexible You™ Curriculum Set (Volume 1) by Ryan Hendrix, Kari Zweber Palmer, Nancy Tarshis and Michelle Garcia Winner and published via Social Thinking® to be an invaluable teaching tool! Targeted to early learners—preschool through 2nd grade, but adaptable to older students requiring basic social learning lessons—the curriculum set aims to develop key social cognitive concepts through stories and play. The five storybooks that come with Volume 1 set the context for many lessons and play activities as the main characters, Evan, Ellie, Jessie and Molly, learn and demonstrate the core concepts in the set...

Maryellen Rooney Moreau is presenting again at the Social Thinking Providers’ Conference in South San Francisco on June 20! Having presented with Michelle Garcia Winner in her four initial Traveling Providers Conferences (Boston, Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, 2013), we have been receiving much interest in our professional development opportunities and our many tools for narrative development and social communication. Narratives can be used to facilitate the building the gestalt or the “big picture.” Narrative ability is much more than a simple story retell. In fact, it is a window into oral language development, listening and reading comprehension, written expression and social communication through the communication of feelings and thoughts. Narrative development and its stages are present in language and cognitive research dating back to the late 1970s. Using our tools assists in informing instruction and designing intervention for students in general education, special education and students who are learning English as a second language...

StoryBird is very helpful for using technology to develop story telling and story writing skills. However, while providing artwork and a very simple platform for adding text, it does not provide the narrative structure necessary for writing the actual text of the story. Using Story Grammar Marker, students can have the structure to know what parts go into the story. The Common Core State Standards call for the blending of narrative and expository text in lessons as well as integrating technology and multimedia. The following lesson demonstrates it...

October 31 is Halloween. According to history.com, “every October, carved pumpkins peer out from porches and doorsteps in the United States and other parts of the world. Gourd-like orange fruits inscribed with ghoulish faces and illuminated by candles are a sure sign of the Halloween season. The practice of decorating “jack-o’-lanterns”—the name comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack—originated in Ireland, where large turnips and potatoes served as an early canvas. Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, home of the pumpkin, and it became an integral part of Halloween festivities.”...

‘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)...

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...