Family Diversity Projects

One day, while co-teaching a writing lesson with 3rd grade children, Maryellen had the opportunity to put this particular piece of her research into practice. The students were given traditional "beginning, middle and end graphic organizers ( like the one pictured below ) and were asked to re-tell a story using the graphic organizer to assist them. One little boy approached Maryellen with tears in his eyes and said ", I don't know what to put in my boxes." Inspired by this interaction and based on years of research and experience on language development as it relates to literacy, Maryellen designed a hands-on, multi-sensory tool to assist this little boy in re-telling his story. This tool ( pictured right ) was comprised of colorful icons that cued him as to what went into his "boxes" to write his story. It worked for him! Maryellen then began to field-test the tool at the Day School and other local public schools. After a successful presentation of this new "tool" with colleague Carolyn West, PhD. at a local educational consortium, the Curtis Blake Day School asked Holly Fidrych M.S. CCC-SLP to join their staff to continue to implement and field-test the SGM . Based on Maryellen's research, practice & background and Holly's practical application to the classroom, the two authored a Teacher's Guide to help others learn to use the Story Grammar Marker tool ( right ). In 1991 Maryellen, patented the SGM and in 1994 she founded MindWing Concepts in order to share this methodology with educators across the United States. Since then, the Story Grammar Marker and MindWing's methodology have helped thousands of children worldwide! Why is MindWing's Methodology Important for Your Child and Your Students? "We dream, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, love, hate, believe, doubt, plan, construct, gossip, and learn in narrative." In the late 1990s Maryellen Moreau, President and Founder of MindWing Concepts, was involved in drafting the Oral language Module of the Bay State Readers Initiative ( Massachusetts state initiative prior to Reading First ). MindWing created the diagram below of the Strands of Oral Language depicted as the "Building Blocks of Literacy, " and it was adopted by the creators of the Oral Language Module. The diagram shows that without "Discourse" there is NO EFFICIENT CONNECTION between oral language development and literacy. The Discourse Level is the focus of MindWing Concepts methodology and tools: conversation, narration and exposition. MindWing's tools are hands-on, manipulatives that educators and parents can use to model these language and literacy skills that are required for students to comprehend, think, learn and communicate verbally and in writing - working with both personal and fictional narratives ( story ) and expository ( content area ) text. Furthermore, this methodology is essential in today's educational world for many reasons including the 4 following facts: There is an increased use of standardized educational testing at the local, state and national levels " testing children's skills in comprehension, writing and critical thinking. Research shows student success on standardized tests is linked with explicit, systematic, comprehensive instruction and intervention. It is estimated that two-thirds of American children cannot read, write and comprehend up to grade level. MindWing's methodology specifically targets the oral language skills necessary for building reading comprehension & writing skills.

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