MindWing Concepts Blog
Adobe Voice gives “Voice” to Narrative or Expository Language
It’s Technology Tuesday, and this month we will cover a simple, free tool to practice combining visuals and oral narration to produce an engaging video! A main goal of using MindWing’s Story Grammar Marker® and ThemeMaker® tools is to provide structure for oral discourse. Narrative or expository maps provide a “plan” for the elements of discourse, along with key words to help students connect their thoughts when formulating a story or explanation. In this way, a culminating activity of using any language map can involve asking students to “connect the dots” in formulating a complete story or using expository language. Adobe Voice, a free, easy-to-use app, provides a fast and motivating way to do this!...
Expository “My Research” Cut–and-Fold Booklet
The “Core” of The Core manual contains many hands-on materials for student use. One of my favorites is the Expository “My Research” Cut–and-Fold Booklet. I have used this in many settings and grade levels, including centers and with intervention groups. Instructions are included in the manual.
Sea Turtles by Gail Gibbons is one book that works very well with this activity since it includes all expository text structures. As an added resource, Maryellen recently did a section of a webinar on the topic of sea turtles that you might be interested in viewing. (Click here to view Sea Turtles expository analysis excerpt.)...
Fall Travels and Topics
This week I want to mention our upcoming professional development trips to San Antonio to Billings to New York City to Denver! The stops on our itinerary show the varied text structures, academic language and social communication applications of our language learning tools.
I am speaking at the Dr. Elizabeth Carrow-Woolfolk Lecture Series on Saturday, October 10, at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. It is an honor to be invited to speak at this event since I have long admired Dr. Carrow-Woolfolk’s contributions as a pioneer in the study of language and reading disabilities. My presentation will center on narrative and expository discourse language development using Story Grammar Marker® and ThemeMaker® ...
Writing: Expository/Informational Descriptive Map to Paragraphs
Today, we will look at some writing samples using the topic of Koalas and ideas to scaffold the process from using the Character Descriptive Map to paragraphs. As stated previously, any book/resource that you use may be adapted to these activities.
We used several resources including:
We followed the same procedure as in the Armadillo and Cheetah lessons: reading short segments, making a list of facts, and placing each fact in the correct category (physical appearance, habitat, food and eating, young, special characteristics)...
Oral Language: A “Hot Topic” In Literacy Education
Today I am finishing up details for an ongoing consultation that I have with a school system here in Massachusetts pertaining to Language Learning Disabilities. 
I am, as you know, an ASHA certified Speech/Language Pathologist. Most of my professional life—over forty years—has been spent researching and working with children who have reading disabilities (from the code to comprehension) and how the children and their reading are impacted by oral language deficits/differences. Consequently, in addition to ASHA, I belong to several other associations and look forward to the arrival of their journal publications. One of these associations is the International Literacy Association, formerly known as the International Reading Association. The IRA publishes The Reading Teacher and The Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literacy.
As an SLP with a great interest in reading and writing, I enjoy the points of view of authors within these publications and use the articles to provide discussion among the educators with whom I work.
This issue of the IRA’s publication Literacy Today (Volume 33, Issue 2...
Teaching SGM® Components — continued 2
Back by popular demand: Use this new story to review the SGM components in a group or to sharpen student awareness of narrative structure.
- Read the story below to the child. (download printed version).
- Review the SGM® components on the SGM® Teacher Marker.
- Have the students draw or stamp the icons above the correct SGM® component. Note that the story is a complete episode, the first paragraph having the character, setting, initiating event, feeling and plan stated; the second paragraph containing all the planned attempts to carry out the plan; and the last paragraph having the direct consequence (tie-up) and resolution (feeling about how the story ended). We have found it helpful to go paragraph by paragraph. (See completed version)
- Using the Teacher Marker, model retelling the story to the children.
- After the activity is completed, have the student(s) work with a partner, Turn and Talk, and use his/her SGM® Student Marker to retell the story.