Inferencing & Dinosaurs {product reviews}

When I was cruising the Super Duper Inc. website last month, I was looking for items that fit the needs of many of my clients and products the target multiple goals. The two items I'm reviewing today, do just that! Let's start with the Webber Inference Big Deck

Each of the cards includes a 3-5 sentences story and 6 accompanying questions. The cards target associations, setting, part-whole, what happened? and predicting. I start each activity by having the student just make observations about the image before reading the story and asking questions.

The cards include 100 different images. I love that there are photos, because I can use the cards for other goals as well. I'm always looking for activities that target multiple goals. Specifically I used the settings cards in this packet to work on social pragmatic skills. I pulled out a card and asked my upper elementary social group to brian storm and act out some situations that might happen. For example, one girl used the baseball card above to initiate a situation where she 'struck out' and how her team makes could make her feel better. 

This item is available for $24.95. 

The other item I reviewed is the Auditory Memory for Dinosaurs & More cards.

So very many of my second - fifth graders need work on listening and reading comprehension. These cards are perfect for that because they allow me to work on the skills using an interesting topic and in short passages.

The cards included are divided into two different classification (general info and specific dinosaur info). I love using these auditory memory cards for articulation (reading) and fluency as well! 

The cards are currently available for $12.95. 

Do you have any favorite new therapy materials? What's on your wishlist?

Grab your shopping ads!

Many of my students this year have been working on auditory comprehension skills. They are working on listening to paragraphs and other short snippits of information, and then recalling the information, identifying key details, sequencing information and making inferences. As academic content becomes more difficult, many of my students with language disorders have difficulty with these auditory comprehension skills, impacting their success in the classroom.

My students were getting pretty good at completing these questions with my standard short stories and follow up questions. This week I decided to see how well they are transferring those skills!

This is where it's time to grab your Sunday paper ads! I had Target, Giant Eagle and Meijer.

I wrote this little short story up about a lady running errands. She had 3 days worth of activities to buy items for. The student's needed to listen to the activities, and then look through the ads and develop a shopping list. For example if Mrs. Baker needs to do the laundry, dishes and vacuum. She probably needs to make sure she has laundry detergent and dish soap. The kids had to recall the errands and chores and then make inferences about what she might need. It was a great activity to work on pulling out the key details presented.


To follow up we compared our shopping lists. Students worked on some social skills, such as persuasion  and negotiation to decide on a single list of appropriate items for the group.

This is the printable I used for each student. As always in my room. Activities need to be flexible for all different groups! Here are 5 more ways I used the ads:

1. Students searched for items with their articulation sound
2. Find items that fit into a category (ie: electronics, vegetables, etc.)
3. Find items with a certain attribute (ie: noisy, spicy, etc.)
4. Find two things you would like to buy. Compare and contrast them.
5. Find an item. Give your neighbor clues, until they guess what you have on your wish list!

Grab your printables here!
Story Example
Worksheet


What other ways can we use these ads? Thoughts?

Winter Inferencing

This post is courtesy of my good friend Jamie Cooley!  Jamie is in her CF year in the schools in Ohio. She rocks as an SLP and as a friend too :) She made this print and go winter inferencing activity!

Jamie said that she usually cuts them  apart and puts all the clues into an envelope. Then she hands each kid a clue to read. They highlight the important part of each clue and then use what they already know plus the clues to figure out the answer in the envelope!


Grab Jamie's freebie HERE!!





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Using Comics for Inferences

Several of my 4th and 5th graders are working on inferences. We started with this inferencing poster. We talked all about how we use inferences in everyday life. We role played some skits to work on social inferencing and now we've moved on to using comics!

These comics are great because they are short. They deal with a lot of pictures and they engage the kids. I'm finding them to be a good step before actually working on inferencing from paragraphs or book (which give don't provide the visuals). Although we're explicitly working on inferencing, these activities also work on cause/effect, prediction, sequencing and figurative language. We also throw in some explanations of the humor for my students on the autism spectrum in the group.

To use the comics, I start by modeling the steps several times. I model my thinking for each step. Even with modeling, it's a pretty difficult skill for language disordered kiddos.

The comics in your download are displayed twice. On one comic strip, a speech bubble is blocked off. Print both copies and glue them back to back before laminating. Instruct your student to  read the comic  and make an inference (using context clues and their schema) about what the comic could say. After they take a guess and the group discusses, flip the comic over to see the full original version.


Pick up your copy HERE.


If you use this activity, pass is along to a colleague, become a follower and leave a comment.