MindWing Concepts Blog

The arrival of the iPad has presented us with all kinds of opportunities to boost the engagement factor for our students. In many cases, students will be more engaged in what we would consider “paper and pencil” tasks when we “app-itize” them utilizing some of the tools available as free or cheap apps. For example, in recent posts on my blog SpeechTechie, I discussed how the iBooks app could be used to excite students about printed materials and also present PDF files that are often provided with published intervention materials (you don’t need to read those posts to understand this one, but they provide some related information)...

The aligning of the Common Core State Standards with MindWing’s methodology can provide effective, evidence-based interventions to help students who are “at-risk” and those with identified disabilities to develop the communicative competence necessary to meet grade level standards and be prepared for college and/or career. In light of this goal, we have a new book which we have written to:

• Demonstrate the proven 20-year track record of Story Grammar Marker® and how it applies to the Common Core State Standards and meets today’s curricular demands
• Encourage collaboration among professionals and parents to support all students in reaching grade-level CCSS including those who are considered at-risk, those for whom English is a second language, those with Autism and those with other identified disabilities
• Provide concrete lessons and activities aligned to specific CCSS (in reading, writing, speaking & listening) to be used as interventions in therapy, at Centers and/or for whole class instruction

In light of our upcoming July 17th workshop in Natick, MA called The “Core” of the Core: Using Story Grammar Marker^® to Support Learning Challenged & “At Risk” Students in Meeting Grade-Level Common Core State Standards, we wanted to share with you a response sent to Maryellen by a colleague who is a Reading/Language Arts Specialist K-8 in a school district in Connecticut. She explains why she thinks that MindWing’s materials and methodology are the only ones that are truly “CCSS-aligned!” This message shows the concrete and practical way that our methodology supports the CCSS, which is actually the basis for the workshop on July 17th in Natick...

On the heels of Autism Awareness Month, I wanted to highlight a product that provides a terrific complement to use of the Story Grammar Marker® for treatment of social learning and narrative deficits for students with autism spectrum and related disorders. You Are a Social Detective is a CD-ROM product (compatible with Mac and Windows systems) created by Michelle Garcia Winner of Social Thinking® in conjunction with the folks at Social Skill Builders. The program is based on the popular comic of the same name, which provides a visual primer on basic social thinking concepts such as expected and unexpected behaviors and their effects on others, “thinking with the eyes,” and making “smart vs. wacky” guesses. Many children on the autism spectrum require explicit and consistent teaching of these concepts and coaching in their application across the school day...

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a recent trend in educational design, and involves presenting students with real-world contextual tasks that relate to curriculum areas. PBL is a great approach for Speech-Language Pathologists and Special Educators to employ as our students benefit from having their learning relate to personally relevant and functional content. To learn more about PBL, watch this great video from Common Craft. One tool that has been integrated as a kind of PBL is the “Webquest,” a set of web pages that outline a task and provide web-based resources for its completion. Webquests are not new, and teachers have been developing them for some time. There is a particular Webquest that I wanted to share with you in this post, particularly because it is one you could use in classroom, small group, or even individual language therapy while integrating Story Grammar Marker® and Thememaker® tools in the process...