Therapy Activities

Students with language processing goals at Prairieview and Lakeview continue to practice applying comprehension strategies that have been introduced this month during therapy sessions. Third grade learners began listening lab activities on the computer to practice visualizing and following directions. They listened to instructions and drew pictures of what was described. Other students are reviewing grammar concepts and forming appropriate sentences with target sentence structtures. Fourth and fifth graders continue to utilize vocabulary strategies to infer meanings of unfamiliar words in reading passages. They use context cues to think of synonyms, apply the cloze (fill in the blank) strategy, analyze root words, and define new vocabulary.

Seventh graders at Lakeview were introduced to "Fix It" strategies to use when they do not comprehend what they are reading. They read an allegory related to the American Revolution and discussed the underlying meaning of the poem. These students continue to work on written language skills as they answer essay questions about the reading selection.

Finally, Mrs. DeYoung's articulation groups have reviewed story-telling skills and have been reading aloud from picture books to practice reading with expression and clear speech.

Strategic Learning

This week Prairieview speech/language students tried some different strategies for listening, reading, and comprehending. Third graders were introduced to visualization thru "picture stories." They listened to a short narrative read aloud to them and then helped Mrs. DeYoung to construct illustrations of the story. Students had to focus on descriptive details such as spatial words and size concepts to form accurate pictures and be able to draw conclusions. (This required some of the children to learn new vocabulary concepts.) Students were able to summarize the narrative, make predictions, and answer comprehension questions using this strategy. Next week they will continue to use the "picture story" strategy more independently.

Fourth and fifth grade students are reviewing ways to infer meaning of unfamiliar words while reading. They used context clues to understand vocabulary with multiple definitions and identified root words, prefixes, and suffixes to decifer unknown words. Students were also able to use their background knowledge of the topic to infer meaning. While Mrs. DeYoung focused on vocabulary comprehension, the children also were given practice in writing definitions in their own words. For future sessions, students will be encoouraged to explain meanings and to use new words appropriately.