Wrapping Up Written Narration of One Chapter

Foreword!

Pamela is a paradox! She can read and somewhat understand books at a 5th/6th grade level of reading. She may not "get" every little nuance, but she understands enough to make reading at that level worth her while. (Think about how Helen Keller delighted in reading books above her head, but within reach). So, we are reading Miracles on Maple Hill plus some history plus some other pleasure books, all at about that level to practice oral narration. The purpose of the graphic organizers is to scaffold Pamela in organizing material and typing narrations for Miracles on Maple Hill and some history readings (a post for another day).

The purpose of the "impertinent" questions and answers I do during readings, which are not part of a typical Charlotte Mason philosophy, is to practice syntax in Pamela's speech therapy program. She has syntactic aphasia, so her expressive language is probably at a 1st/2nd grade level. The Reading Milestones primers (not the workbooks) are PERFECT for speech therapy ala the association method because they are syntax controlled. She does not need vocabulary-controlled primers; like deaf children, she needs syntax-controlled ones for acquiring correct syntax.

Finally!

Last year, I attended a talk by Jennifer Spencer in which she explained her thesis for her master's degree about retelling. She recommended using graphic organizers to help children organize their thoughts before writing. Jennifer did another presentation called "Developmentally Appropriate Use of Narration." I was disappointed to miss it because we presented at the same time. From what I understand she discussed graphic organizers in greater detail. ChildLightUSA just posted the audio file for the one I missed.

This series of posts cover blending Charlotte Mason, the association method, and Relationship Development Intervention with reading, orally narrating, graphic organizers, syntax practice, and writing. I have spent almost a month for me to digest and record it. I have described how we worked through Chapter 3 of Miracles on Maple Hill. The last post covers how we organize the graphic organizers and type a written narration. If you are a new reader, the following links takes you through what I have already covered!

Before a Reading:
Prediction

Asking Questions

During a Reading:
Setting




Answering Questions

Collecting Information

Before a Typed Narration:
Before I sat down with Pamela, I organized all of the graphic organizers and made two main idea/details concept webs with the diagram feature of Microsoft Word. Because the story introduced only one new character, I did not make a concept web for that. I guided Pamela in filling out these webs from memory. I avoid letting her review the graphic organizers because I want to spotlight relying on memory of earlier readings. After we completed the setting concept web, she typed up her written narration. She did not review the graphic organizers before or during the typed narration.


Setting:


Mice:


Fritz:


Pamela's Typed Narration
(No Corrections):

The downstairs had the kitchen, and dining room. The upstairs had three bedrooms. Outside had some trees, grass, and melted snow.

The kitchen had a bath. It had some some chairs. It had a table. It had a drawer with spoons, folks, and knives. It had some dishes.

Bedroom had some pillows. It had some blankets. It had some window. It had some doors. It had some floors with walls.

The mice are dirty, and ugly. The mice feel bad. The mice had some old noses, dirty bodies, short tails, and short ears. The mice made a mess. It made squeaks.

Dad wanted to get rid of the mice. Marley kept the mice. The mice are crawling in the house. The mice had some babies.

Friz is a man. He had some children. They drove to the sugar camp. The suger camp is pretty. It had some hot pots. It had some syrups. It had some trees, too. It had some snow. They feel happy.

Prediction Graphic Organizers--Homegrown and Otherwise!

Happy Tenth Birthday, Hannah!!! (Hannah's mom Sonya is the Charlotte Mason momma who's website first got me interested in RDI.)

Yesterday, I promised to share how we do predictions in a story. Before reading the next chapter of a book, we recall any dangling problems. We fill out a prediction graphic organizer like the one below. The video clip shows Pamela and I discussing the problem that came to light in Chapter 3 of Miracles on Maple Hill and filling out the sheet:




Chapter 4 held the answer to the problem, posted below in case you lost sleep over Marly's poor mice!


Sometimes, the problem occurs in the middle of the reading. If it is an over-arching problem, I hold off filling out the sheet until the next chapter because I can lead off the chapter with the unsolved problem. I also preview the chapter in the morning to figure out what graphic organizers to use. Today, I realized the first three pages of Chapter 5 had four separate little problems (more like daily annoyances). Pamela ended up filling out the following four organizers and we worked on sorting relevant versus irrelevant information.


For every story in the Reading Milestones primers, I have Pamela make a prediction for every single story in the book before she ever cracks the book open. She spends the first day of a new primer identifying potential problems and solutions for all six stories. I make up the graphic organizer show below in Excel. We read one story per day, and, at the end of a story, she records the actual problem and solution and assesses her prediction.

Hearing Journey Bunny Story

Random Thoughts:

• Thanks to Queen Mum, we might be receiving some money for RDI therapy! See if you have any missing money!
• David's youth group made the paper for fixing up the trailer of a needy elderly lady in town: picture and story. Somehow, David evaded the reporter, but I told him to keep Matthew 6:1-4 in mind!
• I cracked up reading Thurber's opinion of Freud in one of our AmblesideOnline--which has a new look--books The Thurber Carnival. If I post the title of the essay, I might lose my blog's G-rating, so you can read the chapter here!
• My fingers are tired from crocheting some baby surprises for friends with child. My niece is due on November 11, but we are not sure what that makes me. I am her aunt, but I have no idea what that makes me to her child.
• Two exciting movies are coming soon: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and Prince Caspian!
• Yesterday, Pamela and I sat on our sunny, delightful back porch rockers, doing school work. We loved seeing all of our feathered friends in action: a brilliant male Northern Cardinal, Northern Mockingbird, a House Finch husband and wife team at the bird bath, two feisty Bluejays, a flock of Chipping Sparrows, noisy American Crows, Common Grackles galore, and a Carolina Wren (FINALLY).
• Pamela's latest self-imposed research project is on time zones. She is learning all of the time zones of all fifty states. She does understand what they mean, too!

Back to the Bunny Story:
Awhile back, my friend Queen Mum told me about Hearing Journey, a website for people with cochlear implants that provides free weekly and monthly activities. I have gotten so much mileage. While I rarely use the resources as suggested, I definitely find them useful. One of our favorite activities the site posts in the preschool section from time to time are wordless books. I cut them up into cards, and we flip through the cards. Before showing her one card, we play a guessing game until she guesses the topics. I usually give her a couple of clues. Then, I show her the first card, which she narrates. Before flipping to the next card, she has to guess what might happen next. Every book has six pages.

Before Easter, we read a story about a bunny. I posted a picture here because the activity is no longer available (TIP: Download the ones with potential so you can do them when time permits). The funny thing was Pamela thought the bunny had injured its foot and needed to see a doctor. She did not realize until near the end that the bunny's foot was dirty. I am including a video clip per page because we both enjoyed this experience with many wonderfully warm moments. If your time is limited, page four was the highlight, heart-warming, tissue moment for me!

Page 1 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 2 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 3 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 4 of the Wordless Bunny Book
My Numero Uno Favorite Clip!!!!!


Page 5 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 6 of the Wordless Bunny Book

How Do You See Your Business IQ?

Is a high business IQ in your genes or is it more about developing new skills and growing in several areas? Watch a charasmatic leader in action, and you'll often hear the comment, "She's a born leader." On the other hand, more than a few leaders work up the ladder, earn management degrees and try things on for size as they take new risks in the business world. Do you ever make comparisons and wish you were more of a "natural?"

Business IQ Can Be Developed Good news is that people who believe their IQ can be developed will put forth more of an effort to grow new skills and acumen and view setbacks as stepping stones to more positive results. Mindset guides us more than we may realize. If you believe you can learn and grow, here's why it pays off...

People believe that their talents and abilities can be developed through passion, education, and persistence. For them, it's not about looking smart or grooming their image. It's about a commitment to learning--taking informed risks and learning from the results, surrounding yourself with people who will challenge you to grow, looking frankly at your deficiencies and seeking to remedy them. Most great business leaders have had this mindset, because building and maintaining excellent organizations in the face of constant change requires it.

Business IQ Is Natural Talent If you believe business intellgence is fixed, then you might experience a decline in leadership savvy as you attempt to solve new problems or take financial risks. Carol, Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success provides a bigger picture of how beliefs can limit your growth as a leader...

Many years of research have now shown that when people adopt the fixed mindset, it can limit their success. They become over-concerned with proving their talents and abilities, hiding deficiencies, and reacting defensively to mistakes or setbacks-because deficiencies and mistakes imply a (permanent) lack of talent or ability. People in this mindset will actually pass up important opportunities to learn and grow if there is a risk of unmasking weaknesses. This is not a recipe for success in business, as ultimately shown by the folks at Enron, who rarely admitted any mistakes.

Differences in leaders' beliefs about IQ can be observed in ways they select personnel, for instance...

Many people (in a fixed mindset) think that personnel selection is simply about selecting the brightest people and turning them loose. Yet years of research have shown that we are not good at predicting future success on the basis of current assessments of talent. In other words, we can measure people's present skills, aptitudes, and strengths, but this does not translate well into their future performance. Why? Because it doesn't tell us about people's potential for growth in the future-how they might perform with the right commitment, effort, and training. In fact, more and more research is showing that people's level of commitment, effort, and continued training is what eventually separates the most successful people from their equally talented, but less successful, peers. This is true in sports, science, and the arts-and it is becoming clear that it is true in business, too.

This means that the best strategy is not simply to hire the ablest people we can find, but also to look for people who embody a growth mindset: a zest for learning (and teaching), openness to feedback, and an ability to confront and surmount obstacles.It also means training leaders and managers to believe in growth, in addition to training them in the specifics of effective communication and mentoring.

Ready to act on a new mindset today? New research about the brain provides even more tools to grow our business intelligence.

Collecting Information

I am trying to be complete in my coverage of Pamela's reading, oral narration, graphic organizers, and written narration of Chapter 3 of Miracles on Maple Hill. Here is a quick recap: before reading one word from this chapter, we reviewed and recalled earlier readings by having Pamela ask her own questions. Then, we did our typical language arts cycle and Pamela filled out some setting sheets.

In this session, Pamela started off by working on another graphic organizer for setting, pictured below and covered in the video clip below the picture. Earlier in this session, we reviewed and recalled the previous reading. I edited out the redirection I gave Pamela because I posted it elsewhere. Out of thirty minutes of recording, I spent three minutes redirecting her. She rarely does this and I think two things threw her off: (1) her dad worked at home that day and (2) he spent about ten minutes drumming (yes, rock and roll band drums) at the other end of the house!




Then, we transitioned to a fact sheet about mice, pictured below and shown in the recording below that.

What to Do BEFORE a Reading

We're back from a busy week, and I hope to wrap up the stuff I have on graphic organizers and narration. Today, Nicole Beurkens let me know that the Horizons Developmental Remediation Center will make a donation to the RDI Scholarship fund for every person who signs up to receive their free weekly email newsletter. I can't argue with free and supporting a good cause!

Charlotte Mason recommended recalling the previous reading to get into a new reading. She said, "Let each new lesson be so interlaced with the last that the one must recall the other; that again, recalls the one before it, and so on to the beginning" (page 158). Research on learning confirms this because the brain has a better chance of storing new information (unknown) by linking to already stored information (known). She explained what to do before every reading,

In every case the reading should be consecutive from a well-chosen book. Before the reading for the day begins, the teacher should talk a little (and get the children to talk) about the last lesson, with a few words about what is to be read, in order that the children may be animated by expectation; but she should beware of explanation and, especially, of forestalling the narrative (pages 232-233).

In an earlier post, Pamela filled out a graphic organizer that encouraged her to reflect upon the reading and ask herself questions. This is another way to help link a previous reading to the next section. The picture below shows what she wrote and the video clip shows how we did it.



Answering Her Own Question

Brand Logos Powerfully Influence Your Thinking

Marketers hit the bull's eye when they advise folks to select a logo with much thought. Here's why... "even the briefest exposure to the Apple logo may make you behave more creatively," according to an article just published in the Journal of Consumer Research. Interestingly, even the briefest exposure to well-known brand logos can cause people to behave in ways that mirror those brands’ traits.

“Each of us is exposed to thousands of brand images every day, most of which are not related to paid advertising,” explains Gavan Fitzsimons, Duke University Researcher. “We assume that incidental brand exposures do not affect us, but our work demonstrates that even fleeting glimpses of logos can affect us quite dramatically.”

Can you see implications this has for your marketing? Here's what the researchers suggest:

“Instead of spending the majority of their money on traditional print and television advertising, companies with established brand associations such as Apple may want to give serious consideration to shifting more marketing resources to product placement opportunities and other forms of outreach that emphasize brief brand exposures,” Gavan Fitzsimons said.

And consumers should be aware that they are susceptible to influences they may not detect and use this knowledge to their advantage. “If you know you need to perform well on some task, say something athletic, you may want to surround yourself with images and brand logos that represent success in athletics,” Gráinne Fitzsimons said.

Knowing how even a brief glimpse powerfully influences the mind, what might you do differently with your own brand logo?