MindWing Concepts Blog

This time of the school year always reminds me of the many field trips I chaperoned while teaching kindergarten. The Zoo in Forest Park, Springfield, MA, was always a favorite, with a train ride around the park as our closing activity. We were fortunate to also have a beautiful park close by to our school, Stanley Park in Westfield, MA; a popular mini-trip within walking distance. The activity I am sharing today is one of 70 mini-lessons presented in the Braidy the StoryBraid^® manual that we used when preparing for a farm trip to The Gran-Val Scoop in Granville, MA. As the name implies, the children were able to have a special treat of dairy-farm-made ice cream! Also included is a follow-up activity that we did on our return and a suggested extension activity...

This next written retell of Too Many Tamales is by Ray, a student in Grade 5. We’ve included a typed version of his writing, an analysis and a conference suggestion for use during the Writing Process. The descriptive details in Emma’s writing (see May 13 blog) and the use of story grammar components indicating advancing structure and content are evident—but to a lesser degree—in Ray’s sample.

Recent blogs showed Maryellen’s analysis of a third-grade written retelling of Too Many Tamales. Included in those blogs is a copy of the actual sample, a typed version of the sample, an analysis, and conferencing suggestions to use during the Writing Process. In this new blog, we look at another sample of a written retelling of Too Many Tamales; this time from a fifth-grade student, Ray. We invite you to analyze his writing and at the end of this week, Maryellen will provide her analysis and talking points for conferencing.

Over the weekend I noticed comments on the official SGM^® Facebook page about the relationship between the SGM^® and the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA). Thanks to Sarah and Ellen for your input. — Maryellen

In general, The Story Grammar Marker^®, now 25 years old, has its evidence in the research on narrative development in the disciplines of psychology, language and reading comprehension and is the foundation of discourse level oral language. Discourse is conversation, narration and information. Narrative discourse, or story-telling, begins long before the child enters school or is beginning to read. It has its roots in oral language development...

In today’s classrooms, students are being asked to comprehend more complex materials in earlier grades with a particular emphasis on expository texts. The blending of both narrative and expository texts in many reading selections make understanding these structures a cornerstone for student comprehension success. The iconic structure of the SGM^® provides a concrete visual and tactile scaffold to teach these structures to children. The expository text structures “tie in” to the narrative sequence. The “Core” of the Core manual explains this connection in detail showing how each narrative stage facilitates thinking about information (expository) structures.

Using chapter books, which provide richer and yet more difficult narratives older students must tackle, has been a focus of the MindWing Blog this school year. In several of my posts, I have discussed tech-related avenues to getting the context of chapter books your students may be reading in class (to serve as topics for narrative intervention activities with SGM^®), as well as apps that can visually represent the Critical Thinking Triangle^®, a great support to review the narrative gist of chapters within a book. In this post, we are going to take a look at a great chapter book to use along with SGM^®, The SOS File by Betsy Byars, Betsy Duffy, and Laurie Myers, along with a strategy that aligns with narrative intervention, Stickwriting, or representing narrative elements through quick sketches...