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Bunch of nothing, or the syntax saga continues


PeterPan
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So we FINALLY finished https://www.linguisystems.com/Products/33809E/spotlight-on-grammar-compound-and-complex-sentences-ebook.aspx  today. We had a little more in the adjectives/adverbs book from the series, but honestly we were just hitting walls. I think he didn't have the language in there to come out for the adverbs. They were wanting pages of adverbs to go with verbs and we needed to go another direction for a while.

Anyways, now that he's had a *dip* into subordinate clauses and complex sentences, I'm digging around my stuff, trying to figure out how to continue. I found some interesting chapters in https://www.linguisystems.com/Products/31005/100-grammar.aspx  and we have a bunch undone in https://www.linguisystems.com/Products/31609/handbook-of-exercises-for-language-processing-help-for-grammar.aspx  The 100% Grammar book is more in depth on the clauses, exploring how they function. It also has a section on verbals (gerunds, infinitives, etc.) which should be good.

I was kind of thinking about this though and whacking myself. Isn't it kind of weird that the things we're doing for grammar here using SLP materials are WAY above grade level for what would be *required* for a grade level grammar text? Yet if you actually try to READ anything from those grade levels, they would require comprehension of syntax that is not being taught! So my lower lexile books are not going to completely skip relative clauses (that clauses) just because they don't get formally taught till 6th, kwim?

Are we to assume they are assuming the dc is naturally acquiring language through exposure and then gets into the grade level and is ready to do exercises on it?

For my ds, I can't say he acquires syntax that way. The explicit instruction in the workbooks has been pivotal. I'd just like him to REALLY COMPLETELY AND ACTUALLY comprehend something I read at say a 4th grade reading level. Like say an NLT Bible chapter from the Gospels. That is narrative, straightforward, translated at maybe a 4th grade level, and he's SNOWED. He hears it, but he isn't necessarily interacting with it in a way that shows comprehension. And I think it may be syntax, that literally it's just jibberish.

So we'll see. Like I said, it's a bunch of nothing. I just sorta feel like this is some Everest I've been walking up to, and it's kind of exciting. If it doesn't work, well then we'll regroup, lol. I think he'll come out understanding the syntax better. I just can't promise it will solve the comprehension issues, sigh.

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I'd like to argue that syntax and grade level expectations line up, but I'm not sure they exactly do.

I also have another oop Conversation with Conjunctions book waiting in the wings. That thing is a BEAST. I might do these two smaller things first. We'll see. What I like about it is that it would develop some *variety* in his use of sentence complexity. Right now, he tends to fall into the easiest ones. Also she does a good job of compelling the student to get the structures into a variety of settings (narrative, etc.). It's just going to be a lot of work, whine whine.

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43 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Are we to assume they are assuming the dc is naturally acquiring language through exposure and then gets into the grade level and is ready to do exercises on it?

Absolutely.  Think of all the grammatical structures most kids can use before they have any formal grammar instruction.  

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Like, a normally developing five year old does not need formal grammatical teaching about nouns and verbs and adjectives and direct and indirect objects to understand or use a sentence like "throw the red ball to the dog."

Edited by maize
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892026/
 

I’m going to link this and wonder if “anaphoric references” is what you are looking for?

I have understood this to be like — “the girl who went to the store was Mary” — knowing that “the girl” means Mary.

Or “the one that.....” — what does “the one” refer to?

I have seen things for comprehension where they have kids underline the pronoun (a lot of times it is a pronoun!) and then drawing an arrow back to the person the pronoun is referring to.

 

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I've been working through one of the MindWings SGM analysis samples with dd8. We've been retelling Owl Moon. Ds7 joins us for a reading and discussion, and then they separately retell with me. I have been a bit startled at the difference in what they come up with. Ds, who is just humoring me for a moment before dashing back out to arrange a bird funeral, spits out stuff like, "As she walked toward the dark forest, her feet sank in the snow like an anchor," with no more than a second's pause. For dd, it takes extensive discussion for, "She could taste cold air." 

Small sample size, I know, and dd's language disorder is mild, but it is definitely true here that without language issues, it's mostly just absorbed. This was true for me as well. 

I am reminded of how I used to sit in class, marveling at people who just could. not. get it. Are they just not paying attention? Why won't they just spit it out??? I'm so glad I wasn't the sort to tease or say anything, as I feel bad enough now realizing they simply *couldn't* get it with the broad, general instruction. It takes explicit, incremental instruction and they weren't getting anything like that.

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The thing too, as far as comprehension, a pronoun could refer back to something in the previous paragraph, that had more than one thing in it.  Or the thing to be referenced wasn’t explicitly stated and you have to come up with your own words to say what is being referred to.
 

It can take a lot of comprehension already to figure it out!  

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1 hour ago, Jentrovert said:

I've been working through one of the MindWings SGM analysis samples with dd8. We've been retelling Owl Moon. Ds7 joins us for a reading and discussion, and then they separately retell with me. I have been a bit startled at the difference in what they come up with. Ds, who is just humoring me for a moment before dashing back out to arrange a bird funeral, spits out stuff like, "As she walked toward the dark forest, her feet sank in the snow like an anchor," with no more than a second's pause. For dd, it takes extensive discussion for, "She could taste cold air." 

Small sample size, I know, and dd's language disorder is mild, but it is definitely true here that without language issues, it's mostly just absorbed. This was true for me as well. 

I am reminded of how I used to sit in class, marveling at people who just could. not. get it. Are they just not paying attention? Why won't they just spit it out??? I'm so glad I wasn't the sort to tease or say anything, as I feel bad enough now realizing they simply *couldn't* get it with the broad, general instruction. It takes explicit, incremental instruction and they weren't getting anything like that.

Yeah, narrative language is on my guilt list. I've kind of been very methodical and not pushed it hard. I know the SLPs would just barge in and do it, and instead I keep working on syntax. Emotions are also a hold up for getting him to the next level, so we're working on that. But I think the end result is going to be something pretty succinct. I'm not sure, but that's what I suspect.  I'm trying to make my peace with authentic. But I don't know that we'll know where it *can* get to till we get the syntax in place. 

1 hour ago, Lecka said:

a pronoun could refer back to something in the previous paragraph

I think he's falling down with more complex syntax. (complex sentences, clauses functioning adverbially or adjectivally, noun clauses, gerunds, etc.) And we teach him one way and then express poetry another way, rearranging, implying things. It's why I'm going through a poetry program with him, because I want him to be able to understand poetry. I started him off with the level 1 (gr1) and that's a lot of work to read it with the audio, visualize, explore meanings, do the word studies, read again with the audio recording. I'm spreading one poem over 2 days but trying to do several a day. I need to keep the pace up. So it's building his flexibility with syntax and his ability to have every word in the text mean something.

What I see, just from talking with people, is sort of a 3rd/4th gr comprehension/language hump, where kids with significant language issues don't get over that hump/hurdle. That's what I'm trying to figure out, how to get him over that hurdle. I think it unlocks EVERYTHING and is therefore pivotal. It unlocks the thought process of the Critical Thinking Triangle. It unlocks reading comprehension. It unlocks conversation, higher level reading material, and harder academic texts. Everything is closed if he doesn't get that.

I think I'm probably working at brain tolerance at this point. I think if I push him any harder with intervention level material, it will be too much. Also it appears my ideas for how to do the geography were too open ended. So I think I need to bring some stupid, non therapy level, non brain taxing fillers into our day. I haven't figured it out.

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1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

Yeah, narrative language is on my guilt list. I've kind of been very methodical and not pushed it hard. I know the SLPs would just barge in and do it, and instead I keep working on syntax. Emotions are also a hold up for getting him to the next level, so we're working on that. But I think the end result is going to be something pretty succinct. I'm not sure, but that's what I suspect.  I'm trying to make my peace with authentic. But I don't know that we'll know where it *can* get to till we get the syntax in place. 

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm just beginning to wrap my mind around the whole language picture. I finally sat down and outlined all 3 books of the Mindwings autism series for myself, because as many times as I read it, I just was not getting it organized in my head. That helped immensely - there is a lot of the same information repeated in different ways in those books.

Anyway, I just jumped into narrative because I had it, and now need to figure out where her weak areas are in the other language components. I may well be jumping ahead. But both kids love stories and I was thinking I'd gradually layer in components . . . grand plans, haha. So much to learn.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Jentrovert said:

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm just beginning to wrap my mind around the whole language picture. I finally sat down and outlined all 3 books of the Mindwings autism series for myself, because as many times as I read it, I just was not getting it organized in my head. That helped immensely - there is a lot of the same information repeated in different ways in those books.

Anyway, I just jumped into narrative because I had it, and now need to figure out where her weak areas are in the other language components. I may well be jumping ahead. But both kids love stories and I was thinking I'd gradually layer in components . . . grand plans, haha. So much to learn.

 

 

Oh yes, that's basically what I've been doing! There are charts in your downloads that show the components for each stage. I think we're just at that stage where we're fueling jet engines, burning gas, wanting the jet to take off. Our intervention specialist said this might be the year for that, that we might see thing coming together. 

Maybe I'll just tell myself that my rumblings are that jet engine, hahaha.

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https://comdde.usu.edu/services/research/schoolage-language/s-gillam-docs/TLD-D-15-00023.pdf

This is research about a narrative language intervention (similar to Mindwings, also a narrative language intervention). 
 

It says in the last sentence “Children’s use of complex syntax may improve spontaneously with little direct instruction.”  
 

So there is an idea that working on narrative language is a useful thing to target and can have transfer (to some extent) to other areas.  

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892026/
 

Then this article is talking about word level, sentence level, and discourse level.

It is hard to know context (just how hard of a level they are talking about) but it says that syntax is related to sentence level understanding.

But then word and sentence level understanding don’t necessarily transfer to discourse level understanding.

It is hard to know bc it is easy for kids to be at such different levels..... but I think it makes sense to have some balance between sentence level and discourse level.

It’s possible to focus on discourse level while sentence level may be on the simpler, less-complex side.  
 

I don’t know if going into more complex sentence levels, will transfer to discourse level.  
 

It’s definitely good stuff, but I don’t know if it will bump up discourse level like you want, if there is a need to work on discourse level, too.  I don’t know if there is a lot of transfer there.  Or, if it’s a good foundational skill but you’re still going to have to spend time on narrative language.  
 

I think if there were an easy answer for improving comprehension for children with autism, someone would have found it by now, you know?  And I think it seems like, in context of it being the right thing at the right time, I think narrative language intervention seems like it’s a really solid direction.  It’s trying to get sentence level and discourse level and link them together. Or how I think of it with Mindwings — link the microstructure and the macrostructure.

I don’t know if syntax is hitting macrostructure, if it is sentence level?  Not that there’s not syntax for a macrostructure, but you have to be working with a macrostructure to be working with syntax appropriate for a macrostructure, and I think that is going on with narrative language intervention.
 

Even if maybe the syntax level IS easier in its way; I think it’s still a hard thing to do to utilize it in a macrostructure.

AKA — maybe using “but” in a sentence isn’t that hard, but using it as part of a narrative is a lot harder, if it requires understanding parts of the whole story (Story structure and story elements) and how they fit together in order to correctly use the word “but.”  
 

More about discourse level from Mindwings:

https://mindwingconcepts.com/pages/research

There is a paragraph “Westby explains the link” that is very relevant, and talks about the 4th grade reading slump!

Edited by Lecka
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I think also, keep in mind it’s possible to talk about very complex, very abstract ideas using simple language.  
 

Is this what is happening with your Bible?

Its made the language more accessible but the ideas may still be very complex and abstract, they may not be at a 4th grade level at all.

There’s also the level a child is interacting with a text.  The same text can be interacted with at a higher or lower level.

Like — a young child might say a factual, correct narrative about something Jesus did.  But an older child would add in more details about what it showed or why it was important.  An older child might just notice more or get more out of it.  
 

I have always heard too, you keep reading the Bible because you always get something different from it as you’re in a different situation in life.  
 

Everything about Baby Jesus being born in a manger and Mary and Joseph wandering around while she was pregnant and about to give birth — is totally different to me since I have had kids and can imagine more about what that might have been like, how Mary and Joseph might have felt, etc.  

Anyway — he might really have better comprehension than you think if you’re going off a Bible passage, bc it’s something where the reading level isn’t going to reflect the idea level. Unless it’s a passage that is truly just a very straightforward passage.  And even then there could be unfamiliar things that could make it harder to comprehend, and that makes it harder than just the reading level.

A lot of things that can be made to have an easier reading level are like that.  They weren’t actually written for an audience of 4th graders or to reflect expected background knowledge and experience of a 4th grader.  

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I think with the Lexile levels on things, or whatever leveling system, they try to separate out the things that are hard about reading and comprehension.  
 

But there are examples like Ernest Hemingway where the writing level would be rated very simple but the comprehension level would be rated very high.  
 

It’s something to keep in mind!

And a lot of well-known children’s books are more advanced this way and more likely to be taught and things, because they are more advanced and have more depth, but then they aren’t necessarily that representative of an independent reading/comprehension level for that age level.  If a student could just read Charlotte’s Web and wouldn’t get any benefit from discussion, why would it be chosen for discussion?  
 

If you find things where he does comprehend well, they might be at a good level too!

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1 hour ago, Lecka said:

I think also, keep in mind it’s possible to talk about very complex, very abstract ideas using simple language.  
 

Is this what is happening with your Bible?

Its made the language more accessible but the ideas may still be very complex and abstract, they may not be at a 4th grade level at all. 

Anyway — he might really have better comprehension than you think if you’re going off a Bible passage, bc it’s something where the reading level isn’t going to reflect the idea level. Unless it’s a passage that is truly just a very straightforward passage.  And even then there could be unfamiliar things that could make it harder to comprehend, and that makes it harder than just the reading level.

A lot of things that can be made to have an easier reading level are like that.  They weren’t actually written for an audience of 4th graders or to reflect expected background knowledge and experience of a 4th grader.  

That's a good point. @PeterPan your jet may be flying under the radar. 

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5 hours ago, Lecka said:

This is research about a narrative language intervention (similar to Mindwings, also a narrative language intervention). 
 

It says in the last sentence “Children’s use of complex syntax may improve spontaneously with little direct instruction.”  

Now that's an interesting point that I could *use* narrative work to target the syntactical structures. I think while it might be reasonable, in general, for a population, to say that contextualized work improves the output, I also find with my ds that *explicit* instruction that leads him from direct use into narrative has been most effective. He had so much memorized language that anything that starts in context is still allowing him to memorize rather than whittling down to the precise structures, precise comprehension. Children normally learn language part to whole. Understanding only at the whole level leaves the dc unable to rearrange and use the parts properly.

But I think that's a strong point that I can connect the narrative and syntactical structures. I already have whirring in my mind ideas on how to do this pretty naturally. It's the whole POINT of syntax and narrative being tied (via the critical thinking triangle). And my materials definitely do this. The SPARC series was amazing for taking structures from isolation to narrative within the lessons. The CwC book I'm getting ready to start has a whole progression for each chapter. So one conjunction is the target, but it works them through:

-explicit instruction in the meaning, examples, sign language for the conjunction

-practicing the conjunction in scripted conversations

-more scripted conversations for discrimination between similar conjunctions

-reading a narrative and answering questions using the conjunctions

-generating sentences from prompts using the target conjunctions

-using the conjunctions as story starters to create brief original narratives

-applications to curriculum (in the appendix) for the target conjunctions

-worksheets that have them use/discriminate conjunctions from the chapter.

So each chapter is covering 4 conjunctions, using that same routine of conversation, reading comprehension, building original sentences, building narratives, and discriminating meaning. It's why I never even dreamed to try this book until now, because it's pretty wicked, lol. 

With the work I've done with my ds so far, I think some of the conjunctions are a little muddled for meaning in his brain. He recognizes them, but he doesn't discriminate them or have a stockpile of language in his head to realize when to USE them. So it's not rocket science to think that completing this workbook would exponentially launch his comprehension of language. It's a different plane from where he functions now on multiple levels. It's both the conceptual thought process that gets you to want to use this language AND the actual language. 

Sometimes what I've seen with him is that working on something I THOUGHT he had/knew actually takes him farther. It's like he has to go back and really, really get it at the single word level, at a deep level, and then his brain goes OH and the light clicks on. I think it's the hazard of the hyperlexia and the high reliance on memorized language. 

I guess now to see what's on the cd and see if the book will be convenient to use. It's saying only the worksheets are on the cd. If the whole thing is not printable, I may need to take this to the store and get it rebound to be easier to work with.

5 hours ago, Lecka said:

It is hard to know context (just how hard of a level they are talking about) but it says that syntax is related to sentence level understanding.

But then word and sentence level understanding don’t necessarily transfer to discourse level understanding.

I already have materials to work on close reading and overall comprehension strategies. I'm targeting syntax very intentionally. It will drive the more mature thought that will allow for the comprehension. Balthazaar confirmed that when I talked with her, that comprehension and syntax are closely intertwined. 

5 hours ago, Lecka said:

I don’t know if going into more complex sentence levels, will transfer to discourse level.  

That is my occasional paranoia, and I choose not to feed it. :biggrin:  I'm bound to do something ill here. He's already getting 3 ½ hours of SLP services a week. It's not like I'm NEGLECTING some area that SLPs think should be done. I'm doing what they aren't. And it's no joke. I'm literally funding it that high, 3 ½ hours a week. My SLP now has double masters in English and SLP, so I let her do whatever she wants. She does this really meta level comprehension stuff and doesn't like grammar at all. So I come in real low and do the mean dirty work. 

See I figure it this way. If I throw x grade level reading material at him and he doesn't REALLY understand it, he knows this and will revile. Comprehension strategies are inappropriate at that point because what he really needs is the problem solved. He actually needs to understand what he's reading. And Close Reading strategies tell us this, to clarify words and things we don't understand. So I'm giving him that. And my SLP is coming in at the meta level, global level, working on "comprehension." I don't even ask what she's doing, lol. The sessions are positive, upbeat, productive, and he's talking more as a result. 

5 hours ago, Lecka said:

he might really have better comprehension than you think if you’re going off a Bible passage

Oh probably. He was testing, per the SLPs, at around a 5th/6th gr level in 1st, so he's always had an ability to fake out and grasp at the discourse level where he was missing at the nitty gritty level. It just comes back to bite him in the butt eventually, so I'm working on it. And I'm always trying to figure out how to make The Word more accessible to him. Church is really awkward right now, with them having tiffs over masking, him struggling with masking, me not really cool with violating state mandates. So stuff is getting dumped on me and I'm just looking at this going ok am I engaging him, are we connecting on this...

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5 hours ago, Lecka said:

More about discourse level from Mindwings:

https://mindwingconcepts.com/pages/research

There is a paragraph “Westby explains the link” that is very relevant, and talks about the 4th grade reading slump!

I need to read about that again. It has been a while. I think I held those ideas, knew it was a thing, and have these stories and people I'm watching going ok this is what happens in real life. But sure, I can go back and read about it. 

 

4 hours ago, Jentrovert said:

That's a good point. @PeterPan your jet may be flying under the radar. 

You're right, I may be too hard on myself. I could be doing better than I think, lol. 

 

5 hours ago, Lecka said:

If you find things where he does comprehend well, they might be at a good level too!

Actually what I'm finding is he's getting picky. He's not little anymore, lol. He's 11 going on 18 apparently. 

Ok, I'm back. Only the worksheets were on cd. Apparently they anticipate the SLP doing a lot of this orally with the student. I'm gonna get it spiral bound and laminated so it's actually workable. Hate perfect bound books where you have to dig in so much.

 

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7 hours ago, Lecka said:

I think if there were an easy answer for improving comprehension for children with autism, someone would have found it by now, you know?  And I think it seems like, in context of it being the right thing at the right time, I think narrative language intervention seems like it’s a really solid direction.  It’s trying to get sentence level and discourse level and link them together. Or how I think of it with Mindwings — link the microstructure and the macrostructure.

I don’t know if syntax is hitting macrostructure, if it is sentence level?  Not that there’s not syntax for a macrostructure, but you have to be working with a macrostructure to be working with syntax appropriate for a macrostructure, and I think that is going on with narrative language intervention.
 

Even if maybe the syntax level IS easier in its way; I think it’s still a hard thing to do to utilize it in a macrostructure.

AKA — maybe using “but” in a sentence isn’t that hard, but using it as part of a narrative is a lot harder, if it requires understanding parts of the whole story (Story structure and story elements) and how they fit together in order to correctly use the word “but.”  

My thoughts on the matter lean this way too. Does the SLP do any narrative language work for comprehension? 

I think since you've seen the syntax feed into the narrative, it's good to work on both, but I wonder if that worked because the various parts of language were asynchronous for him--even though narrative was a struggle, syntax was farther behind. As you get closer to having all the different parts of language closer to being synchronous (the syntax structures lining up with narrative structures, for example), it could be less clear whether the syntax comes first or the narrative, or it's more like a both/and situation where they develop together, and you go back and forth with the work on each one.

Being more synchronous due to catching some of these problems up together is a good problem to have if that is what is going on.

I personally think you could work it both ways--syntax and narrative--a little at a time and see if one direction goes faster. I think it's likely that you need both. The narrative would drive that meta meaning that would be motivating. What is the point of making fancy, complicated individual sentences when you could really use fancy structure to communicate a larger, more global idea or narrative? 

I might be biased because narrative budged this for my son. 🙂 

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3 hours ago, kbutton said:

I wonder if that worked because the various parts of language were asynchronous for him--even though narrative was a struggle, syntax was farther behind. As you get closer to having all the different parts of language closer to being synchronous (the syntax structures lining up with narrative structures, for example), it could be less clear whether the syntax comes first or the narrative, or it's more like a both/and situation where they develop together, and you go back and forth with the work on each one.

Being more synchronous due to catching some of these problems up together is a good problem to have if that is what is going on.

I personally think you could work it both ways--syntax and narrative--a little at a time and see if one direction goes faster. I think it's likely that you need both. The narrative would drive that meta meaning that would be motivating. What is the point of making fancy, complicated individual sentences when you could really use fancy structure to communicate a larger, more global idea or narrative? 

I might be biased because narrative budged this for my son.

Ooo, there you go.  

Well I dropped my $$$$ conjunctions book off at the office store to get rebound. The guy working the counter was a trainee and they weren't about to let him do that. So it will be Monday before I get my book. Oh well. 

Yeah, I don't think it's likely that working on conjunctions via narrative will do for him what this actual conjunctions workbook will. Once we go through that, THEN when we do it in narrative I'll probably see a big blast off. I definitely expect that. But doing it before, he would just be frustrated. Remember, if you do things in context too much, the kid doesn't hear it or take from it what you think. He memorizes it the way his brain chunks it. The worksheets allow him to SEE it and ISOLATE it and go oh that's exactly what it was. So it's not incorrectly joined with other things or learned as whole phrases but correctly learned. 

Oh, that's it. It's the VISUAL. The VISUAL is why the worksheets have worked so well for ds. Doing it via auditory alone allows that to get confused. And the worksheets give me visual and let me get there FASTER. That's why it works. And it's why it boosts his reading, because I have him *reading* everything he's working on. 

I don't know about putting it into narrative soon being better. What we've been doing is pretty hard for him. Like not too hard, but it's therapy level hard. He's really working. Doing it in isolation in a worksheet is the first step. Then this next book CwC will get him doing it more comfortably. THEN he can do it more originally with the narratives. I could see that coming together. It will be really natural. 

But you know, this was a kid who completely failed the PRESCHOOL level of the SPELT at age 9. We're kind of digging out of a hole. He had so much memorized language that he could fake out. So my theory was go back and make sure he understands EVERY WORD. 

Well good. I've got to figure out a plan for a few days while I'm waiting for that book to get bound. I am carrying some mother guilt on ADVERBS, so maybe we can hit that for a few days and make some progress there. The first workbook we tried on them didn't get him far enough. It wanted him to generate adverbs out of thin air to go with verbs provided and he just didn't have the language in his head to do that, leaving him stuck. So we need to go back at them a fresh way. I'm hoping the HELP workbook will be better. He needs the concept solid, because then you use clauses, etc. adverbially. Boom.

The Abeka gr 3 and 4 grammar (which have been updated btw, so I'm looking at the old edition still marketed to homeschoolers) had a couple cute ideas. They were doing scrambled answers to riddles, which I thought was a fabulous idea. Also they had *picture study* with expressive language, which was a great idea. So I think whether it's using pictures or sequence cards (to get it more into a narrative) or what, that's a good thing. That's what I meant when I said my mind was whirring with ideas. I've got this stuff lying around and I'm realizing ways to use it.

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I divvied up what was left of the HELP book. I think it will take us two weeks to finish. We'll probably start the CwC *after* we finish HELP, simply because HELP is an easier level. CwC is pretty out there and going to need some attention and focus.

 

Edited by PeterPan
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Well I just read him a picture book (from a random pile of library picture books) with a lexile of 1010 and he seemed totally engaged and like he was understanding it. So apparently something we're doing is working! That's up from 650-ish last year. Oh look, I just looked up a second book I read him today, and it was 1030! So then it's definite. His lexile is moving UP!! 

I don't know where it will cap, but I'm liking that 1010-1030 ish for him. I'll probably use that with the lexile engine to get more books when this stack is done. One of those was fiction and the other nonfiction, so that's really good. He was staying engaged, following the arguments. 

He's been listening to the Origami Yoda series for leisure/potato chip reading. It's 760. But it's totally ridiculous. He just howls at it, lol.

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