Auditory Processing of Higher-Level Language Skills & Comprehending More Complex Auditory Information (Sequencing, Concrete Details, Subtle Clues, Social Language) {Review}

As this is my first post for 2013 let me just start off by wishing you all a Happy New Year! 

I will be reviewing 2 items from Great Ideas for Teaching that can be utilized to target auditory processing skills for those with higher level abilities. 

Auditory Processing of Higher-Level Language Skills ($32) is meant to assist students in learning to interpret events, gaining an understanding of concrete and subtle interpretations, and helping to grasp the main points of each event. Students who have may have trouble working through Auditory Processing of Higher-Level Language Skills should check out my review of Auditory Processing of Early Language Comprehension Skills to determine if it would be a better fit.

While looking at an image, students are read a story about the picture. Various questions that gauge specific comprehension skills are then asked. Questions are related to sequencing, context clues, inferencing, as well as time and spatial concepts. 

The review questions are simple and straightforward, requiring students to recall important details from the brief passages (e.g. What is the horse's name?) Questions get progressively difficult as they prompt students to form their own conclusions, separate subtle information amongst stories, make predictions, and retell the story. See below for sample pages. 

               

Comprehending More Complex Auditory Information (Sequencing, Concrete Details, Subtle Clues, Social Language) ($32) includes questions that target similar skills as Auditory Processing of Higher-Level Language Skills with an emphasis on sequencing. Images are provided to students as they listen to a two or three part story. There is an abundance of questions provided for users, which I personally appreciated as it saved me some preparation time. Take a look below for a few sample pages. 

I use both books with my students to aggressively target note-taking skills. Middle school is a time to develop and hone the skills needed to succeed in high school, college, and beyond! Instead of having students listen to me read each of the stories, I require them to jot down salient information. Once their notes have been taken, they are encouraged to recap the passage using the information they have recorded. Afterwards, I have a student read the passage back to me while I take my own notes on the whiteboard. This models how students should be taking notes themselves. As a group, we compare their notes with mine and discuss ways to improve upon their notation skills. 

Another important skill I impress upon my students when note-taking is the use of symbols and abbreviations. It was surprising to see how many of my kiddos were trying to write down the sentences verbatim. Text messaging language is a frequent example I use to drive home the benefits of using shorthand. I also found a handout from the University of North Dakota to be a helpful way to introduce and review abbreviations.

There are an infinite amount of resources available for us to utilize with students, but there is also an infinite amount of ways to utilize the resources we already have. Auditory Processing of Higher-Level Language Skills and Comprehending More Complex Auditory Information (Sequencing, Concrete Details, Subtle Clues, Social Language) are both easy to modify and extend into lessons targeting critical thinking, memory, visualization, and so much more!



Disclosure Statement: Great Ideas for Teaching, Inc. provided resources for testing in exchange for a review. The opinions expressed in this review are mine. No other compensation was provided.   

Middle School Confidential: Real Friends vs. the Other Kind {Review & Giveaway}

I think it's pretty obvious by now that I'm enthusiastic over the Middle School Confidential (MSC) series of graphic novel apps, as I'm devoting another post to it!  Real Friends vs. The Other Kind is based on book 2 of the MSC series and I must say, I am pleased yet again!

As the title suggests, friendship is the focus of Real Friends vs. The Other Kind, an issue that is very relevant to middle school. Readers will read about common problems as they relate to respect, peer pressure, fairness, rejection, breakups, and making friends.

Questions & scenarios are posed without being "cheesy

Newly added are the interactive quizzes that can be used to assist students in understanding why certain choices are better than others (see below).

Language skills such as figurative language, perspective taking, sequencing, processing, problem solving, foreshadowing, and social thinking can all be targeted with this easy to use and engaging application.

After purchasing this app  ($2.99), users can download a free 25 Leader's Guide that accompanies the MSC series that contains discussion questions and activities addressed in the app.  

App Compatibility:

Real Friends vs. The Other Kind is Compatible with NOOK, Kindle Fire, nabi, Android tablets, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It requires iOS 4.3 or later.

Take a look at Real Friends vs. The Other Kind in action:



David and Annie Fox (creators) have graciously provided me with a promo code for you to download Real Friends vs. The Other Kind and use with your students!

***UPDATE***

David and Annie have given me 2 more promo codes making it a total of 3 codes that I will be giving away!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure Statement: I was provided a copy of this app by the developer. No other compensation was provided. This review includes solely my opinions. 

Following Directions With Origami {Review}

The free ‘How to Make Origami’ app is a fun, simple tool to utilize with students who are bored with worksheets. This app will walk you and your students through the steps of how to make over 70 popular origami figures (crane, rabbit, giraffe, goldfish, tulip, etc) while using 3D animation of the folding process. Steps range from a simple 6 step walk-through on how to make a boat all the way up to the 78 step ‘how-to’ on creating a spider!   Users can easily go forward/backward through the steps as well as replay the animation. Each figure is rated for difficulty from easy to middle to hard. Directions for images rated easy and middle are provided for each step. For the images rated hard, no written directives are provided.

This can be turned into a great pragmatic language lesson wherein a student can take the lead and instruct others on the next step, engaging in a back and forth dialogue. Students have the opportunity to ask for clarification, repetition, or assistance; necessary social skills a lot of my students do not possess. Additional IEP goals related to following directions, auditory memory, sequencing, sentence formulation, can also be targeted.

For additional reinforcement related to the skills targeted, graphic organizer can be used to recall and organize steps used to create the origami image. Further working on receptive and expressive language.

Below are a few screen shots of one my favorite figures from this app.... a pig! 

Each image is presented on the screen prior to steps being introduced.

 Each step is animated and accompanied with written directives at the bottom of the screen (for easy and middle images only).

 All steps can easily be replayed. Users can go forward or back through steps.

 

 App Compatibility:

The ‘How to make Origami’ App is available on all Apple products (iPhone and iPad) as well as all Android products (phone and tablet). I have the app on both my Android phone and iPad.  In the therapy room setting I prefer using the iPad where it’s large screen is a perfect size for my small group sessions.

Have fun folding!

One Person's Trash Are My Treasures

A thoughtful friend who works for Penguin Books was cleaning out her book room last week and thought of me! She sent over an assortment of beautifully illustrated picture books. 

As you all probably know by now, I work with middle schoolers. They would undoubtedly not appreciate Ms. Sohan presenting them with “baby” books to read. How could I not have these books go to waste and incorporate them into therapy?

The solution? Cover up the words. Now I don't know about your students, but mine secretly enjoy books that contain pictures (the more the better) as it provides them a reprieve from reading, which many of them dread!

The words can be concealed with pieces of paper, index cards, post-its, etc. The now wordless picture book can be utilized with students who have difficulty with sequencing, story grammar, vocabulary, perspective taking, details/descriptions, cause/effect etc. The pictures will provide students with visual support to aid in the development of their literacy skills. Note, this can be easily viewed as juvenile to some middle schoolers, tread carefully and be creative! For more of a challenge, this can even be turned into a writing activity, where students create sentence for each image as to generate their own narrative.

Those of you who are more tech-savvy can utilize any voice recording program on your device to capture your students narrative (phone, iPad, etc). The narratives can then be replayed between utterances/pages and judged for its syntactical, semantic, and/or sequential appropriateness. Incorporating such technology will definitely serve to motivate even the most disinterested student.

Happy "reading!"