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Literacy

New Scatter-Slayer Adventure: The Awesome Australian Gore-Boar

David Kinnane · 21 February 2021 ·

Introducing The Awesome Australian Gore-Boar:

“The Awesome Australian Gore-Boar unlocked his jaws and roared. You are not sure if the awful beast is sore at you or the witch.”

Learning to decode words using knowledge of the extended code doesn’t have to be dull.

In this, the ninth and latest of our select-your-sequel Scatter-Slayer series of adventure stories, we focus on words containing the “or” sound (aw, au, or, ore, oar).

We’ve added:

  • screen friendliness, so that our stories can be played on phones, iPads, other devices, laptops, and smart boards (as well as in print if you prefer);
  • simple sound effects and black-and-white animations (in Google Slides) to increase engagement without distracting readers from the text (or letting them guess from the pictures);
  • second person perspective, so readers are reading about themselves (“you”);
  • length (53 pages), so you can work on reading fluency (rate, accuracy, and expression) at the same time as word decoding;
  • text in a large, sans serif font with lots of white space and not too many words per page;
  • suspense, drama, intrigue, and silliness increases interest;
  • some Tier 2 vocabulary to help stimulate oral language development; and
  • choice, so readers (and parents, educators) are in control of which tale comes next.

We designed this inexpensive resource for students who are learning or revising the extended code, including older students with reading difficulties, and students who are interested in fantasy and adventure tales.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Here’s a preview:

We hope you like it!

DOWNLOAD NOW

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

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Can technology-based interventions help children with reading difficulties?

David Kinnane · 14 February 2021 ·

Yes. 

In several studies, technology-based reading programs have showed a positive effect for a variety of students with different needs and skills, and some technology-based reading interventions have had positive effects for some struggling readers (e.g. Cheung and Slavin, 2013). 

But there are hundreds of reading apps, computer programs, and other technology-based supports on the market. Many feature slick websites and other marketing materials. Some make all sorts of outlandish claims about outcomes without even a hint of supporting evidence. Some are completely incompatible with the science of reading. 

So how should we evaluate reading apps? 

The same way we look at any other reading intervention or program. We should choose apps and other technologies that are: 

  • aligned with: the evidence base about effective literacy instruction, including: 
    • the science of reading; and 
    • the Simple View of Reading; and 
  • evidence-based, including by peer-reviewed studies with outcome measures. 

We should also look for apps and other technologies that: 

  • recognise that not all reading difficulties are the same; and 
  • target one or more of the “Big 5”, namely: 
    • phonemic awareness; 
    • phonics;  
    • vocabulary;
    • reading fluency; and 
    • reading comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000). 

What is the goal of the technology: compensation for reading difficulties or improving reading skills? 

Technology interventions for reading difficulties come in all shapes and sizes. Many teachers and others focus on simple measures that help students compensate for their reading difficulties with text-to-speech tools, audiobooks, and video resources like YouTube. 

The focus of this article is on apps and other technologies that help students to improve their reading skills. Of course, no app works for everyone and a given app’s suitability for a particular student depends on the factors that are contributing to the student’s reading difficulties. 

Apps that are worth a look 

All of the apps and other technologies cited below are supported by at least some peer-reviewed, published research. Most are cited in a review of the scientific literature from 2010 to 2020 carried out by Saaed S.Alqahtani, and published in 2020 (see citation below). The quality of the study designs and the reported outcomes vary significantly from study to study, and it’s best to approach any app review with scepticism and caution. 

As you would expect (or at least hope), many evidence-based apps contain similar activities and elements to those contained in evidence-based face-to-face interventions. Apps and face-to-face interventions are not mutually exclusive. Many of the apps, for example, might be useful to add to face-to-face reading interventions, for example, as a way of adding variety to reading sessions, or as a way to provide additional practice between face-to-face reading sessions.

Technologies evolve quickly. It’s our intention to update this article at least annually. If you know of an evidence-based reading app or other technology that is not referred to below, please get in touch!  

(A) Phonemic Awareness 

  • Reading Doctor has been shown to improve pre-schoolers’ phoneme blending, phoneme segmentation, and letter-sound recognition, as well as phoneme-grapheme conversion (Carson, 2020). Developed by an Australian speech pathologist, Dr Bartek Rajkowski, this collection of apps is very popular with many of my clients, especially for home practice of letter-sounds links, and early blending and segmenting tasks related to reading outcomes. 
  • Word Driver-1 has been shown to significantly improve nonword reading (e.g. Seiler et al., 2019). 
  • Lexia Reading Core5 has been shown to improve students’ phonological awareness and nonword reading (O’Callaghan et al., 2016).
  • Sound it Out has been shown to significantly increase early decoding accuracy (Donnelly et al., 2019). 

(B) Phonics 

  • GraphoGame has been shown to increase letter knowledge, reading accuracy, reading fluency, and spelling (e.g. Saine et al., 2011; Rosas et al., 2017). 
  • Tutoring Buddy has been shown to improve letter sound knowledge and fluency (e.g. Volpe et al., 2011). 

(C) Reading fluency 

  • Several Reading RACES studies have showed “a functional relation between computerised intervention and participants’ gains in fluency and comprehension” (e.g. Council et al., 2016, 2019; Bennett et al., 2017; Barber et al., 2019). 
  • Read Naturally Software has been shown to lead to “positive results for reading fluency and comprehension” (Gibson, 2011, 2014; and Keyes et al., 2016, 2017). 
  • K12 Timed Reading Practice has been shown to lead to improved oral reading fluency when combined with peer assisted instruction (Mize et al., 2019). 
  • Reading Plus has been shown to increase reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension on one test, but not another (Ruetzel et al., 2012). 

(D) Comprehension 

  • Kidspiration, an electronic graphic organising program, has been shown to improve reading comprehension (e.g. Wade et al., 2010). This app is very simple, and digitises well-known “pen and paper” strategies for helping children to learn sequencing, story grammar and other text structures, and note-taking through mind mapping and graphic organisers. 
  • Quick Reads – the software version of an intervention targeting fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, was as effective as the pen and paper version (Fenty et al., 2015). 

Watch this space! 

We know that many of our clients, including many people with developmental language disorder, dyslexia and Autism Spectrum Disorder are naturally more attracted to screens than to books. We also know that apps and other technologies have the potential to scale so that more people – including people who cannot for economic, geographical, or other reasons access quality reading interventions – can get help. 

When done well, technologies like apps and software can make reading instruction more fun, accessible and motivating for many people with reading difficulties. But we must ensure that the technologies we use with students with reading disorders are supported by evidence and consistent with what we know works. 

Universal literacy is a global education, health, and human rights priority. For people with reading difficulties, we can’t waste time on things that don’t work – even if they come in fancy packaging and were created with the best of intentions. 

Principal source: Alqahtani, S.S. (2020). Technology-based interventions for children with reading difficulties: a literature review from 2010 to 2020. Education Tech Research Dev (2020) 68:3495-3525.  

Key source for review of the Reading Doctor apps (not covered in the Alqahtani review): Carson, K.L. (2020) Can an app a day keep illiteracy away? Piloting the efficacy of Reading Doctor apps for preschoolers with developmental language disorder, International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 22​:4, 454-465, DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2019.1667438. 

Special note: We wrote this article in response to several requests from clients and their families about reading apps with an evidence-base. It is for informational purposes only and is likely to get out of date pretty quickly. We don’t recommend or endorse any particular app. We make no claims that this article is up to date or comprehensive. For the avoidance of doubt, we have no relationships – financial or otherwise – with any maker of an app or other technology cited above.

Related articles:

  • Too many children can’t read. We know what to do. But how should we do it?
  • What I think about when I meet a child who can’t read
  • Is your child struggling to read? Here’s what works
  • Kick-start your child’s reading with speech sound knowledge (phonological awareness)
  • “I don’t understand what I’m reading!” – reading comprehension problems (and what to do about them)
  • How to help your school-age child learn new words – the nuts and bolts of how I actually do it in therapy
  • The forgotten reading skills: fluency, and why it matters
  • My child struggles to understand what she’s reading. Should I give her a text-to-speech tool?
  • 41 more FREE Audiobooks for children: this time, for students in Years 2 to 6
  • Why poor kids are more likely to be poor readers (and what we can do about it)
  • Dyslexia vs Developmental Language Disorder: same or different, and what do we need to know about their relationship?
  • Reading Problems and What To Do About Them: free eBook

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

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An open letter to my Year 9 son: How to take notes properly for exams and assignments

David Kinnane · 31 January 2021 ·

Dear Son

Last year, I watched you sitting at your desk, studying hard for exams. I saw you tap furiously away at your school laptop, scroll through online textbooks, and cut and paste paragraphs of text into Google Docs. I saw you fighting the urge – valiantly – to tab out of what you were studying to surf the Internet or to play games.  

You’ve got a good memory, and you’re a strong reader and writer. You did well.  I’m proud of you.

But it’s time for some changes. As you head into Year 9 (Editor’s note: a Year 9 student is a Freshman for those of you in North America), it’s time to up your game. This year, I want you to learn to take notes; and I want you to learn how to review them properly. To help out, I’ve:

  • spent some time reading peer-reviewed evidence on good note-taking practices; and
  • summarised the main points below to explain why it’s important, and how to do it. 

I’m not picking on you. In fact, to help others in the same boat, I’m sharing this letter with everyone.

Why note-making matters

Note-taking is a fundamental academic skill. It’s useful for tests, assignments, essays, and projects. More importantly, it’s useful for long-term learning of stuff you need to know as a young adult.

Over the years, you’ve probably seen me taking lots of notes as I go about my day. It’s not (just) because I’m sometimes forgetful. Evidence shows adults write more notes than young people because we have a better awareness of the need and value of note-taking. Way back in 2006, a researcher called Kobayashi looked at 33 note-taking studies and found that:

  • the positive effects of note-taking and reviewing notes were substantial compared to not taking notes; and  
  • reviewing your notes substantially heightens the value of note-taking.

In 2012, Boyle and Rivera found that students who used note-taking techniques were effective at increasing scores of measures of achievement and the quality and quantity of notes recorded. In 2015, Chang and Ku reviewed previous studies and found that “note-taking instruction increases the level of free recall, scores on comprehension tests, enhances problem-solving, and helps students learn to include more relevant ideas”.  

The problem is that note-taking and revision are hard to do well. Often, students have to learn to do them by trial and error, which wastes time and energy. 

Here’s the good news.

Good note-taking can be taught (and learned) 

It involves:

  • reading the text;
  • reducing or summarising the information in the text in your own words, focusing on main points;
  • reorganising the information into a structure that’s easier to use, often with the aid of visuals and organisers; 
  • retrieving information from your memory, rather than just copying it down; and
  • linking new information to things you already know (also known as “elaboration”).

Effective note-taking improves learning efficiency substantially, compared with more passive study techniques like simple reading. 

10 steps to good note-taking

Here are some practical, evidence-based strategies and tips for taking good notes:

1: Prepare a space to take notes without interruption. Have a dedicated note-taking space away from screens and others. Put away your laptop and phone. The space does not need to be big. But, ideally, don’t share the space with anyone else while you’re working. 

2: Establish notebooks or folders for each subject: For each school subject, have a dedicated notebook or folder filled with blank pages just for study notes. Assign each subject a different colour, e.g. red for maths, blue for music, green for science, etc., so you can sort your notes easily. 

3: Schedule time for daily note-taking: Make a timetable for note-taking. This is in addition to day-to-day homework and assignment time. Dedicate at least an 1.5 hours every school day to making good notes for your subjects. Make notes for two different subjects each day, and change subjects every 45 minutes. Use timers to keep you on track. Do not study one subject for too long. Cycle through your subjects. Studying every day means that you won’t have to cram hard before exams. If you cycle between subjects and review your notes regularly, you are more likely to remember things for exams and for life. The technical words for these routines are distributed (spaced) practice and interleaving, and you can read about why they work here.  

4: Use pens and paper: Pens and paper are cheap, fast, versatile and easy to use. They don’t need to be charged or updated. Handwriting your notes will encourage you to summarise information and to put it into your own words. It may also make your notes easier to remember when it comes time to study for exams.  

5: When you sit down to study a text, think about the structure of what you are reading and why you are reading it. Understanding structures within a text can help you to find the main ideas, and to then organise them into notes. Look for three main types of structures within texts: 

  • main headings and subheadings – these can help generate outlines;
  • sequences: these describe continuous and connected series of events (e.g. as in history) and steps in a process (e.g. as in science); and
  • classifications: grouping things into classes and categories, often so you can later define, compare and contrast things. 

6: If a teacher gives you notes, use them, but still make your own notes: Some teachers give you notes. By all means, use them to give you a framework for organising your notes. But don’t rely on your teacher’s notes alone. Depending on others’ notes might get in the way of you learning how to learn on your own. And you won’t remember someone else’s notes as well as your own come exam time.

7: Wherever possible, study using physical text books and printed materials. Read them, mark them up, rip out the main points and take notes using the Cornell note-taking system. Good note-taking is messy, active and creative. Text books are tools, and it’s OK to write in them – you have my blessing. Your aim is to mentally “rip out” the main points, and to jot them down in a way that helps get them into you brain. This is how to do it:

  • Open your notebook next to the text you are reading, and grab pens and a highlighter. 
  • Flick through the text to see how long it is and to get an idea for its structure. 
  • Look for obvious signposts, like headings and sub-headings to get a rough idea of the topic – mind map the headings into your notebook so you have a basic idea of the text’s content and structure.
  • Highlight the main ideas – in well-written texts, the main ideas are often in the first sentence of each paragraph and in the first and last couple paragraphs of a text. Mark important ideas, information and words you don’t know by underlining or circling them. When you come across a really important point (often at the end of a section), add some asterisks (*). Scribble any initial thoughts or questions you may have in the margins.
  • Have a 5-10 minute break. Have a snack (save some Honey Jumbles for me). Take a short walk.
  • Come back to the desk, and write the main points in your notebook. I recommend watching this short video on the Cornell note-taking method (e.g. Pauk & Ross, 2010) and then using the method to take notes. Your notes (including any visuals) go in the main note-taking column on the right. Keywords, new vocabulary, comments, and questions go in the smaller column on the left. Use your own words. (It’s really important not to just copy slabs of text.) Write down what you learned as if you are explaining it to someone. Ask yourself questions as you do it. 

8: Crunch them down. As you progress at school, you need to get quicker at note-taking. Your notes can’t be too long:

  • Find the main points and write them down in short, simple sentences.
  • Get rid of unnecessary words (like “the”, “for”, “in”, etc.).
  • Replace long lists with the category, e.g. instead of “horses, cows, sheep, goats, ducks, and geese”, write “farm animals”; instead of “the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal” write “Western Europe”. 
  • Use symbols and abbreviations. For example, I use the symbol “~” to refer to the topic I’m studying, e.g. If I’m studying igneous rocks, I use “~” to mean “igneous rocks”. I use “b/c” for because, and “w/” for with, “+” for positive/pros, “-” for negative/cons, and “=” for equals or equivalent to. I use ↑ for increase, and ↓ for decrease. I use arrows to show cause/effect relationships.

9: Look for keywords to help you find connections between the ideas you are studying: If you are:

  • comparing two ideas, look for “however”, but”, “although” and “while”; 
  • learning about a cause/effect relationship, look for “because”, “so” and “as a result” and “therefore”; and
  • learning about a sequence or process, look for “first”, “second/next”, “third” and “final”.

You can then summarise the relationships with numbers and arrows, or use mnemonics. For example:

  • Food chain: energy from sun → plants → herbivores → carnivore (or omnivore).
  • Rock classes: 1. magma; 2. igneous; 3. sedimentary 4. metamorphic.
  • Earth layers, top to bottom: continental crust, oceanic crust, mantle, outer core, inner core.
  • Common elements on earth (by %, not weight): 1. Oxygen 2. Iron 3. Silicon 4. Magnesium 5. Sulphur. 
  • Causes of WWI: Militarism, Alliances, Nationalism, Imperialism and Assassination (MANIA → WWI).
  • Visible colour spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet (Colours = ROY G. BIV).

10: Use visuals to reorganise information to make things easier to remember and to link it to what you already know: Use pictures, graphs, charts, diagrams to show the structure and relationships between concepts. For example, use: 

  • mind mapping (radially mapping ideas around a central idea) to make an overview of a text’s structure (table of contents, headings, topic sentences, conclusions) and existing knowledge on topic. For an overview, check out this Tedx Talk on Mind Mapping by Hazel Wagner; and
  • tables to compare two or more things by different features, or to list similarities and differences. Here’s a simple example comparing a Venus fly trap to a death cap mushroom:
SameDifferent
AliveType of living thing: plant v fungus
GrowSeeds (for Venus flytrap) spores (for death cap mushroom)
Made of cellsVenus flytrap digests insects and spiders
Both evolved from single
celled “protists”
Death cap mushroom is poisonous to humans
  • Venn diagrams to show similarities and differences between two or more things;
  • a flowchart to show a sequence of steps or a cycle diagram to demonstrate a cyclical relationship;
  • a story map to summarise a narrative; 
  • an expository text organiser to summarise an expository text. For example, check out this simple one from the Florida Reading Center;
  • charts to illustrate key relationships between two variables;
  • tree diagrams for hierarchies and for showing categories and subcategories;
  • a timeline to help map significant events over time; and
  • blue prints for designs and construction tasks.

So let’s get started 

This all might seem like a lot of work. It will be to start with. But once you know how to do it properly, and get into a routine, these note-taking skills will help you with high school, university and hopefully, one day, paid work!

It’s a new year, and we both have so many opportunities to learn about the world around us.  

Don’t roll your eyes at me, young man!

Love Dad

PS. Here’s a photo of you writing recipe notes in Kindergarten.

Principal sources: 

  • Kobayashi, K. (2006). Combined Effects of Note-Taking/Reviewing on Learning and the Enhancement through Interventions: A meta-analytic review, Educational Psychology, 26(3), 459-477.
  • Boyle, J.R., & Rivera, T.Z. (2012). Note-Taking Techniques for Students With Disabilities: A Systematic Review of the Research, Learning Disability Quarterly, 35(3), 131-143.
  • Chang, WC. & Ku, YM. (2015). The Effects of Note-Taking Skills Instruction on Elementary Students’ Reading. Journal of Education Research, 108: 278-291.
  • Ukrainetz, T.A. (2020). Sketch and Speak: An Expository Intervention Using Note-Taking and Oral Practice for Children With Language-Related Learning Disabilities, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 50, 53-70.

Related articles:

  • How to improve exam results: 9 free evidence-based DIY strategies
  • Back-to-school study skill: 3 steps to remember any 10 things in order
  • Want better school results? Avoid the hype and use free, evidence-based learning strategies
  • Worried about the HSC? 8 practical (and free) things you can do this week to get ready
  • Starting high school? 6 practical, evidence-based principles to help students succeed at STEM subjects
  • Want your writing to sound smarter? Get rid of pointless, long words!
  • Apologies to Mrs Dixon: taking notes by hand is more effective than by laptop

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

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Help your child to make inferences when reading

Emma Robinson · 29 November 2020 ·

Inferencing – the ability to join the dots or to read between the lines – is a key life skill.

In this week’s infographic, our speech pathologist, Emma Robinson, outlines what we can do to help students of all ages to learn how to do it.

1. Inferencing is the ability to combine: (a) what we already know (our world knowledge); and (b) what a text says, to generate meaning about the text.

2. Generating inferences is a key part of understanding what we read. Inferencing is needed to analyse and solve problems, and to think critically: key life skills.

3. As students progress at school, the ability to generate inferences becomes more important.

4. We can help students to make their own inferences by:

  • modelling how we do it out loud;
  • teaching them common text structures;
  • practicing answering and generating questions about what we read;
  • activating prior knowledge of information related to what we read; and
  • explicitly teaching evidence-based strategies e.g. the ‘ACT and Check Strategy’ and the ‘Why technique’.

5. The ACT and Check Strategy involves a few steps:

  • Asking a question about the sentence/text.
  • Considering the text.
  • Thinking about what you know and making educated guesses.
  • CHECKing the accuracy of your educated guesses as you read more of the text.

6. The ‘Why technique’ (also known as ‘elaborative interrogation’) involves asking yourself ‘why?’ questions several times as you read a text and forcing yourself to answer them.

7. For lots more detail on helping students to improve their inferencing skills, check out our article.

Sources:

(1) Murza, K. (Presenter), (n.d.). Supporting Students’ Inference Generation Reading [Webinar]. Medbridge: https://bit.ly/3qacsyr.

(2) Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K.A., Marsh, E.J., Nathan, M.J., & Willingham, D.T. (2013). Improving Students’ Learning with Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions from Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1) 4-58.

(3) Freed, J. & Cain, K. (2017). Assessing school-aged children’s inference-making: the effect of story test format in listening comprehension. International Journal of Communication Disorders, 52(1), 95-105. 

Related articles:

  • Help your child to fill in the gaps, join the dots, and read between the lines! (Improve inferencing skills for better reading language comprehension)
  • Are reading comprehension problems caused by oral language deficits?
  • “I don’t understand what I’m reading” – reading comprehension problems (and what to do about them)

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

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Getting ready to read at big school: a free guide for families with preschoolers

David Kinnane · 5 November 2020 ·

Too many preschoolers start school without the speech and pre-reading skills needed to thrive in Kindergarten. But which skills matter the most?

In this free guide, we seek to answer this question by summarising the evidence in Plain English.

Getting ready to read at big school

We cover:

  • typical speech development, consonant acquisition milestones, and error patterns;
  • the links between unclear speech and later reading difficulties;
  • foundational pre-reading skills (like phonological awareness and print awareness);
  • how to teach the alphabet to your child;
  • how to teach children to read;
  • the benefits of shared reading and audiobooks; and
  • school readiness communication skills.  

This family guide focuses on helping preschoolers to get ready to read at big school.

Well-developed language skills – listening and talking skills – are also vital for school readiness. You can read more about how to help your preschooler’s oral language development in our free developmental language guide for families. It contains lots of practical strategies and tips about the importance of play, language stimulation techniques. 

We hope you find these resources helpful.

Download it below.


Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

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Privacy & Cookies Policy

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