MindWing Concepts Blog

When working with students on comprehending expository text, we can often capitalize on their interests for motivation. However, expository sources lack the draw of narrative, so it can be helpful to use technology to add engagement. In this post we’ll update you on five places you can find free expository text material for mapping with ThemeMaker^® maps for List, Sequence, Description, Compare-Contrast, Problem-Solution or other associated graphic organizers...

I can vividly remember trying to get my two young children up and ready for the day, gathering all needed belongings, buckling each into their car seat, driving to our daycare provider, and then rushing off to spend a day teaching kindergarten! Those were the days! Luckily for me, Michael and Mary were so cooperative and loved to go to their sitter. It was (some days!) actually fun! As spring got closer, we would play a game on the way to and from home looking for signs of spring. We had a song… Spring is coming, Spring is coming, How do you think I know? I saw a (the sign of spring said here, a pussy willow, a forsythia bush, a little robin, a daffodil, etc.) I know it must be so.

No need to break out the popcorn, we’re not talking about the argumentative kind of argument! I have been working with a high school student over the course of the past year who has particular difficulties in comprehension and discourse formulation. His school has quite a challenging program, and each session brings to the table a contextual assignment in which organizational strategies can be identified for him to apply. Fortunately, he is very engaged in the process and can always identify a task for which he needs help. This past week, he was working on constructing an outline for a debate argument, and I immediately thought of the Persuade organizer from MindWing’s Thememaker^® tool for understanding and organizing expository language...

On a recent visit to Springfield’s Sixteen Acres Library, I was pleased to see a large display of books related to St. Patrick’s Day. One that caught my eye is The Leprechaun’s Gold written by Pamela Duncan Edwards and illustrated by Henry Cole. After reading The Leprechaun’s Gold, I immediately thought that this would make a great lesson to focus on how a change in the Setting signified a new episode, and how all three of the settings and episodes in this picture book overlap, as so often happens in chapter books. There are so many other aspects to this book also, such as character interactions and comparisons, and developing skills in identifying character traits. The book also lends itself to a quick project using a shamrock cut-out...

As you know, March 2nd is the birthday of Dr. Seuss. He was born right around the corner from our MIndWing office here in Springfield, MA. Yesterday, I visited the Springfield Library to get a copy of The Cat and The Hat so I could share a lesson suggestion related to feelings. Along with that book, I found a copy of Horton and the Kwuggerbugs and Other Lost Stories. These stories were originally published in Redbook magazine between 1950-1955. Charles Cohen, a collector of all things Seuss, put together four of these selections in this book. Following The Cat and The Hat activity is an SGM analysis of one of those stories: “Marco Comes Late”...

Illustration by Ariel Davis for NPR

I’m a big NPR person. It’s a great resource for listening, and for narrative! This past month I was intrigued by a feature on “EMOTIONAL GRANULARITY”—being able to name or describe your emotions more specifically. The author described an increase in stress in his life being alleviated by his working on “learning more emotion words and emotion concepts from one’s culture.” There was research to support his assertion that this self-identification was of help; according to Kashdan, Barrett, and McKnight (2015), “evidence suggests that interventions designed to improve emotion differentiation can both reduce psychological problems and increase various strands of well-being.” We can reframe this information in the light of what we might usually address as speech-language pathologists and literacy interventionists...