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eLr - What's New 2016 | |||
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Twenty-four new tasks have been added to "Reading and Spelling - Other vowel sounds - Schwa vowel (neutral vowel)". This vowel sound often causes difficulty for children learning to read and spell because it has so many spelling patterns (see ELR-News for Nov 2016 for a discussion of the neutral vowel and the reason for its range of spelling patterns).
All tasks use the MemoryWords model which is a word based memory game. The screen displays "cards" organised in a grid. Players take turns clicking (on a computer) or touching (on an iPad) cards to find matching pairs. The role of the teacher or support person is central to many eLr activities. In this case, the learner is encouraged to read the word out loud and receive corrective feedback from the support person to ensure that they have accurately read the word.
The MemoryWords model, when combined with the other models in this section helps to provide repetition in reading and spelling target words. For example, when teaching words with the schwa vowel, you could introduce a set of words using the WordSoundButtons model (which shows how to break the word into syllables), follow this with WordSearch or SmileyMan (which encourages reading and spelling of words), and then with the MemoryWords model which provides repetition to assist formation of accurate mental images of words. Within each activity, a discussion of the meaning of the word encourages neural linkages between the meaning and spelling patterns, thus forming sight words (Ehri 2005. Learning to read words: Theory, findings, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(2), 167-188).
This month, 24 new tasks have been added to "Reading and Spelling - Consonant Digraphs". All tasks use the MemoryWords model which is a word based memory game. The screen displays 'cards' organised in a grid. Players take turns clicking (on a computer) or touching (on an iPad) cards to find matching pairs. The role of the teacher or support person is central to many eLr activities. In this case, the learner is encouraged to read the word out loud and receive corrective feedback from the support person to ensure that they have accurately read the word.
Accuracy of word reading has been shown in research (Cunningham, Perry, Stanovich, & Share, 2002; Bowey & Muller, 2005) to support the formation of clear mental images of words ("mental orthographic representations") which are an essential component of sight word development. Sight words are defined as those words which are recognised as a unit, automatically triggering the meaning (the semantic representation) and pronunciation (the phonological representation) of the word (Ehri, 2005). The development of a large bank of sight words enables fluent reading which underpins reading comprehension and is the hallmark of skilled readers. However, research has shown that children with language delay or who are at risk of reading difficulty take longer and need more repetition to develop orthographic representations of words (Wolter & Apel 2010; Apel, Thomas-Tate, Wilson-Fowler, & Brimo, 2012). The MemoryWords activity, combined with other models in eLr, may be a useful and motivating adjunct to reading instruction which aims to encourage sight word development.
- Apel, K, Thomas-Tate, S, Wilson-Fowler, E B, & Brimo, D (2012). Acquisition of initial mental graphemic representations by children at risk for literacy development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 33, 365-391
- Bowey, J A, & Muller, D (2005). Phonological recoding and rapid orthographic learning in third-graders' silent reading: A critical test of the self-teaching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92(3), 203-219
- Cunningham, A E, Perry, K E, Stanovich, K E, & Share, D L (2002). Orthographic learning during reading: examining the role of self-teaching. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 82(3), 185-199
- Ehri, L C (2005). Learning to read words: Theory, findings, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(2), 167-188
- Wolter, J A, & Apel, K (2010). Initial acquisition of mental graphemic representations in children with language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 53, 179-195
The October 2016 edition contains 2 new tasks, a MemoryWords and a ConnectWords game using the recently developed model DictionaryWords. You'll find them in the "Activity Toolbox - Game generators" section. That section is for activities which let you build you own activities for individualized targets, and along with the previously added WordSearch, LookThenCover and SmileyMan, the activities for this model are now completed.
Although included as a game generator for therapy, you may find the words retrieved by its powerful search mechanism in DictionaryWords are useful in other therapy, teaching or research needs. As with all the materials in eLr, we appreciate your feedback - how useful you may have found particular tasks, any suggestions for changes or new materials, and of course, any errors you may notice. If you'd like to participate in a short webinar about this new model, and others in the "Activity Toolbox", please see the "Free eLr Training Webinars" item below.
The September 2016 edition contains only 2 new tasks, a LookThenCover and a SmileyMan game using the recently developed model DictionaryWords. You'll find them in the "Activity Toolbox - Game generators" section. That section is for activities which let you build you own activities for individualized targets. A similar model YourWords) is also in the "Activity Toolbox" and it lets you enter you own word lists to build word based games. In contrast, the DictionaryWords model lets you retrieve words from an internal dictionary by phonemic or alphabetic search patterns, and syllable length, to generate similar interactive word games.
Over the years we've produced thousands or activities for eLr and this has often meant hours of brain storming and web searches for word lists. DictionaryWords is a tool that's grown out of our needs for groups of words with specific phonemic or letter patterns, and although included as a game generator for therapy, you may find the words retrieved by its powerful search mechanism are useful in other therapy, teaching or research needs.
The dictionary in DictionaryWords contains over 24,000 words and matches the default N-Watch "CELEX" vocabulary of frequently used English words. We've removed potentially offensive words and any that are the simple plural (added "s" or "es") of words already in the list. N-Watch is free (Windows) program for computing neighbourhood statistics and other lexical measures (Davis C. 2005). It may be obtained from www.pc.rhul.ac.uk/staff/c.davis/Utilities/.
As in N-Watch, we've used the computer readable phonetic alphabet "SAMPA" (Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet) www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/ to facilitate phonemic retrieval of words. For example a search pattern using 'k' and 't' (which represent the /k/ and /t/ consonant sounds) such as 'k{t' finds the word "cat" (where '{' represents the /a/ short vowel sound), and 'k5t' (where '5' represents the /oa/ diphthong) finds "coat cote". Wildcard search patterns are also allowed so that 'k{t*' will find the 2-syllable words "catfish catkins catsup cattle catty".
In the October edition we'll add to DictionaryWords our remaining familiar words games MemoryWords and ConnectWords. As with all the materials in eLr, we appreciate your feedback - how useful you may have found particular tasks, any suggestions for changes or new materials, and of course, any errors you may notice. If you'd like to participate in a short webinar about this new model, and others in the "Activity Toolbox", please see the "Free eLr Training Webinars" item below.
The August 2016 edition has 15 new tasks added to "Phonology - Skills and Early Sounds - Diphthong vowel sounds". These tasks continue our current focus which is developing activities to support accurate production of vowel sounds in short CVC words (CVC: consonant-vowel-consonant).
The new tasks in this edition use the MouthSounds model and target the diphthong vowel sound - /ie/ as in life or light. Diphthongs are vowels sounds in which two vowels are blended within one syllable. Diphthong vowel sounds are sometimes described as "gliders" because your mouth glides from one sound to another as you say the sound. For example, when saying /ie/ your mouth changes shape as it glides from one sound to the next sound, whereas when saying /or/ (a long vowel sound) you mouth stays the same shape.
The default presentation of this model displays graphic representations of the three sounds. In the case of these activities for diphthong vowel sounds, the screen shows two graphic images of a face (one for each consonant sound), and a symbol for the diphthong vowel sound which shows the shape of the mouth for the two sounds which glide together. When using the model, the learner is encouraged to say each sound and blend to produce the target word. Following feedback from the clinician or support person about accuracy of production, the learner may then click a button to change the first sound in the word (eg white, light, kite), or the last sound in the word (eg side, sight, sign).
The MouthSounds model is designed to be used within interventions for people who have delays or impairments in use of sounds, that is, articulation or expressive phonology disorders. This model includes the option to depict a male or female face for a child or an adult. Hence it may be useful for children with speech sound disorders (eg developmental verbal dyspraxia and hearing impairment), as well as adults who have severe impairments in speech production (eg, people who have verbal dyspraxia following a stroke).
As with all the materials in eLr, we appreciate your feedback - how useful you may have found particular tasks, any suggestions for changes or new materials, and of course, any errors you may notice.
The July 2016 edition has 18 new tasks added to "Phonology - Skills and Early Sounds - Diphthong vowel sounds". These tasks continue our current focus which is developing activities to support accurate production of vowel sounds in short CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant).
The new tasks in this edition use the MouthSounds model and target the diphthong vowel sound - /ay/ as in bake or mail. Diphthongs are vowels sounds in which two vowels are blended within one syllable. Diphthong vowel sounds are sometimes described as "gliders" because your mouth glides from one sound to another as you say the sound. For example, when saying /ay/ your mouth changes shape as it glides from one sound to the next sound, whereas when saying /or/ (a long vowel sound) you mouth stays the same shape.
The default presentation of this model displays graphic representations of the three sounds. In the case of these activities for diphthong vowel sounds, the screen shows two graphic images of a face (one for each consonant sound), and a symbol for the diphthong vowel sound which shows the shape of the mouth for the two sounds which glide together. When using the model, the learner is encouraged to say each sound and blend to produce the target word. Following feedback from the clinician or support person about accuracy of production, the learner may then click a button to change the first sound in the word (eg chain, cane, vein), or the last sound in the word (eg gain, gate, gauge).
The MouthSounds model is designed to be used within interventions for people who have delays or impairments in use of sounds, that is, articulation or expressive phonology disorders. This model includes the option to depict a male or female face for a child or an adult. Hence it may be useful for children with speech sound disorders (eg developmental verbal dyspraxia and hearing impairment), as well as adults who have severe impairments in speech production (eg, people who have verbal dyspraxia following a stroke).
As with all the materials in eLr, we appreciate your feedback - how useful you may have found particular tasks, any suggestions for changes or new materials, and of course, any errors you may notice.
The June 2016 edition contains 15 new tasks which have been added to "Phonology - Skills and Early Sounds - Diphthong vowel sounds". These tasks continue the work we have done over the past few editions - developing activities to support accurate production of vowel sounds in short CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant).
The new tasks use the MouthSounds model and target the diphthong vowel sound - /oa/ as in boat. Diphthongs are vowels sounds in which two vowels are blended within one syllable. Diphthong vowel sounds are sometimes described as "gliders" because your mouth glides from one sound to another as you say the sound. For example, when saying /oa/ your mouth changes shape, whereas when saying /or/ (a long vowel sound) you mouth stays the same shape.
The default presentation of this model displays graphic representations of the three sounds, paired with their spelling patterns. In the case of these activities for diphthong vowel sounds, the screen shows two graphic images of a face (one for each consonant sound), and a symbol for the diphthong vowel sound which shows the shape of the mouth for the two sounds which glide together. When using the model, the learner is encouraged to say each sound and blend to produce the target word. Following feedback from the clinician or support person about accuracy of production, the learner may then click a button to change the first sound in the word (eg "foal, roll, hole"), or the last sound in the word (eg "roam, rowed, rope").
The MouthSounds model is designed to be used within interventions for people who have delays or impairments in use of sounds, that is, articulation or expressive phonology disorders.This model includes the option to depict a male or female face for a child or an adult. Hence it may be useful for children with speech sound disorders (eg developmental verbal dyspraxia and hearing impairment), as well as adults who have severe impairments in speech production (eg, people who have verbal dyspraxia following a stroke).
As with all the materials in eLr, we appreciate your feedback - how useful you may have found particular tasks, any suggestions for changes or new materials, and of course, any errors you may notice.
The May 2016 edition contains only one new task, a WordSearch puzzle in a new model called DictionaryWords. You'll find it in the "Activity Toolbox - Game generators" section. That section is for activities which let you build you own activities for individualized targets. A similar model (now renamed YourWords) is already in the "Activity Toolbox" and it lets you enter you own word lists to build word based games. In contrast, this new model lets you retrieve words from an internal dictionary by phonemic or alphabetic search patterns, and syllable length, to generate similar interactive word games.
Over the years we've produced thousands or activities for eLr and this has often meant hours of brain storming and web searches for word lists. DictionaryWords is a tool that's grown out of our needs for groups of words with specific phonemic or letter patterns, and although included as a game generator for therapy, you may find the words retrieved by its powerful search mechanism are useful in other therapy, teaching or research needs.
The dictionary in DictionaryWords contains over 24,000 words and matches the default N-Watch "CELEX" vocabulary of frequently used English words. We've removed potentially offensive words and any that are the simple plural (added "s" or "es") of words already in the list. N-Watch is free (Windows) program for computing neighbourhood statistics and other lexical measures (Davis C. 2005). It may be obtained from www.pc.rhul.ac.uk/staff/c.davis/Utilities/.
As in N-Watch, we've used the computer readable phonetic alphabet "SAMPA" (Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet) www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/ to facilitate phonemic retrieval of words. For example a search pattern using 'k' and 't' (which represent the /k/ and /t/ consonant sounds) such as 'k{t' finds the word "cat" (where '{' represents the /a/ short vowel sound), and 'k5t' (where '5' represents the /oa/ diphthong) finds "coat cote". Wildcard search patterns are also allowed so that 'k{t*' will find the 2-syllable words "catfish catkins catsup cattle catty".
In future editions we'll add to DictionaryWords our other familiar words games LookThenCover, SmileyMan, MemoryWords, ConnectWords and Typing with words. As with all the materials in eLr, we appreciate your feedback - how useful you may have found particular tasks, any suggestions for changes or new materials, and of course, any errors you may notice. If you'd like to participate in a short webinar about this new model, and others in the "Activity Toolbox", please see the "Free eLr Training Webinars" item below.
The April 2016 edition contains 14 new tasks which have been added to "Phonology - Skills and Early Sounds - Long vowel sounds". Over the past few editions we have been adding material targeting accurate production of vowel sounds in short CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. This edition sees the completion of both the short vowel sounds (/a/ as in cat, /e/ bed, /i/ pig, /o/ hot, /u/ hug, and /oo/ as in book), and the long vowel sounds (/ar/ hard, /ee/ key, /er/ bird, /oo/ food, and /or/ as in fork).
The new tasks in this edition use the MouthSounds model and target the long vowel sound - /or/ as in fork. The MouthSounds model is designed to be used within interventions for people who have delays or impairments in use of sounds, that is, articulation or expressive phonology disorders. The default presentation displays three faces on the screen depicting the three sounds in the word. The learner is encouraged to say each sound and blend to produce the target word which appears as a segmented word with the spelling pattern representing each sound under the appropriate MouthSound (a minor modification to the model in this edition is that the complete target word also appears on the screen). Following feedback from the communication partner about accuracy of production, the learner may repeatedly click the "Go" button to change the first sound in the word (eg "board, cord, poured"), or the last sound in the word (eg "fourth, fork, fall").
This model includes the option to depict a male or female face for a child or an adult. Hence it may be useful for children with speech sound disorders, as well as adults who have severe impairments in speech production (eg, people who have verbal dyspraxia following a stroke). As with all the materials in eLr, we appreciate your feedback - how useful you may have found particular tasks, any suggestions for changes or new materials, and of course, any errors you may notice.
The March 2016 version contains 21 new tasks which have been added to "Phonology - Skills and Early Sounds - Long vowel sounds". The aim of these tasks is to encourage accurate production of long vowel sounds in words with three sounds (consonant - vowel - consonant words). The new tasks use the MouthSounds model and target the second two of the five long vowel sounds - /er/ as in term, and /oo/ as in moon. There are five long vowel sounds in English: /ar/ as in hard, /ee/ and is feet, /er/ as in term, /oo/ as in moon, and /or/ as in born. The February version addressed the first two long vowel sounds, and future editions will complete the long vowel and diphthong vowel sound sections.
The MouthSounds model is designed to be used within interventions for people who have delays or impairments in use of sounds, that is, articulation or expressive phonology disorders. The default presentation of this model within these new tasks displays three faces on the screen depicting the three sounds in the word. The learner is encouraged to say each sound and blend to produce the target word. Following feedback from the clinician or support person about accuracy of production, the learner may then click a button to change the first sound in the word (eg "girl, curl, pearl"), or the last sound in the word (eg "bird, burn, birth").
While this model has been very useful for children with speech sound disorders, the recent addition of adult faces means that it may be useful when working with adults who have severe impairments in speech production (eg, people who have verbal dyspraxia following a stroke); or it may provide additional fun for children. For example, the child may be encouraged to "teach mum how to say this sound".
The February edition contains 18 new tasks which have been added to "Phonology - Skills and Early Sounds - Long vowel sounds". The aim of these tasks is to encourage accurate production of long vowel sounds in words with three sounds (consonant - vowel - consonant words). The new tasks use the MouthSounds model and target two of the five long vowel sounds - /ar/ as in park, and /ee/ as in beef.
The MouthSounds model is designed to be used within interventions for people who have delays or impairments in use of sounds, that is, articulation or expressive phonology disorders. The default presentation of this model within these new tasks displays three faces on the screen depicting the three sounds in the word. The learner is encouraged to say each sound and blend to produce the target word. Following feedback from the clinician or support person about accuracy of production, the learner may then click a button to change the first sound in the word (eg "park, bark, dark"), or the last sound in the word (eg "card, cart, carve").
While this model has been very useful for children with speech sound disorders, the recent addition of adult faces means that it may be useful when working with adults who have severe impairments in speech production (eg, people who have verbal dyspraxia following a stroke); or it may provide additional fun for children. For example, the child may be encouraged to "teach mum how to say this sound".
Eighteen new tasks have been added to "Phonology - Skills & Early Sounds - Vowel sounds" in the "Short vowel sounds" subsection. These tasks continue the focus we started in the last edition of adding material to encourage accurate production of short vowel sounds in words with three sounds (consonant - vowel - consonant words). The new tasks target the remaining three of the five short vowel sounds (/o/, /u/, and /oo/ as in book), and use the MouthSounds model.
The MouthSounds model is designed to be used within interventions for people who have delays or impairments in use of sounds, that is, articulation or expressive phonology disorders. The default presentation of this model within these new tasks displays three faces on the screen depicting the three sounds in the word. The learner is encouraged to say each sound and blend to produce the target word. Following feedback from the clinician or support person about accuracy of production, the learner may then click a button to change the first sound in the word (eg "dog, fog, log"), or the last sound in the word (eg "bug, jug, hug, rug").
While this model has been very useful for children with speech sound disorders, the recent addition of adult faces means that it may be useful when working with adults who have severe impairments in speech production (eg, people who have verbal dyspraxia following a stroke); or it may provide additional fun for children. For example, the child may be encouraged to "teach mum how to say this sound".
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