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Maryellen Rooney Moreau, MEd, CCC-SLP, founder and President of MindWing Concepts, Inc. received the 2014 Alice H. Garside Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Dyslexia Association, Massachusetts Branch (MABIDA) for “exemplary leadership, service or achievement in a field that directly or indirectly furthers the mission of MABIDA.” MABIDA’s mission, in part, ´promotes, encourages and supports the preparation and continued education of professionals and other personnel to ameliorate the impact of dyslexia and related disorders and to promote optimal methods of reading instruction for all children.” Maryellen’s work certainly fits this criteria.

Making the world a better place for children. That’s what an Easthampton woman has done through her work in helping children solve problems. Maryellen Rooney Moreau is a speech and language pathologist. She was a professor at American International College and twenty years ago founded MindWing Concepts, a business that creates tools to help children communicate better to solve problems and resolve conflict. Maryellen says, “The tools that I’ve created over the past many years, 20 years, that I’ve been a speech and language pathologist for over 35 years, and the focus has always been to help children who maybe have ideas in their head, but can’t get the ideas out. So to foster that in areas of reading and writing, but especially in the area of social communication.”...

Little Golden Books is celebrating 75 years of bringing affordable books to children. In 1942, these books were sold for 25 cents and proved to be an instant hit with children! Since then, over 2 billion Little Golden Books have reached children all over the world. We’ve included a photo of Sheila Moreau of MindWing Concepts with her father (Maryellen Moreau’s husband, Gerry), Gerry’s mother Rita, age 96 (seated, holding the Little Golden Book Saggy, Baggy Elephant) and three of Maryellen and Gerry’s grandchildren: Declan, Samantha and Casey (holding the Saggy, Baggy Elephant stuffed animal). Gerry, as a child, had the entire collection of Little Golden Books which Rita read to him and his sister, Karen. Then, Gerry read them to Sheila. Now, Sheila is sharing the love of these books with her daughter Casey and her niece and nephew...

We are looking forward to seeing you at ASHA this week!

Please visit us at Booth #1220 for raffles, special offers and to say hello! Also, you can get our new Character Mini-Magnets (below) FREE with the purchase of our new book: The “Core” of the Core.

We would love to see you at our session #1441: “The SLP & Literacy Night: Supporting Common Core State Standards” by Maryellen Rooney Moreau, M.Ed.,  CCC-SLP and Linda Lafontaine, M.A., CCC-SLP, Saturday, November 17, 9:30am-10:30am...

Snowy evenings often inspire poets, musicians and writers. One that I love is Robert Frost’s famous poem entitled Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. I have a beautiful copy of this poem with illustrations by Susan Jeffers. This poem happens to be an exemplar poem listed in Appendix 2 of the Common Core State Standards. The last page of the book has a note written by the illustrator about her mother, an artist, who would take her daughter for walks on snowy evenings: “My mother’s favorite thing to do was simply to walk outside and look. She was a painter and my first painting lessons came from her. They were really lessons in looking. She would ask me: What is the color of the tree shadow? Is it blue? Blue- green” Violet? She was teaching me to paint what I saw, not what I knew. What I knew would never be enough.” Color often is a clue to the author’s, poet’s or illustrator’s theme. Robert Frost’s poem, so beautifully illustrated in this version, reminded me of Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and illustrated by John Schoenherr, due to similarities of the winter night’ setting, the owls and the mention of colors...

People often ask us how to get Story Grammar Marker^® implemented in their school/school district. The following article, re-printed here with permission, describes step by step how, with a supportive administration and engaged teachers and specialists, two Speech Language Pathologists did it! They even reveal the results of pre- and post-tests of narrative scores for retells. Thank you so much to Miranda and Melissa for having us out to train in Kelowna, British Columbia and for sharing your success story with us! — In the summer of 2016, Melissa Perehudoff and I brought in Maryellen Rooney Moreau (creator of the Story Grammar Marker^®) to provide a two-day workshop for Student Support Services-School District #23. We were using the Story Grammar Marker^® with many students for language therapy so we were really excited to see her in person...

Parents, families, schools, communities, and the child with Autism himself/herself all need support and understanding. MindWing’s materials help with aspects of Autism that include social learning problems, social communication disorders and work on expressing personal event narratives, facilitating conversation, building central coherence, Theory of Mind and perspective taking among other areas.

Being “aware” of Autism means that we know that no there are no books, activities and materials that are appropriate for ALL children with Autism. But still, MindWing’s goal is to help as many children as we can, regardless of diagnosis, age, culture, or ability.

COVID19 is certainly the biggest “Kick-Off” that many of us have ever experienced. As teachers, specialists and/or parents, this thrusts you into the position of having to completely change how you teach, or how you deliver services or has put you into the homeschooling role. At MindWing Concepts, we want to do what we can to assist you with these distance learning and homeschooling challenges as well as offer alternative ways to access training and PD. Maryellen will continue to “GO LIVE” on social media daily and we will continue to offer FREE Webinars. And, you asked and we’ve answered: DIGITAL VERSIONS OF OUR TRADEMARKED ICONS...

Happy 25th Anniversary to Story Grammar Marker^®!

In honor of this milestone, we are offering a SPECIAL back-to-school 25% Discount for all online orders through September 9, 2016. SEE BLOG FOR DETAILS.

It has been 25 years since Maryellen Rooney Moreau, M.Ed. CCC-SLP created the Story Grammar Marker^® at her kitchen table and piloted it at the Curtis Blake Day School in Springfield, Massachusetts. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Maryellen was Curriculum Director and co-taught at the Curtis Blake Day School...

Black History Month Lesson 2

A large focus for us this year is to share how to use Story Grammar Marker^® methodology for both Narrative and Expository text selections. As a manner of best practice, Maryellen Moreau, creator of the Story Grammar Marker^® has always paired narrative and expository texts together in her workshops. Camp (2000) introduced a concept called “twin texts” describing a way to pair books together. “Twin texts” are two books, one fiction and one non-fiction that are presented together in a lesson to get children excited about learning and activate prior knowledge. “Teachers can integrate language arts, science, social studies, and other content areas by using children’s literature as a bridge” (Camp, 2000, p. 400). This pairing of twin texts...

Last week, Maryellen Moreau, creator of Story Grammar Marker^®, consulted with two special educators in southern Connecticut about a student with Autism. This particular child’s evaluation recommended Story Grammar Marker^® as an intervention. The school hired Maryellen to work with this child’s teachers as well as larger groups of staff in the school to get everyone on board with the SGM^® methodology. During our first session last week, one special educator looked up at Maryellen and with awe in her voice said, “This is just so amazing. It is so simple…yet so, so deep. I know I will be able to do so much with this – with so many different students. How did you EVER think of this?” The answer to that question is that it happened in the late 1980s while Maryellen, a speech language pathologist, was Curriculum Director at the Curtis Blake Day School in Springfield, MA (a private placement for children with dyslexia and language learning disabilities)...

October 31 is Halloween. According to history.com, “every October, carved pumpkins peer out from porches and doorsteps in the United States and other parts of the world. Gourd-like orange fruits inscribed with ghoulish faces and illuminated by candles are a sure sign of the Halloween season. The practice of decorating “jack-o’-lanterns”—the name comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack—originated in Ireland, where large turnips and potatoes served as an early canvas. Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, home of the pumpkin, and it became an integral part of Halloween festivities.”...

At MindWing Concepts, we are very excited to be celebrating the release of the official Story Grammar Marker app! Our goal in developing this app was to create a digital version of the SGM manipulative in order to take advantage of the iPad’s multifunction capabilities: students can touch the icons, add text, draw or import pictures, and record oral language in the process of story mapping. The app will complement MindWing’s tools for existing users of our methodology and also welcomes those who are just discovering our visual, tactile and kinesthetic approach to narrative language!...

This past week my 5-year-old daughter Casey went to camp. On the first day, I suggested that she wear a T-shirt that depicts something she likes (LOL: Dolls, Unicorns, JoJo Siwa, Mermaids, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.) so that when she is meeting new friends, they can immediately know something she likes and ask her about it. She chose a T-shirt with a picture of “JoJo Siwa,” who is a young, popular performer. By wearing that, new friends will know a little about her as a “character” in a social setting. Upon arriving at camp, within 30 seconds, a Dad and daughter walked in and the Dad said, “You like Jojo Siwa? Avery and her mom saw Jojo Siwa in a concert this summer!”...

We stand in support of racial equality. To be anti-racist, people must be able to listen, use their voices, take perspective, tell their stories, and express their thoughts at home, in school and in life. We are committed to continuing to focus our professional development on supporting children in “telling their story” as well as sharing narrative and expository selections of children’s literature that are written by Black authors and People of Color, that have characters representing multiple cultures, as well as those books that take on themes and topics such as racism, racial justice, and diversity. This is Maryellen Rooney Moreau’s 50th year as a speech/language pathologist specializing in communication and discourse. Her passion is helping children to think...

Today we are winding back the clock to the early 1990s. While cleaning out her basement, Maryellen Rooney Moreau, creator of Story Grammar Marker^®, found some really cool SGM^® “mementos” from the early days of SGM^® when she started this business in her basement. To the right is Maryellen (today) standing next to the first-ever banner that was made for trade shows and conferences that Maryellen attended when she first published Story Grammar Marker^®. It is complete with vinyl lettering and fancy, colorful decals. To Maryellen’s far left is the life-size custom cut-out of Story Grammar Marker^® from last year’s American Speech Language Hearing Association Convention. WOW! There is quite a difference...

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I wanted to know exactly HOW the COVID19 Vaccine worked and WHY you should join our ThemeMaker^® Master Class… Learn how to use ThemeMaker^® for teaching your students informational text by giving them the strategies, modeling, visual supports, and guided, step-by-step practice to handle the cognitive load and deconstruct the information necessary for reading informational texts, answering complex questions, and forming arguments. Read below for an example of this learning process in my life. Imagine one of your students wanting to know this information and navigating this process. Would they have the tools they need to do it?...

Like most of you, many of our holiday traditions this year have been altered or cancelled, but one we can still count on in our house is reading the poem ’Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore. We have at our home some stunning versions of this famous poem in children’s picture book form. ’Twas The Night Before Christmas was first published with the title Account of a Visit From St. Nicholas almost 200 years ago, on December 23, 1823 in New York’s Troy Sentinel. It is this poem that gave rise to the image of Santa Claus we know and love in the United States and Canada; a jolly, round, old man with a white beard and red suit who drives a sleigh through the sky to bring gifts to children around the world on Christmas...

In the past couple of weeks, I have spoken with many friends and colleagues about the topic du jour: What does “back to school” look like for you and for your children? The answers range from full-time, in-class school days to full-time remote learning, to every other day in-person school with other days being remote, to weekly alternating student cohorts, to hybrid models, and more. While we, at MindWing, focus most of the time on the social-emotional, language and literacy aspects of these challenges, today we want to focus on the practical – using the Story Grammar Marker^® Approach and related multi-sensory tools regardless of venue or platform...

I have always Zoomed and Skyped at work and done the occasional FaceTime, but in the past week I have spent A LOT of time on HouseParty, MessengerKids, GoogleHangouts, and Zoom. I have “HousePartied” with my friends on St. Patrick’s Day, and with my girlfriends from college on my BFF’s birthday. Maryellen and I held a Zoom webinar yesterday for 1098 teachers and specialists, and we have Zoomed with our friend and colleague in New Zealand many times. My 6-year-old daughter even got on “MessengerKids” (a Facebook app) yesterday and now video calls me on a whim, along with video chatting with her friends.

Valentine’s Day is a great day to celebrate kindness and friendship with our students. We have provided many Valentine’s Day themed Story Grammar Marker^® lessons over the years. This past fall, we shared a lesson created by a colleague in Baltimore using the “There Was An Old Lady…” collection. The Valentine’s selection of this collection is There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Rose. Download the lesson plan here: Character, Settings and Sequencing with Braidy^®: Themed Lessons Using “There was an Old Lady…” Series.Another lesson is based on the “Llama Llama” series with the selection, Llama Llama, Be My Valentine. Here is the link to that lesson: Valentine’s Day Activities With Llama Llama and Gilroy Goat...

Our talented colleague Danielle Cooper, M.S. CCC-SLP, of Baltimore City Schools gave us permission to share this wonderful lesson using the “There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A…” series. This series of books, written by Lucille Colandro and illustrated by Jared Lee, shows a woman who swallows random items. Each story rhymes. At the end of each story, those objects are used to create a bigger product aligned with a particular theme. Some of the themes available for the books are Fall, Winter, Thanksgiving, Spring, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick's Day, Beach, Back to School, Birthdays, etc. Each book has the same format: introduction of the character with a sequence of events. These stories are useful for mini rhyming lessons and building thematic vocabulary. They are perfect for introducing the Braidy^® Methodology and focusing on Character, Setting, and Sequence of Events (Action Sequence Stage of Narrative Development)...

In this blog post, we share with you a children’s book called Maui Hooks the Islands with a narrative analysis, a legend written in 1700 AD, a Disney Moana song, and lesson ideas that we showed at our workshop participants in Hawai'i. The first couple of weeks of September marked the third time that Maryellen and I have traveled to Hawai’i to provide professional development for Speech-Language Pathologists, pre-K, Kindergarten, and First Grade teachers and special educators in the Hawai'i State Department of Education. Through these experiences, we have grown to love the rich culture, breathtaking landscapes, water and sunsets, and especially, the people of Hawai'i. My 5-year-old daughter Casey has made each trip to Hawai’i with us, and the first time we came, she was enthralled with Disney’s Moana (hoping to meet her in person!). In order to kick off our workshops, we wanted to learn more about the Polynesian culture that this movie depicts...

I saw this meme on Facebook recently and cracked up laughing at the “corny” humor! It just so happened that it was a 95-degree day here and I felt just like that popped stalk of popcorn—SO HOT! I am sure many of you can relate to the weather this summer. I actually Googled to see if that could actually happen—that popcorn would “pop” while still on the “ear.” First, I found a website Popcorn.org and realized there is WAY more to popcorn than I ever realized! Then, while using the Description Map from the ThemeMaker® Manual, I learned so much about popcorn. Popcorn is actually a member of the grass family—a specific kind of maize (corn)...

For Summer School, Tutoring, or Back to School – using music and songs is always a great way to engage students. It can be used to teach narrative structure, critical thinking, perspective-taking, problem-solving, conflict resolution and for improving inference skills and working on social-emotional growth! I wanted to share an example of this using the song “Yesterday” by The Beatles. 

With renewed interest, I read an article about the song “Yesterday” that was written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. The article analyzes the song in many ways, but quotes Paul McCartney as saying that this song “doesn’t resolve into any sense,” and that “you don’t know what happened. She left and he wishes it were yesterday—that much you get—but it doesn’t really resolve.” The song is made up of thoughts and emotions about a breakup. Perfect for analysis with the Critical Thinking Triangle® of the Story Grammar Marker^®!...

“June is bustin’ out all over!” This is a title from a song from the Rogers and Hammerstein Musical, “Carousel.” I played the character of Julie Jordan in this musical back in high school, and this song plays in my mind every June! Also, the month of June has always signified to me—and to most people, probably—the END of school and the BEGINNING of summer. However, for many of us, the start of “summer” means teaching summer school, summer tutoring, doing summer learning programs, conducting language/literacy camps and many other learning activities. Below is a list of blogs/lessons that would be effective and engaging to use with your students in these settings!...

Are you an educator or parent who has used Braidy® the StoryBraid^® or Story Grammar Marker^®? If so, you have likely realized the true depth and breadth of this approach and how much these tools help your children/students, who have various abilities, in so many social and academic areas. You might have tried to share these tools with colleagues or collaborators but their remarks (below) that are meant to downplay the depth of these meaningful tools and convince you that it is not necessary to collaborate with you...

“That’s cute.” You are right! It IS cute, which is one reason it is engaging for children. But in addition to being cute, do you know that the Story Grammar Marker^® is rooted in discourse language development research and it is designed to make this evidence-based methodology accessible to educators and children by having meaningful colorful icons, an appealing texture and being hands-on?...

Yesterday, we had a great question on our Official Story Grammar Marker Professional Learning Community. This is a closed group on Facebook and it is virtual community of professionals who love SGM^®! Members have the opportunity to share ideas, post photos, ask questions, tell success stories, get help with challenges and basically post anything that might inspire colleagues regarding the use of Story Grammar Marker^® and related MindWing Concepts’ products. Join our Facebook group today. The question asked was regarding using Story Grammar Marker^® methodology with 8th grade science. We shared a sample of a Science Experiment Map that was used by an 8th grader for the Science Fair project...

Have you seen them? Have you used them yet? Do you like them? On Wednesday, Facebook launched new “REACTION” emojis in place of the “like” button. Below is an example of the new reaction emojis on our MindWing Concepts, Inc. FaceBook page.“We heard from people that they wanted more ways to express themselves on Facebook,” said Facebook product manager Sammi Krug. “When people come to Facebook, they share all kinds of different things, things that make them sad, things that make them happy, thought-provoking, angry. We kept hearing from people that they didn’t have a way to express empathy” (Chaykowski, 2016). This article went on to say that the ability to express empathy was very important to FaceBook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

This is a MindWing Concepts Map of the components of a story taking into consideration “story grammar.” It is called “The SGM^® Episode Organizer.” The story grammar components, making up the beginning/middle/end of a story are shown as icons. The Character, Setting, Kick-off (problem or excitement), Feeling and Plan are in the beginning. The actions (attempts) to carry out the plan make up the middle and the Consequence and resolution make up the end.

It is an animated movie with not one, but TWO princesses. The Prince is a villain, the person with the magical powers is actually “good.” The act of true love that saves the day is not a kiss from a prince, but rather one sister sacrificing herself for another sister. It is a plot driven by love in a family, rather than solely by a romance (but there is just enough romance to keep us hopeful). It is the 5th highest grossing film of all time and the #1 animated film of all time. It won Academy Awards and Golden Globes. It is relatable, empowering, and filled with Kick-Offs, Feelings, Plans, Mental States, Consequences and Resolutions with very strong characters and constantly changing settings. It is Disney’s phenomenon, Frozen.

Last week, we presented Frozen in a workshop entitled Story Grammar Marker®, ThemeMaker® and Data Collection that was presented to 800 SLPs in NYC’s Board of Education. Videos of story retellings were shown using clips from Disney’s Frozen and an extensive narrative analysis was shared as well. Coincidentally, one of Advanceweb’s latest blogs (http://community.advanceweb.com/blogs/sp_2/archive/2014/12/29/using-disney-s-frozen-in-speech-therapy.aspx) focused on Frozen. So, this is perfect timing for you to receive the Story Grammar Marker® Narrative Analysis of 12 episodes (scenes) from Frozen. Click here for the FREE download!

When you look at the narrative analysis, please pay particular attention to the elements of the Critical Thinking Triangle®: kick-offs, feelings, plans and mental states that are so integral to this story. Different episodes are taken from perspectives of different characters. Notice how we have fleshed out the Mental States to help children think about the motivations of characters – what do they believe, realize, remember, think and know. Frozen is rich with mental states – and it is there that this story holds it’s magic. What does Elsa realize about her powers? What does Anna think about Elsa shutting her out? What does Kristoff believe about Anna’s feelings for Hans? What does Hans understand about the sisters’ relationship? What does Elsa remember about her childhood – and how does that motivate her plans throughout the whole story? What does Anna realize and believe that helps her make the decision to save Elsa?

This exciting and engaging story (that is quite familiar to most of us) makes it easy to see how to elaborate and expand the elements of the Critical Thinking Triangle®. Our hope is that you will use this analysis in your therapy or classroom, but also use it as a model for analyzing other movies, stories, books or novels.

We are thrilled to share that on February 17th, Maryellen Rooney Moreau welcomed her 4th grandchild into the world! Casey is Sheila Moreau's first child and Maryellen's 3rd granddaughter. This is the first picture of Casey that was taken.

She continues to be very alert and Maryellen is already studying her language development, noticing that Casey focuses her eyes on the “characters and settings” around her. Casey loves the sound of Nana’s voice (as do so many of Maryellen’s workshop participants)! Today, on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, one of our favorite holidays, Casey is one month old!..