MindWing Concepts Blog

Being told what to do is often no fun. But for many of us targeting language development objectives, we have to deal with our students’ potentially low scores on assessments such as the CELF-5s Following Directions subtest. Key to success on activities such as these are student’s listening skills and understanding of concepts related to time, space, number, and sequence, among others. The good news is that these concepts are everywhere and can be targeted through stories and play! One way I have been approaching this is through the Toca Life: World app, previously discussed here. The app is available for multiple platforms as you can see, and you can either purchase individual “Settings” (e.g. Toca Life: Vacation, which I like to refer to with colleagues as The White Lotus), or connect purchased apps through the World app. The World app also has mini-settings you can purchase for short money, for example, a ski resort. I have been using the book Where’s Walrus? by Stephen Savage with students recently (video here) (recall: using picture books on YouTube can work wonderfully with heavy use of the pause button)...

Picture books are one of our best and most engaging narrative teaching tools, and I love especially when I find a series to share with my students—and you! Series books allow for special opportunities to establish flow (both contextual and psychological) with similar character behaviors, narrative patterns, and themes. I have long been an admirer of author/illustrator Jon Klassen due to the power of his minimalist illustrations, which are beautiful but also witty, and establish character emotion primarily through exaggerated eye expressions. Recently I discovered he had illustrated a trilogy with Mac Burnett now called the Shape Trilogy, consisting of (in this order, which actually is important), Triangle, Square, and Circle. In these books, we can follow the antics of several shape characters as they interact with friends.

Story Grammar Marker^® provides visual support for understanding and forming narrative, but part of its work depends on students ascribing meaning to its icons. Helping students internalize these visuals, their connections and meanings can take some review, and the more fun, the better! Here are a few tech-infused ways to drill-play the SGM® icons! Use a Slideshow! Google Slides can be a great way to make a digital “manipulative” for review. Pick a personal narrative or reviewed story to talk through, then use the Slideshow mode as a “quiz” on the icons alone or linked to contextualized story elements (e.g. “Kick-Off- the Bear’s kick-off was that someone stole his hat!”)...

It’s hard to believe that this is the last entry in our 2022 Summer Study Series as we are entering the final act of the summer. For that matter, consider all we do to regulate ourselves around these transitions (Lifehacker article): being able to label how it makes us feel, and applying thinking tools and activities to help ourselves adjust. Like all humans, we have varying degrees of success in navigating these emotional waters, which is the subject of this month’s post. The article “A Multimodal Comparison of Emotion Categorization Abilities in Children With Developmental Language Disorder” (Bahn, Vesker, Schwarzer & Kauschke, 2021)...

In this penultimate entry in the 2022 Summer Study Series, we’ll explore how the use of tools such as Story Grammar Marker® can gibe with models of instruction and learning. Baron and Yarbel’s (2022, brand new!) An Implicit–Explicit Framework for Intervention Methods in Developmental Language Disorder is a tutorial describing theories of learning related to language disorder and associated modes of intervention. This article explores a neurologically based understanding of how we might learn explicitly: consciously trying to memorize information, facts, or apply skills, vs. implicitly: picking something up naturalistically and without really trying. These ways of learning can inform how we use tools such as SGM^® particularly with young children with language disorders...

As someone who loves themes and context, I was thrilled to find a particular study on assessment and intervention with FABLES to include as this entry in the 2022 Summer Study Series! This resource made me think back to last year’s discussion of using moral dilemmas in narrative language and social cognitive therapy activities. This post includes the advantage of having many adaptable materials to offer you! Specifically, we are talking about Philosophy for Adolescents: Using Fables to Support Critical Thinking and Advanced Language Skills (Nippold and Marr, 2022),  an extensive article describing the authors’ work in assessing and intervening in language and critical thinking skills through fables...