(L415) Blanks 4: Space Picture Resource

Description

Up to 15% of young school kids don’t have the language comprehension skills to cope fully with the demands of school (Hart & Fielding-Barnsley, 2009). Many of these kids struggle – some for their whole lives. So what can we do to improve students’ understanding of language?

Well, it helps to have a plan. And good plans are based on tried and tested frameworks. For language comprehension, one of the most influential frameworks was developed by Dr Marion Blank, a developmental psychologist. Dr Blank proposed four levels of abstraction, from least to most abstract:

• Level 1: Directly supplied information (Matching perception)
• Level 2: Classification.
• Level 3: Reorganisation.
• Level 4: Abstraction and Inferences.

Not all kids start school with an ability to complete Level 4 tasks, which relate to classification and reorganisation. In this resource, we target Blank’s level 4 language comprehension tasks.

Many children are fascinated by space. In this resource, we use this common interest to support students with a range of different needs, including students with language and learning disorders, as well as students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. These resources are also appropriate for students of all ages who are learning English as an additional language.

The 27-page resource can be used for face-to-face sessions or for distance learning/telehealth sessions.