MindWing Concepts joins Chapman University in celebrating Story Grammar Marker®!

I was delighted to receive this picture from friend and colleague Dr. Judy Montgomery at the Kick-Off of “SGM^® Week” at Chapman University in Orange, California.

This picture was taken at the 2015 ASHA Convention in Denver and showcases our newest publication (at the time) The Essential SGM^®. Judy has been interested in the SGM^® and narrative development for many years and approached Maryellen three years ago about the need for a manual written especially for college professors of Communication Disorders and Special Education Programs. She volunteered to write the Foreword. Please click here to read it. Several years ago, Judy and I collaborated on the publication of East Meets West, a collection of children’s picture books analyzed for vocabulary, narrative and expository structures found within the narrative. There are two volumes containing “ready to use” lessons to model and explicitly teach the components of narrative thinking, using the Story Grammar Marker^® as a tool, for academic and social communication purposes.

The title “East Meets West” was chosen because the selection of titles came from Massachusetts (Maryellen’s home in the East) and California (Judy’s home in the West). It is interesting to note that East Meets West was first talked about when Judy and Maryellen were invited by Dr. Michaela Ritter to present on “vocabulary development” and “narrative development,” respectively, at Dr. Ritter’s Summer Seminars at Baylor University in Texas. To this day, Mikie is a proponent of narrative development and intervention as a tool for university students, as well as a focus of her summer school for children at Baylor.

One more tie-in: Judy Montgomery and her colleague Dr. Barbara Moore hosted a Narrative Summit at El Rancho Unified School District Department of Special & Alternative Education in California. The focus was narrative assessment and intervention. Their presenters were Dr. Ron Gillam and Dr. Elizabeth Pena, in the area of narrative assessment, and Maryellen Moreau in the area of intervention and progress monitoring using the Story Grammar Marker^®. All these presenters, and all persons mentioned in this blog, have continued to research and develop assessment and intervention tools for narrative development. Students who are learning English as a second language, those who are language impaired, and those for whom social emotional learning is essential, will benefit from this work. Narrative thought is essential for academic and social emotional growth…hence, The Essential SGM^®.