Blueprints for Language and Literacy Strategies

Kellie Krause Author

03/16/2021 Added

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Blueprints for Language and Literacy

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[00:00:06.480]Hi, my name's Kelli Krause,
[00:00:07.950]and I'm going to be presenting today
[00:00:09.660]on Blueprints for Language and Literacy Strategies
[00:00:12.490]for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
[00:00:19.340]Let me share my screen.
[00:00:28.820]Right.
[00:00:30.540]As I said, my name is Kelli Krause,
[00:00:32.010]I am the autism program facilitator
[00:00:34.220]for Millard Public Schools.
[00:00:35.660]This is my third year in the role
[00:00:37.270]and my 22nd year as a speech language pathologist.
[00:00:40.730]I've worked in the schools mainly.
[00:00:42.620]I've also worked in the hospitals
[00:00:44.150]and nursing homes a little bit,
[00:00:45.750]a little bit in private practice as well.
[00:00:47.480]I absolutely love what we do
[00:00:49.510]and I love learning from the students.
[00:00:52.020]They help us to learn and grow so much.
[00:00:55.440]Today we're gonna talk a little bit about
[00:00:57.840]language and literacy.
[00:00:59.010]And I just want to start with letting people know
[00:01:01.330]that there's not a lot of references out there
[00:01:03.830]as far as research goes,
[00:01:05.720]they're starting to do more and more research
[00:01:07.910]for students with autism and how they learn
[00:01:10.610]literacy and language in a different way.
[00:01:14.050]So let's get started.
[00:01:16.990]So the objective today is basically
[00:01:19.010]we are gonna talk about language and literacy
[00:01:21.310]and how we develop as humans.
[00:01:24.460]We're gonna look at the neurological impact
[00:01:26.200]on all of these areas and how the brain develops over time.
[00:01:29.960]We're also gonna talk about
[00:01:31.390]how that impacts our students with autism.
[00:01:35.160]So what kind of impairments,
[00:01:37.660]what kind of strategies can we use,
[00:01:39.570]so that we can bring our students along
[00:01:41.830]and then help them to learn things?
[00:01:45.730]So within this presentation,
[00:01:47.470]we're going to talk about strategies
[00:01:49.540]for the home and the school environment.
[00:01:51.600]We're gonna talk about that natural development
[00:01:53.630]for language and literacy skills.
[00:01:55.810]And then I'll also talk about some evidence-based practice
[00:01:59.020]that our special education teachers
[00:02:00.740]and our speech language pathologists use,
[00:02:03.210]but the teachers general ed teachers
[00:02:05.380]and parents can also utilize as well.
[00:02:09.470]So to get started, what we talked about is this path,
[00:02:13.770]these neurons in our brain,
[00:02:15.740]there are about 86 billion neurons in our brain.
[00:02:20.640]It is sometimes amazing to me
[00:02:22.690]that our body does what it does and that we're able to speak
[00:02:26.530]and talk and communicate with one another
[00:02:30.690]because of all these complex brain structures,
[00:02:34.100]which we're going to talk about.
[00:02:35.140]So if you think about it,
[00:02:37.600]the first time you go into a forest,
[00:02:40.020]there may not be a path there,
[00:02:42.310]there may be just one person who's walked that path.
[00:02:45.960]So you start to see a little bit of the grass knocked down,
[00:02:49.570]and over time after more and more people have gone by,
[00:02:52.950]or after you as an individual have walked that path,
[00:02:56.160]say a 100 times, you start to see that clear dirt path here
[00:03:00.140]as we see on the right.
[00:03:01.810]That's how our brains work.
[00:03:03.650]We have these different neurons
[00:03:05.740]and there's actually three different types.
[00:03:08.610]These basic groups of neurons
[00:03:10.320]can be broken down into their functions.
[00:03:13.420]So we have motor neuron.
[00:03:15.360]So if you think about it, when a baby is learning to crawl
[00:03:19.400]and then they learn to walk,
[00:03:21.100]and then they learn to run,
[00:03:22.790]it takes a lot of movement
[00:03:24.820]and it takes a lot of stumbling and practice
[00:03:27.880]before they're able to get to that point
[00:03:30.050]where they're running.
[00:03:31.460]So over time, those neuron paths in our brain
[00:03:34.910]are created and developed and they become stronger,
[00:03:38.120]or they become weaker over time
[00:03:39.790]depending on how often they're utilized or needed.
[00:03:43.740]So another example for a motor neuron
[00:03:46.940]would be baseball players.
[00:03:49.800]When they are throwing the ball
[00:03:52.190]they're arm movement gets more and more concise
[00:03:55.520]and more and more precise
[00:03:56.910]with where they're throwing the ball
[00:03:58.540]based on how many times they've gone
[00:04:00.340]through that motor movement over time.
[00:04:02.830]So what you're doing in the brain
[00:04:04.140]is making those motor connections for the motor neurons.
[00:04:07.640]We also have sensory neurons.
[00:04:09.940]So you think about our kiddos on the spectrum
[00:04:11.820]and how much sensory input controls
[00:04:15.440]how things work for them, or don't work for them.
[00:04:19.970]Is it something that is too much
[00:04:22.240]and those neurons are stressed out then
[00:04:25.290]and not able to function correctly.
[00:04:27.870]So even though we're gonna talk about language and literacy,
[00:04:30.550]you're also gonna hear me talk about social and sensory
[00:04:33.360]and how all of these different parts of our brain
[00:04:35.870]work together in order to help us create those paths
[00:04:39.180]for language and literacy.
[00:04:42.310]The third type is those interneurons.
[00:04:44.770]And we're gonna be talking about the brain connections
[00:04:46.543]and the different parts of the brain
[00:04:48.760]and how all of them play an integral role
[00:04:51.770]in those connections and how they help one another.
[00:04:56.080]And sometimes we'll talk about this too,
[00:05:00.580]if you're on the spectrum the brains are wired differently.
[00:05:03.360]We call it uniquely wired, right?
[00:05:05.960]Every child has presented a little bit differently
[00:05:08.900]and until we know what makes them tick,
[00:05:11.730]what makes them unique,
[00:05:13.920]how they come together as a complex human being,
[00:05:18.430]then we can step back and figure out how to teach them.
[00:05:24.080]So here we're gonna talk about
[00:05:25.227]the different parts of the brain.
[00:05:27.560]And if you think about it like I said, we're uniquely wired.
[00:05:30.480]There's a book that very presenter wrote
[00:05:32.820]that is titled "Uniquely Wired."
[00:05:35.360]And although autism isn't,
[00:05:38.740]it's neurodevelopment is what we're talking about
[00:05:41.040]and how the brain grows and develops.
[00:05:43.670]But autism is not a behavior disorder.
[00:05:47.030]Yes, there are challenging behaviors,
[00:05:48.920]but it's not a behavior disorder.
[00:05:50.590]It's more a neurological disorder.
[00:05:53.210]And that's why I wanted to talk about the brain
[00:05:56.490]and the impact the neurons
[00:05:57.770]and how all of these parts work together.
[00:05:59.750]So that the more we understand this,
[00:06:02.430]the better off we're able to help
[00:06:03.980]our students or our children.
[00:06:07.480]So think of it as brain based,
[00:06:09.620]the brain and all these different parts
[00:06:11.390]are gonna influence our thinking, our learning,
[00:06:14.280]our interpretation of sensory input,
[00:06:16.650]and even just being around other people
[00:06:19.070]there are connections being made constantly
[00:06:21.940]and how those areas of our brain
[00:06:23.670]communicate with each other, like I said,
[00:06:25.980]is impacted and sometimes impaired.
[00:06:29.300]So we need to be able to understand
[00:06:32.480]how the different parts work together.
[00:06:35.170]So the first one we're gonna talk about
[00:06:36.590]is the cerebral cortex.
[00:06:39.110]That is the largest neuro integration of the nervous system.
[00:06:43.300]And it plays a key role on a lot of things,
[00:06:45.660]including attention, perception, awareness, thought,
[00:06:50.410]memory, language, and consciousness.
[00:06:53.680]Language and memory in that same area,
[00:06:55.410]so keep that in mind as we go through this.
[00:06:58.070]The second area is the basal ganglia,
[00:07:00.710]and it is a group of subcortical nuclei
[00:07:04.240]that is responsible for that motor control.
[00:07:07.180]So motor learning, executive functioning,
[00:07:11.660]other behaviors as well as emotions
[00:07:14.150]are also in this part of the brain.
[00:07:17.110]The next one is the corpus callosum,
[00:07:21.130]it connects the two hemisphere.
[00:07:22.900]So you've got a left side and a right side of the brain.
[00:07:25.970]And then you've got this bundle of nerve fibers
[00:07:29.400]in the middle that connect
[00:07:30.730]and help communicate left to right.
[00:07:33.680]So that's what the corpus callosum,
[00:07:35.080]is that thick bundle of nerve fibers.
[00:07:38.750]It's interesting, I went to a conference years ago
[00:07:40.950]and I remember meeting the man and his father,
[00:07:45.140]the man who "Rain Man," the movie was based off of.
[00:07:48.210]And he did not have a corpus callosum.
[00:07:50.880]That part of his brain was missing.
[00:07:52.490]So it was one big brain mass
[00:07:54.270]trying to figure out how to communicate together
[00:07:57.050]without that part of the brain.
[00:07:58.960]Very interesting to look at the neurological impact of,
[00:08:02.110]and like I said, how everyone is uniquely wired.
[00:08:06.150]So the amygdala is actually the part of the limbic system,
[00:08:11.800]and it plays a role in emotion and behavior.
[00:08:15.500]And you think about how emotional some of our kids are,
[00:08:18.760]that emotion is very, very deep for our students.
[00:08:22.330]And they feel the emotions of others too.
[00:08:25.380]And the way they process things is a little bit different.
[00:08:28.570]So it plays an important role in emotion and behavior.
[00:08:32.530]And it's best known for that process of fear.
[00:08:35.600]If you think about fear and flight or fight,
[00:08:40.360]do we stay or do we go,
[00:08:42.080]how do I deal with what's going on around me?
[00:08:45.030]That part of the brain is what's impacted, that amygdala.
[00:08:49.493]Okay, the next area is called the hippocampus,
[00:08:52.740]and this is a complex brain structure too,
[00:08:54.870]but it's deep in the temporal lobe.
[00:08:57.220]And it's major part in the brain functioning
[00:09:00.200]is learning and memory.
[00:09:02.870]Everything that we learn in language and memory
[00:09:06.690]are tied together because those emotions,
[00:09:10.830]that memory that plays into things that happen to us
[00:09:14.010]are very much impacted and connected.
[00:09:17.520]The next part of the brain that we're gonna talk about
[00:09:19.880]is the brainstem.
[00:09:21.560]And it has a lot of basic functions.
[00:09:24.120]When I worked in the hospital,
[00:09:25.450]I sometimes would have a patient
[00:09:26.940]who had a brain stem stroke.
[00:09:28.860]And so what is impacted here is that
[00:09:32.230]heart rate, the breathing, sleeping, eating,
[00:09:34.830]all those things we take for granted
[00:09:36.220]that happen naturally,
[00:09:37.750]we don't think about it that we have to stop and think,
[00:09:40.100]oh I have to remember to breathe all day long.
[00:09:42.430]That just happens naturally thanks to the brain stem.
[00:09:46.110]All that information is also relayed
[00:09:49.180]from the body to the cerebrum and the cerebellum
[00:09:52.550]and vice versa, so it travels up and down the spinal cord
[00:09:56.030]sending those messages.
[00:09:57.670]If you think about how fast these messages are sent,
[00:10:00.580]you go to touch a hot stove
[00:10:02.130]and your hand gets pulled away immediately,
[00:10:04.760]that is how quickly that messages sent from your fingertips
[00:10:08.650]to your brain saying, hey, that's hot, move your hand,
[00:10:12.640]messages sent you move your hand,
[00:10:15.620]how quickly that happens.
[00:10:17.230]Our brain is working so quickly like that.
[00:10:20.250]It is just amazing.
[00:10:23.010]The last one we're gonna talk about is the cerebellum.
[00:10:26.320]And this one receives all that information
[00:10:28.470]from the sensory systems, from the spinal cord,
[00:10:31.760]other parts of the brain,
[00:10:33.750]and it also helps regulate our motor systems,
[00:10:36.920]our motor movements, okay?
[00:10:39.080]So it coordinates all those involuntary movements
[00:10:45.060]that we have like posture, balance, coordination, speech,
[00:10:50.040]and it gives us that smooth
[00:10:51.850]and balanced motor muscular activity.
[00:10:55.860]What's interesting about this part of the brain
[00:10:58.260]is it is only 10% of the brain,
[00:11:00.840]but about 50% of the neurons,
[00:11:03.260]lots of stuff going on there in that part of the brain.
[00:11:06.550]Like I said before, it's just a very complex,
[00:11:09.120]we're such complex humans.
[00:11:11.100]And then to tie in autism and look at how things
[00:11:14.370]are even more uniquely wired and different
[00:11:17.000]than typical development is just amazing to me.
[00:11:21.320]So we're gonna talk about how the brain works
[00:11:26.070]when you are speaking a written word,
[00:11:29.190]or speaking a heard word,
[00:11:31.050]and how many places your brain, that message has to stop
[00:11:36.060]in order to be processed.
[00:11:38.460]So in order to read words, the occipital lobe is our vision,
[00:11:43.550]hearing the words is the Wernicke's area.
[00:11:46.440]That's kind of that language comprehension
[00:11:48.440]where things you stop there to get that information.
[00:11:51.310]Broca's is where we think about the words,
[00:11:53.990]those files of language production,
[00:11:55.990]how to say a word, how to break it apart
[00:11:58.280]into specific phonemes.
[00:12:00.567]And then we also have that motor planning
[00:12:04.150]that I talked about with the brain,
[00:12:06.442]and that's in our primary motor cortex,
[00:12:08.580]the purple part you see here.
[00:12:10.450]So you see these little arrows lighting up,
[00:12:12.900]basically what you're seeing is how the human brain
[00:12:16.060]is taking in words that we hear,
[00:12:19.310]or words that we see in writing.
[00:12:21.160]And think about it our brains as humans
[00:12:23.750]have not been reading for very long,
[00:12:26.170]but we have been speaking a little bit longer.
[00:12:27.950]So sometimes those connections are a little bit easier.
[00:12:31.370]So in order to speak a word that is read,
[00:12:34.930]you must have that information.
[00:12:37.380]You go first to the occipital lobe,
[00:12:39.510]that primary visual cortex, okay?
[00:12:42.710]You're going to see the word,
[00:12:44.550]then that information has to be sent
[00:12:46.950]to the posterior speech area which is Wernicke's area.
[00:12:50.580]Then from Wernicke's area it travels to Broca's area
[00:12:53.250]which is gonna break down that word into specific sounds,
[00:12:56.500]we're gonna talk about phonemic awareness
[00:12:58.790]a little bit later today.
[00:13:00.610]And then it has to go to that primary motor cortex.
[00:13:03.690]How to repeat that word, how to say it
[00:13:06.090]after you've broken it down from the vision to the language,
[00:13:09.820]to the speech, to the motor.
[00:13:12.680]If you're speaking a word that you hear someone say,
[00:13:15.740]you hear someone say the word prosopagnosia.
[00:13:18.600]You've never heard that word, but I can repeat it,
[00:13:21.010]because I know my brain knows how to break it down.
[00:13:24.410]So here, that information is gonna go
[00:13:26.750]to the primary auditory cortex,
[00:13:31.170]where you hear the sounds.
[00:13:33.440]Then it's going to send that information
[00:13:35.850]to Wernicke's area process that,
[00:13:39.200]go to Broca's area which is gonna break down
[00:13:42.150]each of those individual sounds
[00:13:43.700]to be able to repeat the sounds.
[00:13:45.460]And then it goes to the primary motor cortex.
[00:13:49.030]How complicated that is that we are able to speak
[00:13:53.100]what other people say, or to speak what we see in writing,
[00:13:57.540]how quickly those motor neurons
[00:14:00.360]are being fired in our brain and processing that quickly.
[00:14:05.660]It's just truly amazing, okay?
[00:14:08.190]So now that we know a little bit about the brain
[00:14:11.090]and how it works and how these connections are made,
[00:14:14.610]we're gonna talk about what's called neuroplasticity.
[00:14:18.730]Now, neuroplasticity, think of like a jello mold
[00:14:23.130]kind of moving and adjusting as you move it, okay?
[00:14:27.660]It's got that basic form,
[00:14:29.450]but it has a little bit of movement.
[00:14:31.600]Now that can be a good or a bad thing.
[00:14:34.360]The way our brains are able to continue
[00:14:37.640]to evolve and change.
[00:14:40.700]And that can be a good or bad, like I said.
[00:14:43.600]You'll see on here, some of the good and bad things
[00:14:46.610]that impact our brain's neuroplasticity,
[00:14:49.550]but the brain is always learning good or bad.
[00:14:52.250]The brain's kind of neutral
[00:14:53.760]where it doesn't know the difference between good and bad.
[00:14:57.020]It just knows whatever I learn
[00:14:59.310]is repeated over and over again.
[00:15:01.800]So that's helpful and unhelpful sometimes in our thoughts,
[00:15:05.770]in our actions and our habits that we create in our life.
[00:15:09.970]So what happens is when we get a new synopsis
[00:15:11.990]of those brain connections,
[00:15:14.050]those neurons are making connections
[00:15:15.930]to create that path I talked about earlier,
[00:15:18.890]the new synapses are new skills or experiences
[00:15:22.100]that are created over time and we want those paths.
[00:15:26.980]And then we develop it over time even more
[00:15:30.040]after we've walked that path a 100 times,
[00:15:32.260]like we talked about.
[00:15:33.600]We have those strengthened synapses in our brain,
[00:15:36.750]so that repetition and that practice really strengthens
[00:15:41.230]and make sure that that path is a solid one.
[00:15:44.460]Other times, it may have weeds grown over it
[00:15:47.680]because we haven't been using it.
[00:15:49.140]So that path weakens over time
[00:15:51.580]and is not as solid in those synapses.
[00:15:54.970]And that's weakened when our connections in the brain
[00:15:58.860]become weak from not practicing.
[00:16:01.320]So you think about if I've been lifting weights
[00:16:04.700]and then I stop, my muscles start to die off
[00:16:08.810]because I don't have that intense like I used to,
[00:16:12.630]I don't have that frequency, like I used to.
[00:16:15.800]So exercise and diet and all those things,
[00:16:19.170]they work the exact same way and our brains
[00:16:22.250]with making those connections over time, good or bad.
[00:16:26.690]What's kind of interesting too,
[00:16:29.440]like I said before, I've worked in the hospitals,
[00:16:32.280]and when I was at a Manual Hospital years ago,
[00:16:34.630]I worked with stroke victims.
[00:16:37.050]And so you would be amazed
[00:16:40.270]by how quickly people are able to relearn
[00:16:43.890]and rebuild those skills that they've lost after a stroke
[00:16:47.220]because the brain has shut down one part of their brain
[00:16:51.370]whether it's language or swallowing or whatever,
[00:16:54.590]we're able to redevelop those because of neuro-plasticity,
[00:16:58.800]even as an adult we can still continue to learn and grow.
[00:17:03.650]What's interesting is sometimes part of the brains
[00:17:05.830]like the part that's responsible for that automatic speech
[00:17:09.890]will come back first.
[00:17:10.980]So I had patients who are completely non-verbal
[00:17:14.410]and after they had a stroke,
[00:17:17.600]they were not able to speak at all.
[00:17:19.630]And I went in to go work with one little old lady
[00:17:22.350]who just happened to know my grandparents.
[00:17:24.090]So it was the neatest story.
[00:17:26.300]I'm sitting there working with her
[00:17:28.660]and her family's telling me how she's so religious,
[00:17:32.990]had gone to church every day her life,
[00:17:35.860]telling me all about her and how they knew our family.
[00:17:40.210]So she had a rosary.
[00:17:41.850]And so we got out the beads, started saying a hail Mary.
[00:17:45.520]And as we said that for her she started saying that prayer
[00:17:50.150]because she had said it so many times over her life
[00:17:52.900]that that automatic speech sometimes comes back quicker
[00:17:57.060]than the speech of putting words together
[00:17:59.440]and trying to formulate a sentence.
[00:18:01.900]So she started praying and her family was just amazed
[00:18:04.960]that she could do this.
[00:18:06.200]Now, other times I'd have stroke victims
[00:18:07.890]that all you would hear is curse words coming out
[00:18:09.940]and like why are they saying that?
[00:18:12.020]Well, that's not automatic speech,
[00:18:13.410]is a different part of your brain
[00:18:14.610]that wasn't impacted sometimes.
[00:18:17.110]So it just kind of depends on how the brain is impacted.
[00:18:20.290]How can we build these neuron connections?
[00:18:23.320]How do we keep the right paths going
[00:18:25.200]and decrease the ones that aren't helping us?
[00:18:28.190]So if where students have a traumatic event,
[00:18:31.500]they may be stressed and it may be that emotional connection
[00:18:34.650]to something that happened.
[00:18:36.430]So how do we continue to shape the environment for them
[00:18:40.110]so that we can help them forward
[00:18:41.900]and develop their language and literacy skills?
[00:18:46.160]Okay, so what exactly is language?
[00:18:48.900]So you hear communication all the time,
[00:18:51.410]and communication can be in the form of gestures,
[00:18:55.270]or behavior, or other things like sign language.
[00:19:00.610]Language itself, though, as a social tool.
[00:19:03.590]As humans, our role is to communicate with one another.
[00:19:08.350]That is the communication's sole purpose is language.
[00:19:12.490]So language has rules and it's broken down.
[00:19:16.060]It's acquired over time.
[00:19:18.490]It's something that humans are born
[00:19:20.540]with the capacity to learn language,
[00:19:23.160]but don't have an actual language when they're first born.
[00:19:26.870]So I had watched a documentary about this once
[00:19:29.410]about language and children developing language
[00:19:32.020]in different parts of the world.
[00:19:34.510]And whatever they are exposed to,
[00:19:37.320]whether it be Chinese or English,
[00:19:39.730]or any other language in the world,
[00:19:41.950]children when they're first born
[00:19:44.040]they are just taking it all in.
[00:19:46.240]And guess what?
[00:19:47.380]Those neuron connections are being made unintentionally
[00:19:51.430]just by hearing people talk around them.
[00:19:54.170]So the more a child hears a language
[00:19:57.320]they will develop that language
[00:19:59.610]and the way that those words are processed.
[00:20:02.000]So that specific intellect or that specific dialect,
[00:20:07.060]they will hear that from their parents
[00:20:09.470]and other people around them as an infant.
[00:20:11.820]And they can develop that language over time,
[00:20:14.710]just by imitating those words,
[00:20:16.620]like I showed you earlier
[00:20:17.750]how to make those brain connections
[00:20:19.960]and repeat a word that you've heard.
[00:20:22.220]You can repeat those sounds you've heard.
[00:20:26.070]So what you'll see is that
[00:20:27.280]their brain will continue to develop in that way.
[00:20:31.080]Some kiddos are hearing two different languages at home,
[00:20:36.080]so they may be hearing these two languages.
[00:20:39.210]And so sometimes they're doing
[00:20:41.130]what's called code switching.
[00:20:43.210]They're going between the two languages in their brain
[00:20:46.310]and trying to distinguish which one they're speaking,
[00:20:49.100]what are other people saying?
[00:20:50.790]What does that word mean?
[00:20:52.280]How do I make that connection?
[00:20:54.360]Okay, even before they're able to tell us all these things,
[00:20:57.320]we can watch the brain develop
[00:20:59.790]and see those connections being made in infants.
[00:21:06.440]So when it comes to cognitive development for our littles,
[00:21:11.040]these are Piaget's levels of cognitive development.
[00:21:14.570]And I think it's important to understand
[00:21:16.520]how the kids take in the world.
[00:21:19.610]How did we all develop over the years?
[00:21:22.340]It's pretty similar for all of our kiddos.
[00:21:24.880]What we'll see as kids with autism
[00:21:27.220]is they may stay in that sensory motor,
[00:21:30.180]that zero to two years, for a little bit longer.
[00:21:33.230]I've had preschoolers come in
[00:21:35.460]and they're very much still in that sensory motor world
[00:21:37.920]where they are learning and exploring through their senses.
[00:21:41.240]So if you picture an infant
[00:21:43.760]who's grabbing things and they grab a rattle,
[00:21:47.410]or they grab something that makes sound,
[00:21:50.950]they're always just taking those things
[00:21:52.620]and bringing it to their mouth, right?
[00:21:54.800]They're exploring through the senses,
[00:21:57.620]through touch, through taste,
[00:21:59.850]through what they're seeing in their world.
[00:22:01.970]They're making those connections again in the brain
[00:22:05.110]by using the sensory parts of their brain.
[00:22:09.050]So like I said, sometimes we'll have kiddos that come to us
[00:22:11.850]in our preschool classrooms,
[00:22:14.500]and they will still be in that sensory motor
[00:22:16.870]where they're touching everything,
[00:22:19.230]they're putting it to their mouth,
[00:22:20.710]they're exploring through taste and touch,
[00:22:25.510]and they're still trying to make sense
[00:22:27.300]of the world around them at that level.
[00:22:31.120]The second level then is pre-operational.
[00:22:34.880]And at this point, it's being able to take things
[00:22:37.630]in the environment.
[00:22:38.490]So take a doll and feed it
[00:22:41.550]or put the blanket on it and put it to bed.
[00:22:44.330]All of those play skills.
[00:22:46.160]They are so imperative in our development
[00:22:48.380]for language and cognitive, and eventually for literacy.
[00:22:51.930]We'll talk about play skills a little bit later
[00:22:54.860]and how we can help build that.
[00:22:57.480]So when it comes to the next level, concrete operational,
[00:23:01.650]the brain is starting to make those connections
[00:23:04.390]and put them into a file.
[00:23:05.810]So if you think about our brain being this massive computer,
[00:23:09.620]we've got all of these things
[00:23:10.800]that we're learning through our experiences,
[00:23:13.660]through our social, through just hearing it,
[00:23:17.060]through imitation, everything like that,
[00:23:19.510]you are creating a file in your brain
[00:23:21.960]for those connections to be made.
[00:23:24.200]So think of it as a big World Wide Web in our brains,
[00:23:28.320]but thinking of things in a very concrete manner.
[00:23:32.220]So our kids on the spectrum are able to develop visually
[00:23:36.920]so much better than they are auditorily.
[00:23:39.550]So sometimes our kiddos will get stuck
[00:23:41.350]in some of those areas as well
[00:23:42.960]where they can think of things in very concrete,
[00:23:47.000]but they aren't able to get to that abstract.
[00:23:49.040]But here we're starting to move
[00:23:50.370]to that more abstract thinking.
[00:23:52.800]So in our formal operations, that's where our thinking,
[00:23:56.130]we're able to think about our thinking,
[00:23:58.280]or what's called metacognition.
[00:24:00.200]I'm thinking about this and this means this to me.
[00:24:02.810]And I made this connection from this experience over time.
[00:24:07.590]And just that emotional connection,
[00:24:10.440]how do we fit into the world?
[00:24:12.440]How do we fit in?
[00:24:13.273]And right away, kids start off
[00:24:15.240]and their world is very small.
[00:24:17.000]But then as you're able to take them out
[00:24:18.550]to the grocery store, to school, or other things
[00:24:21.640]you realize how large the world is
[00:24:23.670]and start to make those connections to themselves,
[00:24:29.700]to the world, to building that language.
[00:24:32.340]And like I said, it goes to more of a abstract thought of
[00:24:37.280]I can think beyond these things
[00:24:38.950]even though I can't see them.
[00:24:42.793]Okay.
[00:24:48.210]This one is called Vygotsky's zone of proximal development.
[00:24:54.350]When I kind of explain this,
[00:24:55.550]because our teachers do this so naturally sometimes
[00:24:58.100]without thinking about it,
[00:25:00.020]but I want any parents and other educators
[00:25:02.220]that aren't aware of it
[00:25:03.790]to be aware that you probably are doing this,
[00:25:06.020]you just didn't know
[00:25:06.853]it was called this zone of proximal development.
[00:25:09.460]I remember learning it in college and going, yep.
[00:25:11.800]This makes sense where wherever a student is
[00:25:15.290]we need to adjust to them
[00:25:17.100]rather than them adjusting to what we're doing.
[00:25:20.800]So tasks that are too difficult for children to master,
[00:25:24.960]but that can be learned with guidance,
[00:25:27.440]we are constantly making accommodations in classrooms
[00:25:30.840]like using visuals instead of an auditory direction,
[00:25:34.780]things like that.
[00:25:35.890]We can guide our students though.
[00:25:38.410]And once we figure out what they're ready to learn,
[00:25:41.410]so what do they already know?
[00:25:44.866]What do we want to teach them next?
[00:25:46.550]How are we going to get to that?
[00:25:47.600]I always tell teams, here's where we're at right now,
[00:25:50.790]here's where we wanna be,
[00:25:51.740]what are those 10 steps in between?
[00:25:53.540]How do we scaffold?
[00:25:55.040]So how do we get to those next steps
[00:25:56.970]by backing up a little bit
[00:25:58.260]in order to go forward with our kids?
[00:26:00.460]So scaffolding is just a teaching technique
[00:26:02.590]in which you're adjusting the level of guidance
[00:26:05.500]to fit the child's current performance level.
[00:26:08.370]So wherever they're at,
[00:26:09.840]you're gonna back it down to their level
[00:26:12.100]in order to help them move and grow forward.
[00:26:14.990]We do this very naturally
[00:26:16.140]without thinking about it a lot of times.
[00:26:19.404]And we also know that language plays a big role in this.
[00:26:23.670]Where our students are, we need to meet them at that level
[00:26:27.010]and then bring them to the next level.
[00:26:28.600]So if they're speaking in two word utterances,
[00:26:31.470]we can back up and speak in two word utterances.
[00:26:33.810]Sometimes we might push them and say a little bit more,
[00:26:37.770]but we always wanna meet them from where they're at.
[00:26:40.560]So language does play a big role in that cognition levels
[00:26:43.810]we're just talking through.
[00:26:45.810]And that language and thought
[00:26:47.220]initially develops independently.
[00:26:48.960]But then children are able to internalize that speech,
[00:26:51.890]their own speech, and becomes that internal thought
[00:26:54.370]we talked about.
[00:26:55.750]So metacognition, thinking about my own thoughts
[00:26:58.510]about my words.
[00:27:01.000]And then what happens is together with scaffolding
[00:27:04.010]and differentiated instruction,
[00:27:06.330]we can provide those foundations,
[00:27:09.140]so that our students are able to continually adjust
[00:27:12.760]and to learn from the support that the teachers give
[00:27:15.570]in their learning.
[00:27:17.200]So you think about like, I'm an English teacher,
[00:27:21.620]English language arts teacher, who's teaching,
[00:27:24.290]and it's kind of a balancing act
[00:27:25.880]because within the classroom you've got
[00:27:28.020]students that are all different levels and profiles.
[00:27:31.240]And so each child's zone of proximal development,
[00:27:34.270]where they're at, has to be slightly different
[00:27:37.380]than the next.
[00:27:38.213]So yes, you have to teach this complex language strategy
[00:27:43.350]through reading, but how do we break it down
[00:27:46.030]and how do we adjust things for each of our kiddos
[00:27:49.710]to know this one needs visuals, this one needs choices,
[00:27:54.090]this one needs, whatever the case may be,
[00:27:56.910]in order to help them grow from where they're at
[00:27:59.990]to those next levels
[00:28:01.250]and make levels more challenging over time.
[00:28:05.720]So just really something that
[00:28:08.330]I don't think we ever think about,
[00:28:11.410]but I think that we do naturally as educators
[00:28:14.090]is to meet kids where they're at,
[00:28:16.430]move them to the next level of their development.
[00:28:19.190]And that's where people always come in place is,
[00:28:22.360]we know they're here, this is what the data's showing us.
[00:28:25.630]We're gonna write our goals
[00:28:27.070]that are based on where we think our students
[00:28:29.710]are able to go to next
[00:28:31.920]and what we're able to meet over time within that year.
[00:28:37.900]Okay.
[00:28:39.160]This thread is very complex.
[00:28:41.920]And I wanna talk a little bit through this
[00:28:44.010]with all of the different parts.
[00:28:45.730]If you look at how unraveled,
[00:28:48.080]if we were to teach each of these individually
[00:28:50.900]throughout language comprehension and word recognition.
[00:28:56.560]It's unwoven if we teach them separately,
[00:28:59.870]but over time what happens is we get kids
[00:29:02.960]that are very skilled in reading and literacy,
[00:29:06.170]because they have all of those pieces in place.
[00:29:09.200]But you can see if one of these piece is missing,
[00:29:12.210]or a student is really struggling with that
[00:29:14.450]you're not gonna have that tight knit rope
[00:29:17.210]of learning skills.
[00:29:19.450]So we need to, first of all, talk through these
[00:29:22.800]and then we'll talk about strategies
[00:29:25.140]and evidence-based practices
[00:29:26.930]that will help with our language and literacy,
[00:29:29.170]which you can not unmarry those two things.
[00:29:32.310]I think of them as being connected
[00:29:35.530]in the same way that this rope is,
[00:29:37.870]you think about language and literacy together,
[00:29:40.690]they're all combined.
[00:29:41.940]And it's also combined with that social
[00:29:44.590]and with the sensory pieces of our being.
[00:29:50.544]So we started pretty small.
[00:29:51.600]We're getting larger and larger
[00:29:52.830]as far as complex systems that are teaching our students.
[00:29:56.680]So starting with that background knowledge,
[00:29:59.790]what does a student already know?
[00:30:02.090]What have they learned through their experiences
[00:30:04.790]thus far in life?
[00:30:06.300]How can we build on that
[00:30:07.740]based on the vocabulary that they have?
[00:30:10.570]And you'll hear me talk later about MLU,
[00:30:12.850]mean length of utterance,
[00:30:13.880]where we're breaking down the vocabulary
[00:30:15.797]and what does a student have?
[00:30:17.410]What's their level, what's their length of utterances
[00:30:20.880]that will help us in deciding
[00:30:23.030]what is their zone of proximal development?
[00:30:25.160]Where do we need to start to build them forward?
[00:30:28.400]And then the language structures, so semantics and syntax.
[00:30:31.640]Those are just fancy words
[00:30:32.940]for saying we're looking at grammar and vocabulary.
[00:30:35.620]When we look at grammar,
[00:30:36.640]we're looking at the English language
[00:30:38.160]and how nouns come before verbs.
[00:30:40.690]If you look at Spanish and sometimes reversed
[00:30:43.120]in how you have those in a sentence
[00:30:45.920]and how the grammar is broken apart.
[00:30:50.510]So we wanna make sure that we are teaching
[00:30:52.380]the right systems to students.
[00:30:54.650]And I'll give you some techniques at the end
[00:30:56.320]of how to teach those.
[00:30:59.510]Verbal reasoning, so thinking about inferencing
[00:31:02.940]and having to guess if you only have this information,
[00:31:05.920]can you figure out what the answer to the question is
[00:31:08.290]with this information.
[00:31:09.940]Metaphors, anything that is not concrete
[00:31:14.800]that is more abstract language is gonna be difficult
[00:31:18.260]for some of our kiddos on the spectrum.
[00:31:20.460]So understanding idioms, or metaphors, or similes,
[00:31:23.580]or all of those things,
[00:31:25.070]they take things very concrete,
[00:31:27.040]word for word, black and white,
[00:31:29.080]how can we help teach them those things?
[00:31:32.310]I'll have some strategies for that later too.
[00:31:35.220]And then literacy knowledge.
[00:31:36.490]So print concepts knowing that we read
[00:31:39.750]left to right, top to bottom.
[00:31:42.680]Kids learn that naturally we're teaching them all the time
[00:31:45.150]as we're reading something to them,
[00:31:47.180]or pointing to something on the board or a calendar
[00:31:50.230]explaining that.
[00:31:51.700]Then the different genres of like
[00:31:53.320]what types of books are you reading?
[00:31:55.310]What is the purpose of them?
[00:31:56.910]How are they teaching you?
[00:31:59.060]What are you learning from them?
[00:32:00.190]Is it just fantasy for fun,
[00:32:02.860]or is it fiction or non-fiction?
[00:32:05.110]That type of stuff has to be taught as well.
[00:32:08.910]When we think about word recognition and go back to that,
[00:32:12.100]how we broke those words apart in our brain
[00:32:14.770]and how those connections are made as infants
[00:32:17.160]for whatever language they're hearing,
[00:32:19.330]we have phonological awareness
[00:32:21.600]broken down into those specific phonemes
[00:32:24.680]as those different sounds,
[00:32:26.090]how to break apart syllables.
[00:32:28.310]I'll talk a little bit more about those blocks
[00:32:30.420]of literacy on the next slide.
[00:32:32.740]And then decoding, are we able to take those words
[00:32:36.110]and break them apart?
[00:32:37.130]If they're not sense words,
[00:32:38.957]are we able to know the sound from that symbol,
[00:32:42.350]that letter and be able to state that word?
[00:32:45.950]And then we also have just sight recognition.
[00:32:48.670]So familiar words that we see over and over
[00:32:51.640]like the word, the, it doesn't break apart the same way
[00:32:55.090]if we were to sound it out,
[00:32:57.020]but the whole word uttered, it's those sight words,
[00:32:59.650]are things that our students have to learn.
[00:33:02.210]So you can see, as this comes together,
[00:33:04.920]it makes a very tight knit woven string
[00:33:09.010]so that our kids are able to learn.
[00:33:11.410]If pieces or a lot of these are not solid,
[00:33:15.200]it's gonna make reading and literacy more difficult.
[00:33:18.290]So there's ways that we can help
[00:33:20.040]to solidify those connections
[00:33:22.720]and to make this a little bit tighter
[00:33:26.180]for our learning.
[00:33:28.570]So this talks about, this is from TLC's Lively Letters
[00:33:35.520]which I'll be talking about later.
[00:33:36.820]It's an evidence-based practice.
[00:33:39.000]I absolutely love it.
[00:33:40.170]I've been trained in this program
[00:33:42.210]and I've trained a lot of others.
[00:33:44.830]But if you think about this as the different cake layers.
[00:33:47.900]So you start with phonemic awareness
[00:33:49.840]at the very bottom here.
[00:33:51.540]Phonemic awareness is that individual sound.
[00:33:55.610]So baby's babbling the way that they're saying,
[00:33:58.430]those sounds when they're first start making noises,
[00:34:03.170]that is where this starts to later down the road
[00:34:06.060]when we start to teach the letters.
[00:34:08.100]We wanna teach the sounds instead of the capital letters,
[00:34:12.630]A through Z, and I'll talk about that on the next side.
[00:34:16.430]But phonemic awareness, what it is?
[00:34:17.690]Is basic sounds.
[00:34:19.460]Those individual sounds that we have.
[00:34:22.330]Then we take it to the next level of that foundation,
[00:34:25.520]phonological awareness.
[00:34:27.260]Can we take those individual sounds,
[00:34:29.760]start putting them together,
[00:34:31.690]and then you'll see on the right hand side
[00:34:33.210]how complex even this foundation level is
[00:34:37.090]starting with rhyming alliteration, segmenting,
[00:34:41.200]syllables, rhymes, phonemic manipulation,
[00:34:45.130]and being able to take a word.
[00:34:46.900]And if this says, cat,
[00:34:49.580]make the c, says h, and it says hat.
[00:34:52.920]Can they take a word that is not concrete in front of them
[00:34:56.910]and just hear that and be able to process through
[00:34:59.910]to make those changes?
[00:35:01.520]That's a really complex thing for kids to do.
[00:35:04.270]And if we're missing parts of these,
[00:35:06.190]that pink foundation you see here,
[00:35:08.153]then our kids are gonna struggle down the road
[00:35:10.170]with other parts of reading building blocks,
[00:35:12.690]because they haven't had a solid foundation of skills.
[00:35:16.650]And that's something that Likely Letters
[00:35:19.500]in some of these other ones will teach
[00:35:21.570]to the way that our students need to learn.
[00:35:24.600]Then we've got phonics,
[00:35:25.890]which of course is seeing those words,
[00:35:28.260]being able to put those together and read them out loud.
[00:35:31.670]Now, some of our students you'll hear me talk about
[00:35:35.420]they can read those words,
[00:35:37.010]but then they can't get to the level of comprehension
[00:35:39.560]towards the top.
[00:35:40.870]And part of that is because of the way that we learn.
[00:35:44.580]So do we have the phonics in place?
[00:35:46.917]Are we able to read fluently,
[00:35:48.850]because I've read so many times and made that pathway,
[00:35:52.170]that connection in the brain over and over again?
[00:35:55.240]Then when it comes to vocabulary,
[00:35:56.720]I'm able to pick up new words over time
[00:35:59.990]and read those in context?
[00:36:01.810]If those aren't taught in context
[00:36:03.650]they're probably not gonna make that connection
[00:36:05.360]'cause we know we need that emotional connection,
[00:36:08.280]or that connection to something we already know.
[00:36:11.480]And we're building that World Wide Web in our brain.
[00:36:14.640]And eventually we get to that comprehension.
[00:36:17.070]So I just got done reading this whole paragraph,
[00:36:19.840]do I know who the main character was?
[00:36:22.290]Do I know the setting?
[00:36:23.300]Can I interpret that data from what I was reading?
[00:36:26.640]Some of our kids struggle because they are focusing
[00:36:29.810]so much of their energy on the phonemic
[00:36:33.430]and phonological awareness and the phonics part
[00:36:35.910]that they can't get to the comprehension,
[00:36:37.640]because all of their brain power
[00:36:39.670]is used towards just decoding those words.
[00:36:45.610]Okay.
[00:36:47.340]When we think about how we all learn to read,
[00:36:50.010]I think how in the world did I ever learn to read
[00:36:53.700]when reading is so complex
[00:36:56.470]and all these literacy layers are so complex
[00:36:59.260]and there's so much that we had to be taught over the years,
[00:37:03.290]which is probably why when we go
[00:37:05.040]to grade level to grade level,
[00:37:06.890]it feels like teachers are just repeating the same thing.
[00:37:09.470]I'll hear my own four kids say that,
[00:37:11.860]mom I already learned this last year,
[00:37:13.540]why do we have to do this again?
[00:37:14.870]Well, it's because we wanna make sure that path is solid
[00:37:17.227]and that you do have these skills
[00:37:18.830]before you move on to something
[00:37:20.670]that's a little bit more intense, more complex.
[00:37:24.700]So take a look at the bottom here.
[00:37:26.700]We've got just the basic print concept.
[00:37:29.170]So knowing, like I said,
[00:37:30.960]we read left to right, top to bottom.
[00:37:33.590]There's a title, there's author,
[00:37:35.920]there's the front cover of the book.
[00:37:37.920]We don't stop and teach these things.
[00:37:40.010]We just do it naturally by having a kid sit on her lap
[00:37:42.750]and reading a book to them,
[00:37:44.590]or pointing out signs, like, look at the McDonald's sign.
[00:37:47.390]Everybody knows the M it starts with,
[00:37:49.210]that's how we know M and it's, McDonald's. (chuckling)
[00:37:52.780]Those symbols and those things in our world,
[00:37:55.320]there's print all around us,
[00:37:57.150]it's just a matter of making those connections
[00:37:59.980]and finding what fits for our kids.
[00:38:02.150]What's that emotional connection to all of this.
[00:38:06.690]I talked a little bit on the last slide about that phonemic,
[00:38:10.010]the individual sounds and the phonological awareness
[00:38:13.350]and how complex that is.
[00:38:14.850]So you see all this light blue here.
[00:38:17.090]So talking about the sounds, talking about the rhyming,
[00:38:20.530]how to break those words apart.
[00:38:22.980]If I take a sound out
[00:38:25.130]and I have you replace it with a sound,
[00:38:26.840]are you able to do that in your brain?
[00:38:29.050]Are you able to read those nonsense words
[00:38:31.970]that you can't just memorize them?
[00:38:34.340]Now, my oldest son, who's now in eighth grade
[00:38:37.060]he's gonna be 14 soon,
[00:38:38.970]he in third grade was reading
[00:38:41.120]and following directions and had A's,
[00:38:43.750]but his teacher was like there's something missing,
[00:38:45.730]I'm not sure what it was.
[00:38:46.940]When we went back to test him,
[00:38:49.340]he got tested and we realized that
[00:38:51.670]he had memorized whole word chunks up until third grade.
[00:38:55.950]But at that level, things start to get more complex.
[00:38:59.150]The words are longer.
[00:39:00.130]You have to break them apart.
[00:39:01.320]You have to understand the E at the end, changes everything.
[00:39:04.880]So he didn't understand how cut turned into cue.
[00:39:08.670]When all you did was add a letter,
[00:39:10.580]but the rest of it stayed the same.
[00:39:12.410]Why did the whole thing change?
[00:39:15.020]So just having our kids understand that in a different level
[00:39:18.590]really makes a difference.
[00:39:22.150]When it comes to decoding and that word recognition,
[00:39:24.530]like I said, some kids can memorize for word chunks,
[00:39:27.470]or they see the word over and over enough
[00:39:29.370]that they know what it says.
[00:39:31.370]They just don't have the meaning when it's put together
[00:39:33.530]in a whole sentence and more context.
[00:39:38.566]So understanding those sight words
[00:39:42.180]and memorizing those in different ways.
[00:39:44.530]Multi-syllabic words, when you start adding in prefixes
[00:39:48.340]and suffixes and affixes is even in this complex structure
[00:39:53.030]of the word changes, whether it's a noun,
[00:39:56.247]but things like that, it's called morphology
[00:39:58.310]when you teach all those different parts.
[00:40:02.150]Then you get to fluency, like I said,
[00:40:04.360]can a child read?
[00:40:06.220]Yes, but can they read with the accuracy
[00:40:08.980]is what we're looking for in fluency.
[00:40:11.360]How quickly can they read, and then their prosody
[00:40:14.250]are they able to use those different voices
[00:40:17.320]or that intonation at the end of the question?
[00:40:20.790]Do we have those things in place as they're reading?
[00:40:23.410]So your brain is working to dissect those words,
[00:40:27.600]those individual sounds back from the bottom
[00:40:30.300]all the way up to reading, to fluency
[00:40:32.290]and then understanding the vocabulary
[00:40:34.470]within what you're reading, and know what you just read,
[00:40:37.940]and break those words apart,
[00:40:39.450]and understand that figurative language.
[00:40:42.120]Very, very complex stuff.
[00:40:43.787]And then we get to comprehension,
[00:40:46.230]and can we discuss what just happened in the story?
[00:40:49.280]Can we relate it to what we know in our lives?
[00:40:52.460]Can we talk about the vocabulary?
[00:40:54.470]And if we don't know that word,
[00:40:56.030]'cause we've never heard it or seen it,
[00:40:58.110]can we read around it?
[00:40:59.360]Kind of think of that target bullseye.
[00:41:01.850]If I read around the word, can I figure out the meaning
[00:41:05.530]based on what it says around the word?
[00:41:07.780]Sometimes it'll say, those synonyms,
[00:41:10.590]it'll give you another word that means the same thing.
[00:41:13.200]And then we also have the genre, the text structures,
[00:41:16.970]all of those are taught
[00:41:18.320]usually in about third, fourth grade, I believe.
[00:41:21.570]And we break those down to make sure our kids
[00:41:23.700]understand those things.
[00:41:25.107]For our kids on the spectrum,
[00:41:26.890]it may be too much as far as the abstract taught,
[00:41:30.750]so they need to be taught in a more concrete way.
[00:41:38.360]All right, I hope you guys enjoy these pictures
[00:41:40.190]of my kiddos (chuckling).
[00:41:42.610]Like I said in there, getting to the teenage years,
[00:41:45.960]my daughter's nine,
[00:41:47.210]and I just wanted to add in some pictures
[00:41:49.860]to show you just that
[00:41:51.690]when we talk about language and literacy, it can be fun.
[00:41:56.570]Pick up the books and read to them,
[00:41:58.750]let them make their choices.
[00:42:02.740]When they were little, we would go to the library.
[00:42:04.650]My mom's a librarian too.
[00:42:05.870]So we are always, we've got books galore in our house,
[00:42:09.010]but I would also take them to the library,
[00:42:11.490]or even this one on the top left is from Fontenelle Forest,
[00:42:14.760]they would have different themes each week
[00:42:17.010]about bags or such.
[00:42:19.520]And the kids could pick the books then what they like,
[00:42:22.180]sometimes they're picking them
[00:42:23.013]and they're flipping them wrong way,
[00:42:25.030]or as you see my twins on the right, they've got the books,
[00:42:27.840]but it was more of just like
[00:42:29.690]it's here, I'm not looking (chuckling) at it,
[00:42:32.250]I'm not engaging with it,
[00:42:34.210]but they're still exposed to that.
[00:42:36.240]You wanna expose them to as many
[00:42:39.330]literacy type skills as you can.
[00:42:42.700]So reading to them, reading out loud,
[00:42:44.900]I still read out loud to my kids.
[00:42:46.520]I'll get chapter books and read out loud after dinner
[00:42:50.320]as much as we can with activities going on.
[00:42:53.620]You want it to be child led though.
[00:42:55.150]So what are they engaged in?
[00:42:57.460]Do they love just trains?
[00:42:59.380]Get books on trains, get pictures on trains,
[00:43:01.870]put words on trains, put numbers on trains,
[00:43:05.000]whatever it is that the kiddo likes tie into that
[00:43:09.000]and come into their world by bringing literacy to them,
[00:43:13.490]so that you can help with that exposure
[00:43:15.490]and that connection, that emotional connection with them.
[00:43:21.520]Listening to the stories,
[00:43:23.130]they have books on tape galore and more.
[00:43:26.470]You can listen to books or to music.
[00:43:28.380]Kids will learn that language and that literacy type skills
[00:43:32.900]like alliteration through rhymes, through nursery rhymes,
[00:43:37.150]through listening to music and the rhymes,
[00:43:39.900]to reading books out loud that have the rhyme at the end.
[00:43:43.820]I think it's kind of sad that
[00:43:45.840]we don't do as much with play and fun,
[00:43:49.040]or
[00:43:52.346]with the language at that early stage
[00:43:55.160]as much as we should be.
[00:43:56.720]I think if you were to flood it
[00:43:58.530]as much as possible, that's great.
[00:44:01.210]What you'll see though a lot of times
[00:44:02.680]is there's so much technology in our world.
[00:44:05.260]So you see my son on the bottom right
[00:44:06.980]playing with an old laptop, not even on,
[00:44:10.500]it's in his world.
[00:44:12.130]iPads are in our world.
[00:44:13.380]iPhones, we're constantly connected to those.
[00:44:16.860]Instead of just using that as a pacifier for our kids
[00:44:20.500]which some people do more than others,
[00:44:23.510]and I'm not saying I wouldn't do that,
[00:44:25.010]but I think the important thing to remember
[00:44:27.460]is that technology isn't bad,
[00:44:29.750]it's in our world, it's our environments,
[00:44:32.680]but how do we limit that number one?
[00:44:35.700]And number two how do we provide other opportunities?
[00:44:39.200]So do we engage with the kid
[00:44:40.930]as they're typing on the computer.
[00:44:43.370]Point out those letters.
[00:44:44.950]Do we show them pictures and have them make that connection
[00:44:49.150]to the world that way?
[00:44:50.480]Because you're taking out the social.
[00:44:53.330]What we found last March with COVID was,
[00:44:56.580]some of our students on the spectrum really thrived
[00:45:00.100]in learning on a Zoom
[00:45:02.370]because you took out the sensory from the classroom
[00:45:06.750]and you also took out that social.
[00:45:09.020]So is much easier for them to connect with just a computer
[00:45:12.810]and to show what they knew,
[00:45:14.610]because you took those other things out
[00:45:16.700]and made it less complex for them.
[00:45:18.960]So I'm not saying technology is a bad thing.
[00:45:21.500]I'm just saying, we need to think about how we utilize it
[00:45:24.510]in order to teach language and literacy.
[00:45:32.030]The other thing I would say is
[00:45:33.970]providing them with other things at an early age,
[00:45:38.220]just the exposure, like I said, of the books, the music,
[00:45:42.010]or even writing kind of thing.
[00:45:43.940]So sidewalk chalk, my kids learned how to write
[00:45:47.070]some of their letters through sidewalk chalk,
[00:45:49.300]or through a Magna Doodle being able to play with that,
[00:45:51.760]or markers, or painting, or other things.
[00:45:54.550]A lot of times we think,
[00:45:55.560]oh, we have to wait until they're in school
[00:45:56.910]to give them a pencil or those types of things,
[00:45:59.710]but really we can give it to them at a very young age
[00:46:03.150]and they can have that exposure.
[00:46:08.520]So when it comes to our students with autism
[00:46:11.150]and those areas that we find very difficult,
[00:46:13.630]or that they find difficult
[00:46:15.000]and we need to help them learn through these,
[00:46:17.860]I want you to know that language acquisition
[00:46:21.200]it's that how we are speaking, how we are learning language.
[00:46:26.250]Those impairments are very precedent in our kids.
[00:46:30.120]So looking at language, looking at social.
[00:46:32.960]However that as a group, children with autism
[00:46:38.290]are at an increased risk
[00:46:39.700]of not developing adequate literacy skills.
[00:46:42.430]We know that from the research,
[00:46:43.950]we know that from our kids that they are already at risk
[00:46:48.150]because of their neuro development
[00:46:50.840]and how their brains are wired.
[00:46:53.530]But even with the limited vocabulary
[00:46:55.620]and limited verbal communication skills,
[00:46:57.590]some of our kids are non-verbal and always will be.
[00:47:00.030]That doesn't mean they can't still learn.
[00:47:02.070]That means that they can and do develop
[00:47:04.810]language and literacy skills,
[00:47:06.770]it just may look very different.
[00:47:09.040]We need a high quality literacy learning opportunities
[00:47:13.200]all the way along, because there's somewhere
[00:47:16.240]on that literacy learning continuum,
[00:47:19.350]be at high or low, it doesn't matter.
[00:47:21.790]And think about that zone of proximal development,
[00:47:24.080]I talked about earlier, wherever our kids are
[00:47:26.220]we meet them at that.
[00:47:27.440]We wanna bring them to the level.
[00:47:29.970]We wanna always be flourishing with
[00:47:32.770]how we are exposing them to language and literacy concepts,
[00:47:36.860]no matter what their skill level.
[00:47:40.190]So when it comes to literacy development,
[00:47:42.680]our goal in learning to read is really that ability
[00:47:46.200]to get to comprehension, that top level I talked about.
[00:47:49.950]We need to construct, so we need word recognition
[00:47:53.110]and we need the language comprehension.
[00:47:54.810]So think about those threads we talked about earlier,
[00:47:57.600]how we wanna have all of those parts in place.
[00:48:00.550]Now some of our kiddos will have what's called hyperlexia.
[00:48:04.210]Hyper meaning better than
[00:48:05.820]and lexia meaning reading or language.
[00:48:08.730]Hyperlexia, they are decoding
[00:48:12.580]and sounding words out very quickly,
[00:48:14.810]but they may or may not understand the word,
[00:48:17.790]or the complexity of what they're reading.
[00:48:20.320]They may not be able to comprehend down the road.
[00:48:23.300]So think about those layers, those building blocks.
[00:48:26.350]Yes, some of our kids can focus
[00:48:29.390]and memorize those full word chunks.
[00:48:31.980]They can memorize and decode,
[00:48:34.950]but can we get them to the level of comprehension?
[00:48:38.240]That's where we're missing the mark sometimes.
[00:48:43.230]But it could be because they are obsessed
[00:48:46.540]with letters and numbers.
[00:48:47.610]That could be their thing is they wanna arrange those,
[00:48:50.440]or get those magnetic letters out
[00:48:52.220]and line them up or play,
[00:48:54.450]that's their play rather than a stuffed animal or a toy.
[00:48:58.130]But it's that false impression of strength
[00:49:00.150]that literacy is more of a fascination of letters.
[00:49:04.500]So just something to be aware of with our kids with autism.
[00:49:09.040]When it comes to social interactions,
[00:49:10.960]like I said, that's a big part of autism for our kiddos
[00:49:14.120]and understanding what's called theory of mind.
[00:49:17.110]Being able to understand what others are feeling
[00:49:19.940]just by looking at them.
[00:49:21.680]A lot of times we're teaching
[00:49:22.960]how to read facial expressions,
[00:49:24.770]how to read body language.
[00:49:26.930]But even as they're reading a story,
[00:49:29.360]they may be able to read,
[00:49:30.720]but they might not be able to understand
[00:49:32.660]the stories, characters, internal mental state
[00:49:36.330]and their beliefs, or their attentions,
[00:49:39.420]or more of that abstract language
[00:49:41.160]as it becomes more difficult in the complexity.
[00:49:44.960]Our students also have high anxiety.
[00:49:47.330]So if we're pushing them and pushing them
[00:49:49.490]to the level that we want them to be at,
[00:49:51.740]instead of meeting them at the level that they're at,
[00:49:54.533]that's gonna be detrimental to them
[00:49:56.570]because it's too much too soon.
[00:49:58.870]Instead of like I said, our teachers need to adjust
[00:50:03.030]and modify and get those accommodations in place
[00:50:05.940]in order to bring the student to the next level.
[00:50:11.170]As far as cognition then,
[00:50:13.500]cognition is that sometimes our students on the spectrum
[00:50:16.810]will have a comorbid cognitive impairment
[00:50:19.470]that impacts their learning in general.
[00:50:21.510]So doesn't mean that they can't still learn.
[00:50:24.660]Think of that neuroplasticity we talked about earlier,
[00:50:27.500]they can still learn,
[00:50:28.560]we just need to teach them in a different way.
[00:50:31.030]And then the same with assessments.
[00:50:32.820]A lot of our assessments
[00:50:34.000]are very much tested on students,
[00:50:38.670]but when it comes to our students with autism,
[00:50:40.820]how much are we able to be flexible?
[00:50:42.780]Sometimes we can't be flexible with those assessments.
[00:50:46.000]What I have done in the past is,
[00:50:48.240]we'll still test the kiddo based on how the test needs,
[00:50:51.570]the protocol has to be presented to the student.
[00:50:54.870]But with one of our kiddos we went back and retested
[00:50:58.150]by letting him type the answers
[00:51:00.100]just to see what would happen
[00:51:01.540]when we went a little bit further on the test.
[00:51:03.760]He had 20 points higher because we took out
[00:51:06.620]that social piece of him having to answer.
[00:51:09.050]We took out that language piece and he could just type.
[00:51:12.100]So it goes back to that technology again, it's here.
[00:51:15.080]We just need to know how to use it in the right way.
[00:51:23.130]With
[00:51:26.540]our language, our social communication,
[00:51:29.860]students start off very concrete, as I talked about,
[00:51:33.630]their first words will be nouns, or verbs,
[00:51:35.760]or just protoverbs,
[00:51:37.500]and stating things that they see in their environment.
[00:51:40.930]So think of a noun plus a verb, or a verb plus a noun,
[00:51:44.540]you're gonna hear throw ball or feed baby,
[00:51:47.220]very concrete.
[00:51:48.590]And then we moved to more complex language
[00:51:50.820]where we're using pronouns
[00:51:52.540]and other things that are more abstract.
[00:51:54.900]That's a typical development.
[00:51:56.720]We usually do, as speech language pathologists,
[00:51:59.450]an MOU or TTY.
[00:52:01.950]Sometimes both, an MOU as a main link utterance
[00:52:05.090]where we take a language sample of say a 100 words
[00:52:07.630]and then we break that down
[00:52:08.970]and say this is how many words per utterance a kiddo has.
[00:52:12.300]That tells us what their zone of proximal development is.
[00:52:15.620]Two words, five words, where are they at?
[00:52:18.050]We wanna bring our directions down to their level,
[00:52:21.020]but we also want them to hear us,
[00:52:22.620]so we can do what's called language expansion,
[00:52:24.540]I'll talk about that.
[00:52:26.970]But as you can see, Goldey and Lane talked about
[00:52:30.000]how do we just keep moving on up,
[00:52:31.770]wherever the kids are, we meet them at that.
[00:52:33.810]And we want those growth opportunities over time.
[00:52:37.790]So different evidence-based practices
[00:52:40.450]for our kids with autism.
[00:52:41.830]How can we make things better for them
[00:52:44.770]in their early childhood, birth to five?
[00:52:47.230]So whether our teachers are coming into the home,
[00:52:49.870]or the kids are coming into preschool,
[00:52:51.550]we want structure, routine and visuals.
[00:52:54.230]We know our kids thrive on that and need it
[00:52:57.310]because of the way their brain is wired.
[00:52:59.600]So we want to make sure that we are exposing them
[00:53:02.470]to language through games, through books,
[00:53:05.450]through interactions with peers in preschool,
[00:53:08.290]those opportunities for play skills.
[00:53:10.750]I'll talk through play in a little bit here too
[00:53:13.150]as far as what are the different levels of development?
[00:53:16.420]How do we get kids to the next level?
[00:53:18.950]You'll hear me talk about the book called, "Hear Me Talk."
[00:53:21.634](chuckling) And I love this book
[00:53:23.262]and I used to hand it out to all of private clients,
[00:53:27.510]so that parents had those strategies.
[00:53:29.980]And then adaptive books, as you can see on the right,
[00:53:32.060]just some examples that we use in our preschools
[00:53:34.430]of adaptive books, so that we're making things visual.
[00:53:37.490]We're teaching those what we call language frames
[00:53:39.710]or sentence starters.
[00:53:41.210]A lot of times in preschools,
[00:53:42.770]we'll also use that during snack
[00:53:44.690]where the kids have the pictures.
[00:53:46.430]I want cracker.
[00:53:48.694]We'll talk about that for the first say semester or so,
[00:53:52.340]or even just the first quarter.
[00:53:54.210]And then we can start adding an adjective.
[00:53:56.160]So that next growth.
[00:53:57.840]I want square or round cracker,
[00:54:00.570]build up that language from where they're at
[00:54:02.670]to the next level.
[00:54:03.673]Then eventually we can switch
[00:54:05.040]to asking questions and things.
[00:54:07.240]This autismhelper.com has a plethora of resources
[00:54:12.130]similar to what I'm talking about here
[00:54:13.930]with all the visuals already created,
[00:54:16.400]just lots of amount of information
[00:54:19.060]that would be beneficial to practice with our student.
[00:54:24.464]Okay.
[00:54:26.530]So that "Hear Me Talk" book, like I said,
[00:54:28.900]I absolutely love this.
[00:54:30.800]You can purchase it online.
[00:54:32.130]I think sometimes it comes in bulk copies.
[00:54:36.170]It is from, I believe 2004 or five.
[00:54:41.920]It's a little bit older,
[00:54:42.820]but it's just that natural language strategies that,
[00:54:48.200]it's written by an SLP,
[00:54:51.360]its language stimulation techniques
[00:54:53.410]for children ages one to three,
[00:54:55.630]and it talks through each of these.
[00:54:57.100]So I'll just kind of give you an overview of each of these.
[00:54:59.040]So not anticipating needs or desires.
[00:55:01.800]A lot of times kids are gesturing or pointing at something.
[00:55:05.140]And as an adult, we already know what they want,
[00:55:07.960]but we need to kind of play dumb sometimes
[00:55:10.100]and make them use their words,
[00:55:11.690]or wait them out to say what they want,
[00:55:14.060]or to teach them, oh I see you want cookies.
[00:55:17.370]And you wait and say cookies and label it for them
[00:55:19.610]and wait for them to imitate, or to use a picture.
[00:55:22.830]PECS is a great system,
[00:55:24.360]Picture Exchange Communication System,
[00:55:26.770]is an evidence-based practice for kids with autism
[00:55:29.180]to where they can take the picture
[00:55:31.090]and start that communication with you
[00:55:33.510]rather than us always initiating what they want.
[00:55:37.450]Delaying that response.
[00:55:38.800]So even if they point you may wait them out
[00:55:41.900]and eventually they're gonna use their words,
[00:55:43.970]or their pictures to communicate
[00:55:45.460]rather than just the gestures.
[00:55:48.230]Parent's speech, a lot of times we talk baby talk to kids
[00:55:51.330]that aren't speaking yet or to littles.
[00:55:54.302]And not that you don't,
[00:55:55.410]you can still do that for our littles like babies,
[00:55:58.232]but you also want to talk like they understand.
[00:56:01.510]So even if their understanding is at a certain level
[00:56:04.740]always speak to them as if they understood
[00:56:06.650]everything you said,
[00:56:08.860]no baby talk there.
[00:56:11.030]And then just reading books, like I said before,
[00:56:13.380]reading books, you can learn
[00:56:14.510]so much vocabulary and language
[00:56:16.220]and that enriched environment is what you want for our kids.
[00:56:23.360]Self-talk is when you're talking about what you're doing.
[00:56:26.600]Mom's washing the dishes, I'm cleaning this,
[00:56:29.050]I'm dusting this, whatever you're doing
[00:56:31.480]you're talking through it,
[00:56:32.470]so they're hearing and labeling what you're doing,
[00:56:35.550]so that they're hearing that language more and more of it.
[00:56:38.830]Parallel talk could be talking about what they're doing.
[00:56:41.720]I see you're playing with the car,
[00:56:42.990]you're making it go up the ramp, it's coming back down,
[00:56:46.030]and using that different intonation
[00:56:47.720]as you're talking through
[00:56:48.620]what the child is doing to engage them.
[00:56:52.260]Reinforcement, we're looking at
[00:56:54.240]how we're responding to them.
[00:56:55.917]Are we reinforcing what they're doing,
[00:56:57.880]so that we can increase that even more?
[00:56:59.950]Are we making it a positive experience for our students?
[00:57:05.100]And then echo-expansion modeling.
[00:57:06.820]You're responding to what they're saying if it's one word
[00:57:09.830]and then you're adding to.
[00:57:11.180]They're saying ball, oh, catch the ball.
[00:57:13.720]You're adding to whatever the phrase is or that word is.
[00:57:17.890]And then the expectation, so are you waiting?
[00:57:20.940]Are you giving them choices?
[00:57:22.750]Are you adding to?
[00:57:24.220]Are you making comments?
[00:57:25.690]All those things to expand their language
[00:57:28.530]beyond where they're at.
[00:57:31.920]Okay, so communication through play.
[00:57:35.150]A lot of times we are playing
[00:57:39.270]and thinking that we're just joking around having fun.
[00:57:42.490]This is a picture of my younger son who was 20 months
[00:57:46.840]when we happen to be surprised with twins.
[00:57:48.810]And so he would take this blanket
[00:57:52.350]take it off, playing peekaboo.
[00:57:54.530]Oh my gosh, it entertained the kids for hours.
[00:57:56.510]It was hilarious sometimes to watch him,
[00:57:58.800]he'd sometimes get out of balloon or something
[00:58:01.040]and make it move all over.
[00:58:02.610]And these guys were just watching
[00:58:04.010]what was going on. (chuckling)
[00:58:05.730]So it was helpful a little,
[00:58:07.430]bringing it down to their level,
[00:58:08.880]getting at that play
[00:58:10.130]for whatever the kids need at that level.
[00:58:12.890]I love this video.
[00:58:14.330]I wanna share this with you about a dad
[00:58:17.270]who's just sitting on a couch,
[00:58:19.670]chatting away with his kiddo, so cute.
[00:58:29.522]They need to go for another ride?
[00:58:30.744]Yes.
[00:58:31.622]Yes, okay.
[00:58:34.753]Did you understand it though?
[00:58:36.223]No. No, okay.
[00:58:38.586](kid babbling)
[00:58:40.252]Speak on.
[00:58:41.280](kid babbling)
[00:58:42.113]Oh, not this one, this is one (indistinct)
[00:58:45.481]Okay, that one.
[00:58:46.640]Yeah, it's that one.
[00:58:49.921](babbling) That one.
[00:58:51.412]As (indistinct) I don't know what they did next season,
[00:58:53.560]do they be able to sort this out.
[00:58:55.532](kid babbling)
[00:58:57.742]Exactly what I was saying.
[00:59:00.112](kid babbling)
[00:59:01.530]Oh yeah, yeah.
[00:59:05.062](kid babbling)
[00:59:06.670]Right, don't grant that in, you know what I'm saying?
[00:59:08.685]Nobody's same as that, you know what I'm saying?
[00:59:10.204]Yeah, I think that's good.
[00:59:14.118](kid babbling)
[00:59:15.918]Yeah, that goes somewhere else, don't bring it here,
[00:59:19.174]you know what I'm saying?
[00:59:21.471]Yeah.
[00:59:26.228](kid babbling)
[00:59:27.061]That's what I'm saying (indistinct),
[00:59:29.107]and you don't say anything.
[00:59:30.410]And well, you don't do it here, you know what I'm saying?
[00:59:33.100]Yeah.
[00:59:33.933]Yes. Yeah, yeah.
[00:59:36.877]Look at that (babbling).
[00:59:39.037]Really?
[00:59:40.250]About the same thing.
[00:59:41.210]Same thing. (dad laughing)
[00:59:43.270]We think a bit like, yeah.
[00:59:45.196](babbling) Yeah.
[00:59:47.231](laughing) That's crazy.
[00:59:49.855](kid babbling)
[00:59:52.160]Right.
[00:59:55.420]Isn't that just adorable? (laughing)
[00:59:58.750]You think about that, what our kids are starting to talk
[01:00:02.090]and you just have to just go with what they're saying.
[01:00:05.310]And a lot of times kids will talk
[01:00:07.610]when they hear other adults talking.
[01:00:09.120]And as soon as everybody stops and says,
[01:00:10.820]oh my gosh listen to the kid.
[01:00:12.690]The kid stops talking,
[01:00:13.730]'cause everybody else stopped talking.
[01:00:16.210]So just engaging with the kiddos, like I said,
[01:00:18.380]getting down to their level,
[01:00:19.610]finding out where they're at, that joint attention,
[01:00:22.690]and theory of mind games.
[01:00:23.960]So theory of mind, thinking about what others are thinking,
[01:00:26.630]trying to figure that out.
[01:00:27.670]There's lots of different games that kids can play.
[01:00:30.820]Even like turn-taking that develops into nonverbal,
[01:00:34.280]the nonverbal turns into verbal turn-taking eventually.
[01:00:38.240]So thinking about like memory games, go fish, bingo games,
[01:00:43.380]scavenger hunts in the house,
[01:00:45.220]scavenger hunts in a story book,
[01:00:46.910]let's find the character on this page,
[01:00:50.690]thinking about things that are fun
[01:00:52.610]at home that you can bring in that joint attention
[01:00:55.570]by sharing something with them.
[01:00:57.330]So whether they're wanting to line cars up,
[01:01:00.030]get down there with them and line them up too.
[01:01:03.170]Do what they're doing, build that pattern,
[01:01:05.160]let's build some blocks, or let's put it together.
[01:01:08.030]It's got to have the right pattern, right?
[01:01:09.740]So we're gonna get down on their level
[01:01:11.850]and play at their level, communicate at their level.
[01:01:15.620]We also wanna make things very social.
[01:01:18.000]So these are the different social stages of play,
[01:01:21.580]unoccupied play, where there's no,
[01:01:23.640]it's just random the kiddo is like my two twins here.
[01:01:27.610]Sometimes they'd hit that and rattle would go off
[01:01:29.900]and there's no purpose behind it.
[01:01:32.200]They're just kicking that rattle and it's making a noise.
[01:01:34.570]So they're gonna kick it again.
[01:01:36.200]They've made that neuron connection
[01:01:37.870]to do it again and again,
[01:01:39.410]'cause they know what's gonna happen, it's predicting that.
[01:01:42.780]Solitary play is when children start to play on their own,
[01:01:46.340]but they don't notice the other kids around them.
[01:01:48.170]So it almost looks like just these individual pods of
[01:01:50.937]I'm just playing with what I have right in front of me,
[01:01:53.450]'cause my whole world may be right here
[01:01:55.340]until I start engaging with others.
[01:01:58.940]Then we have onlooker play.
[01:02:01.230]When children are watching other kids play,
[01:02:04.010]they might not be asking to join in.
[01:02:06.320]They're just being observant of what they're doing
[01:02:09.090]and being aware of the world around them.
[01:02:11.610]It starts to grow from right there to more.
[01:02:13.830]Sometimes it doesn't.
[01:02:14.840]Sometimes we have to bring things into their world
[01:02:17.440]and bring those, find that joint attention,
[01:02:20.780]engagement with the kiddo by bringing it to them.
[01:02:24.380]The next level is parallel play
[01:02:26.140]where kids start to play side by side.
[01:02:28.550]They may be playing with the same thing,
[01:02:30.540]but they aren't engaging with one another yet,
[01:02:32.630]they're just doing their own thing side by side
[01:02:35.070]with other kiddos.
[01:02:36.530]And then you have associate play.
[01:02:37.930]When they do start to ask questions of others,
[01:02:40.140]or find out that they have similar goals,
[01:02:42.590]oh, we're both building with the tower,
[01:02:44.740]let's start putting it together.
[01:02:45.930]Teachers, your best little teacher is those peers.
[01:02:49.820]We can have them ask questions,
[01:02:51.960]or have the peers hand them something or ask for something,
[01:02:56.460]so that we start that nonverbal communication
[01:02:59.200]to build up to verbal communication down the road.
[01:03:02.480]And then we have a social play
[01:03:04.720]where kids are starting to share ideas
[01:03:06.860]and sharing that play.
[01:03:08.340]But then there's rules to the play.
[01:03:10.290]Not that it's ever stated,
[01:03:12.400]but we have to teach those rules
[01:03:13.900]to our students on the spectrum
[01:03:15.610]and what those guidelines are,
[01:03:16.820]because it's not always stated.
[01:03:19.030]A lot of times kids are just figuring it out
[01:03:21.200]as they're playing and learning through play.
[01:03:25.410]So let them have fun.
[01:03:27.390]Let them engage in different activities.
[01:03:29.580]How do you bring in language and literacy
[01:03:32.030]into what you're already doing?
[01:03:33.690]So here you see my kiddos playing doctor.
[01:03:35.930]I could be labeling what they're doing.
[01:03:38.150]I could be asking the questions.
[01:03:40.340]I used to get out a pencil and a paper,
[01:03:42.350]a little note pad and let them write,
[01:03:44.120]I tell me like they're writing a prescription.
[01:03:46.490]You see them on the right hand side
[01:03:48.240]doing construction, building stuff,
[01:03:50.090]but he's writing things down too.
[01:03:52.260]It was usually just like little scribbles,
[01:03:54.410]that's all it was.
[01:03:55.590]But it was exposure to that literacy,
[01:03:57.650]to that writing down the road.
[01:03:59.700]Same thing with painting,
[01:04:01.210]take them outside let them do sidewalk chalk, paint.
[01:04:04.020]It's all gonna wash away.
[01:04:05.490]Not a big deal, and let them make a mess.
[01:04:07.230]The more they make a mess, then more they have fun,
[01:04:10.360]the more they're gonna learn.
[01:04:11.940]You see, I let them use to display
[01:04:13.690]on the side of the fridge, all of their work.
[01:04:16.310]They're proud of that.
[01:04:17.600]They see what they're making and engaging,
[01:04:20.730]whether it's a scribble or it's a dot who cares,
[01:04:24.090]they're engaged and they're having fun.
[01:04:26.120]So it's getting down to their level and finding out
[01:04:28.490]what they're interested in and building from there.
[01:04:31.460]Sometimes I think it's so hard for us as adults to play.
[01:04:34.780]My daughter recently, like I said, she's nine.
[01:04:37.930]And she asked me to play Barbies.
[01:04:39.770]I'm like, do we have to? (laughing)
[01:04:42.680]I've got so much work to do.
[01:04:44.270]And the house is a mess,
[01:04:45.310]but sitting down and playing with her,
[01:04:47.560]like I used to play Barbies all the time,
[01:04:49.150]but trying to get her to engage to other things
[01:04:53.120]was really interesting
[01:04:55.110]to get down on the kiddos level,
[01:04:57.140]play with what they're interested in
[01:04:58.500]and try to find that inner child in you.
[01:05:01.350]I think sometimes as parents,
[01:05:02.750]we're so rigid in what we know we have to get done
[01:05:05.777]and our stress is so high.
[01:05:08.520]Once we get to be grandparents,
[01:05:10.400]that kinda goes to the wayside of, hey, we can just play
[01:05:13.300]and send them home to parents, right?
[01:05:14.620]We don't have to worry about all the stress and stuff.
[01:05:16.300]So sometimes I think we need to think like grandparents do
[01:05:18.890]and just get in there and play, have fun with it,
[01:05:23.270]follow the child's interests.
[01:05:24.770]Is it "Thomas the Train" like I said,
[01:05:27.590]get in there and line things up with them.
[01:05:30.500]I had a private practice client
[01:05:32.840]who one of his very first words was train.
[01:05:36.400]We were down there and we were always
[01:05:37.810]just doing the same motion and using that same word
[01:05:40.140]over and over again with him.
[01:05:42.450]So just get into their world and get down to their level.
[01:05:47.570]Okay, so these are some evidence-based practice,
[01:05:50.190]more for like elementary.
[01:05:52.110]Some of our preschools use Lively Letters,
[01:05:55.160]which I'll talk about, but mainly these are for elementary.
[01:05:58.530]They're evidence-based practices
[01:06:00.330]with lots of research behind them.
[01:06:02.020]So again, it's imperative to have that structure,
[01:06:05.760]the routine, the visuals.
[01:06:07.610]We can build in those language frames up here,
[01:06:09.443]what you're gonna say to give them the words to get started.
[01:06:13.700]Story grammar marker, that's what this one is up here
[01:06:16.260]at the top, the purple background and the little guy,
[01:06:19.560]there's so much to this.
[01:06:20.690]So it's a little character Pum Pum
[01:06:22.640]with the star setting, the kickoff of bed,
[01:06:24.900]the heart for the feelings,
[01:06:26.010]and that's your beginning of the story.
[01:06:27.810]Then you've got all these beads
[01:06:29.250]to tell the details of the story,
[01:06:31.300]and then you tie it all together at the end
[01:06:33.230]and then we tell the feeling.
[01:06:34.290]So it's, here's the story,
[01:06:36.260]how do I do an oral narrative,
[01:06:38.050]retell by using these visual, tactile cues,
[01:06:41.060]very, very intentional.
[01:06:42.700]It also can help with writing.
[01:06:44.870]So I have those same visual cues
[01:06:47.570]and I can write things out
[01:06:48.780]before I go to tell a whole story.
[01:06:51.450]So I may just write one word for a character,
[01:06:53.177]and one word for the setting.
[01:06:54.930]Eventually, if I can get to writing sentences more,
[01:06:58.160]then I can build from there.
[01:07:00.250]Story grammar marker, wonderful resource.
[01:07:02.680]Hearbuilder, you'll see in the middle here
[01:07:05.310]they've got some free online
[01:07:08.350]and I got all the resources at the end
[01:07:10.110]for you with the links.
[01:07:11.630]But hearbuilder has following directions,
[01:07:15.620]phonological awareness, auditory, memory, and sequencing.
[01:07:19.150]So kids can go on and play a game and they're learning
[01:07:22.870]here's how to sequence the cards.
[01:07:24.400]What's first, next,
[01:07:25.530]then what is that phonological awareness?
[01:07:28.170]If I follow directions, I get to the next level.
[01:07:30.290]So it's building in language
[01:07:32.250]through different activities online.
[01:07:35.390]Story champs is in that at the upper right-hand corner.
[01:07:38.070]Again, it has those visual, tactile cues
[01:07:40.690]to tell and model a story, an all narrative retell.
[01:07:45.560]So being able to read the story
[01:07:47.890]and then go back and look at the picture.
[01:07:49.720]Sometimes we have so much in a picture
[01:07:52.610]that it's hard for a kiddo to distinguish
[01:07:55.300]and narrow that down to those choices.
[01:07:57.730]But that's what this one does,
[01:07:58.980]absolutely loved using that with kiddos.
[01:08:01.780]And then on the bottom,
[01:08:02.613]you'll see the two that are from TLC,
[01:08:04.700]reading what TLC Lively Letters and Sight Words you can see.
[01:08:08.130]And as I said, Lively Letters I absolutely love,
[01:08:11.150]I've become a trainer for them
[01:08:14.090]and train a lot of around our district in the Omaha area.
[01:08:18.410]It has a multisensory approach.
[01:08:22.180]So it has a visual embedded within the letter.
[01:08:25.470]So you can very quickly move from the visual with the letter
[01:08:28.510]to just a plain letter.
[01:08:29.870]It has a specific scope and sequence,
[01:08:32.060]same as speech starting with the P and B,
[01:08:34.490]which is what kids are babbling
[01:08:36.050]when they first started talking.
[01:08:37.800]So it has, as SLPs will understand, that cognate pair.
[01:08:40.780]So one's voice and one's voiceless,
[01:08:43.330]teaches those in a very sequential manner.
[01:08:45.840]It also has hand cues for each of the sounds.
[01:08:50.300]It has a story that goes around each of the sounds,
[01:08:53.520]so that the kids are learning the sound first
[01:08:56.240]and then the letter.
[01:08:57.073]And if you look at what's in text,
[01:09:00.150]we usually teach capital letters A through Z
[01:09:03.220]and it's only 6% of our text is capital letters.
[01:09:07.070]We really need to be starting with lowercase
[01:09:09.510]at that sound level rather than the sequence of A through Z.
[01:09:15.100]And then Sight Words you can see work the same way
[01:09:17.790]where it's a whole word, but it has a story and a visual
[01:09:21.770]to be paired with that word.
[01:09:23.350]So our kids are understanding that whole word
[01:09:25.727]and what it really is and how they can be aware
[01:09:29.570]of those words that are in the text as well.
[01:09:32.440]And then morphology, I kind of talked about before,
[01:09:34.960]and I'll talk about that on another slide here coming up
[01:09:37.370]as far as breaking down those more complex words.
[01:09:40.690]So with prefixes, suffixes, how do they understand
[01:09:44.620]that just because I changed the ending
[01:09:46.290]it went from a noun to a verb.
[01:09:48.790]And TLC has a whole training on morphology too.
[01:09:53.440]They do have lots of free trainings
[01:09:55.320]and lots of free resources online.
[01:09:58.288]And then the next one is language processing hierarchy.
[01:10:01.700]So thinking about from the bottom up,
[01:10:05.710]our kiddos are very concrete.
[01:10:08.190]They are learning through labeling things
[01:10:11.060]that are very visual.
[01:10:12.640]Then we can build on the basics
[01:10:14.140]to higher language and higher cognition,
[01:10:16.950]but we can use different things like functions
[01:10:20.250]and how to make those connections.
[01:10:21.750]So think about using vocabulary
[01:10:25.280]that's around holidays, or around seasons.
[01:10:27.850]How do we build that labeling up to
[01:10:31.200]throughout the year of different things?
[01:10:33.170]And then how do we start bringing in the function of things
[01:10:36.650]and identifying functions, associations, categories?
[01:10:40.200]Those three kind of, SLPs will know they kinda go together
[01:10:43.480]when you're thinking higher level language,
[01:10:45.910]or next steps beyond just labeling.
[01:10:49.101]And when it comes to categories,
[01:10:50.590]you have synonyms, antonyms, different concepts.
[01:10:53.450]So think about how, I talked about earlier,
[01:10:55.490]our brain is processing like the World Wide Web
[01:10:58.880]and putting things in folders and categorizing things,
[01:11:02.740]making sense of the world around us.
[01:11:05.460]Then looking at things that are similar and different,
[01:11:07.540]we can go very basic.
[01:11:09.280]This one does have red and this one doesn't.
[01:11:11.910]Or we can go very complex,
[01:11:13.407]within a story what is similar and what is different?
[01:11:16.710]We have lots of words that have multiple meanings,
[01:11:19.470]and I think it's best to teach these with a visual.
[01:11:22.730]So I had some cards I would use in speech therapy
[01:11:25.720]and be able to teach the difference between bear and bare,
[01:11:29.070]or sale and sail.
[01:11:30.770]All those other things that had more than one meaning,
[01:11:34.670]or were homophones and stuff like that,
[01:11:37.130]those words had to be taught as well,
[01:11:39.550]but within context or with pictures.
[01:11:41.990]Same with idioms, I would put up at our school posters
[01:11:46.390]that I had bought that had the explanation of the idiom.
[01:11:49.800]So it's raining cats and dogs,
[01:11:51.200]it doesn't really mean cats and dogs
[01:11:52.580]are falling out of the sky,
[01:11:54.020]it just means it's raining really hard.
[01:11:56.260]So that visual of what you're thinking,
[01:11:59.160]if it's black and white to you
[01:12:00.370]and what it really means when,
[01:12:02.240]and you think about the English language,
[01:12:03.660]we are so complex with our language.
[01:12:06.620]And then getting to analogies too,
[01:12:08.310]we are using those constantly.
[01:12:10.350]And I think sometimes talking over our students
[01:12:12.820]that it makes it difficult for them to understand.
[01:12:16.270]Okay, so I'll get to parts of speech.
[01:12:19.700]I want to start with the cinnamon,
[01:12:21.160]whenever you are teaching synonyms and antonyms,
[01:12:24.060]sometimes the kids are like cinnamon?
[01:12:26.130]Did you say cinnamon? (chuckling)
[01:12:27.580]So I like to tie in sign language to everything I do.
[01:12:31.350]Synonym, this is the sign for same,
[01:12:34.430]if you put your two fingers together, same.
[01:12:37.250]So I'll say synonym and then I'll do antonym, opposite.
[01:12:42.170]Just saying in that funny way
[01:12:43.860]helps kids remember synonym, antonym.
[01:12:47.840]They hear that, and then they remember
[01:12:49.730]that visual tactile cue and they're able to understand
[01:12:52.240]synonym means the same, antonym means opposite.
[01:12:56.000]And also do funny little things like a cheer for morphology.
[01:13:00.770]So I teach this, never was a cheerleader,
[01:13:04.340]so I will teach them prefixes and suffixes in this way.
[01:13:08.440]Prefix is go before, suffix is go after the root word,
[01:13:14.220]the root word.
[01:13:16.130]Prefix is go before, suffix is go after the root word.
[01:13:21.180]Now you think it's silly and it's funny,
[01:13:23.400]but you're gonna remember that
[01:13:24.350]next time somebody says prefix and suffix, I'm sure.
[01:13:28.260]With kiddos, they are very visual.
[01:13:30.880]They need color coding.
[01:13:32.160]They need pictures to help make that connection.
[01:13:35.050]Sometimes we'll use thinking maps, wh question organizers,
[01:13:39.490]story maps, Venn diagrams, character maps, things like that.
[01:13:44.730]Even just vocabulary, looking things up
[01:13:47.620]and planning it off helps too.
[01:13:50.100]So with the parts of speech, the way I teach this is
[01:13:52.900]a noun is a person, place or thing,
[01:13:54.780]so we make a box like this
[01:13:56.670]and we pretend to take a picture
[01:13:58.290]of people, places and things around the room or in pictures.
[01:14:03.240]So a noun we put a box around.
[01:14:05.460]Then I skip over to verb, waving shows action.
[01:14:08.490]So we put a wavy line under the verb.
[01:14:10.600]And if I come to a word and they say is this a verb?
[01:14:13.810]I'll say, well, can you do it?
[01:14:15.480]Can you run, can you jump, can you hop?
[01:14:17.270]Yes, if it's something else I'm gonna say, can you chair?
[01:14:21.190]Nope, that's not a verb, okay?
[01:14:23.530]But then you also have to teach those
[01:14:24.810]helping and linking verbs.
[01:14:26.400]And sometimes just memorizing those little words
[01:14:28.550]is easier to do.
[01:14:31.040]Then when it comes to pronouns,
[01:14:33.010]So thinking about that now, we draw a picture of a cloud.
[01:14:37.270]I'm thinking of Mrs. Krause,
[01:14:40.830]but I'm gonna use she instead of saying
[01:14:43.700]Mrs.Krause's like this, Mrs. Krause does this,
[01:14:46.050]Mrs. Krause, you get sick of hearing the name over and over.
[01:14:48.660]So we're gonna use that pronoun.
[01:14:49.950]We're still thinking about that person, place or thing,
[01:14:53.500]we're just using a different word in place,
[01:14:55.650]he, she, they, all those words.
[01:14:58.080]When it comes to adjectives then we circle that
[01:15:00.860]and we draw an arrow to the noun,
[01:15:02.420]'cause it's what is it describing?
[01:15:04.100]What are we telling about?
[01:15:05.740]And I'll play the game ice by with them with that one.
[01:15:08.860]With adverbs, same type of thing, we circle it.
[01:15:11.530]We draw a line to the verb.
[01:15:12.560]It has verb in it.
[01:15:14.480]How am I running?
[01:15:15.470]How am I jumping?
[01:15:16.330]How am I doing all these things?
[01:15:18.090]And they typically end in ly
[01:15:19.680]and answer those questions that are on there.
[01:15:22.170]Article is a triangle, there's three of them.
[01:15:25.010]They're adjectives A and the,
[01:15:28.310]one letter, two letters, three letters, A and the,
[01:15:30.890]triangle for articles.
[01:15:32.856]Conjunction, we make two fists
[01:15:36.420]and we pretend to put glue in the middle.
[01:15:38.290]That's our big fat glue dot
[01:15:40.210]that's holding two nouns, two verbs,
[01:15:42.810]two whole sentences together and two phrases together.
[01:15:45.890]Preposition, we make brackets around that
[01:15:49.610]and we're adding to the sentence to give more description.
[01:15:52.630]She's under the table, next to the dog, in the kitchen.
[01:15:58.200]So you're adding two to describe what's going on.
[01:16:01.660]And then interjection just that apostrophe
[01:16:04.160]showing things with excitement.
[01:16:08.860]All right, I'm gonna pause for questions.
[01:16:11.560]At the end of here, I do have my link for my email
[01:16:15.480]if you have any questions after this talk.
[01:16:18.110]And then I also have on the last slide,
[01:16:19.670]all of the resources.
[01:16:20.870]So thank you so much for your time today.
[01:16:23.190]I hope everybody had fun and they took some things back
[01:16:27.210]that they can use with their kiddos.
[01:16:29.250]And thank you guys for everything that you do.
[01:16:32.170]Have a great day.

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Blueprints for Language and Literacy Strategies

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