About JB
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JB is a seventh-grade student who was referred due to concerns related to verbal comprehension skills. The student's primary caregivers and classroom teacher reported JB had difficulties in understanding verbally presented materials, with the chief complaint being impacted academic performance related to comprehension difficulties. JB often provides incomplete or vague responses to comprehension questions. Additionally, JB struggles to summarize essential content. This restricts JB’s ability to perform at grade level and to articulate his thoughts effectively. JB’s medical history is unremarkable, with no known hearing or cognitive impairments.
The goal for fictitious student, JB, is amalgamated from those of three seventh grade students receiving intervention to address expressive/receptive and expository language concerns:
Goal: JB will increase understanding of verbally presented material by a) providing a summary with two supporting details and b) answering main idea and inferential questions, improving from 25% of opportunities independently to 80% of opportunities, independently, as measured by a Speech Language Pathologist over three consecutive data collection days.
Objective 1: By 12/05/2023, when verbally presented an informational text, JB will independently identify the main idea and provide a summary of the text with at two supporting details, in at least 80% of noted opportunities, as measured by a Speech Language Pathologist over three consecutive data collection days.
Objective 2: By 2/05/2024, when verbally presented an informational text, JB will independently generate a summary with two supporting details, in at least 80% of noted opportunities, as measured by a Speech Language Pathologist over three consecutive data collection days.
Objective 3: By 5/05/2024, when verbally presented an informational text, JB will independently answer at least three inferential questions and generate the main idea related to the text, in at least 80% of noted opportunities, as measured by a Speech Language Pathologist over three consecutive data collection days.
The foregoing goal is tied to the following common core California state standards:
RI.8.1: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
RI.8.2: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
The clinician should use an interactional process for facilitating discourse skills in a small group for service delivery as part of a (Tier 2) Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework of 90 minutes per month in the speech room with a group of three students pulled out from non-core classes to improve comprehension of informational texts and expressive language skills.
Informational discourse likely appears first in the form of interactive conversations between child and an adult (Ukrainetz, 2005). For example, adults explain the purpose for objects, machines or actions to explain why phenomena occur and children as young as three-years-old generally use connectives like because correctly in making logical relations or causal explanations.
The three seventh grade students the small group consists of are all developmentally typical for their age and, to support their relatively higher-level language, need opportunities to relate information removed from time and space. For adolescent students in junior high, a greater proportion of the curriculum made up of informational texts and expository lectures which require higher order cognitive abilities and more complex syntax abilities compared to narrative texts (Lundine et al., 2018).
Narrative discourse, including literary examples of Norse and Greek mythology, reports on what happened in a specific event to particular people, animals, or objects. Providing general information, for people, events, et cetera, goes beyond discussing past events and experiences and allows for discussion of organizational structure of informational discourse as well as topics distanced from time and space.
Katie Auer’s Assistance Dogs was selected for its suitability in scaffolding generalized accounts because of the generalized information of the text and its organization based on description (a topic or concept is described by referring to characteristics, features or attributes). Specifically, assistance dogs are described in the below text by referring to attributes and characteristics of types of service dogs adapted to help owners with a specific disability.
The clinician should begin by reading the informational text to the group aloud and afterwards have a conversation about the kind of decontextualized information it presents. In engaging the students in discussion of the informational text, the role of the SLP and is to teach the metacognitive strategies to help students be more successful within expository discourse and specifically imposing the organizational structure based on description.
Using a Cloze map, like the partially completed bubble map supports the students as they select phrases or words that fit in the cells to represent an idea. A bubble map, by itself, is one of the least useful maps on its own as it is only used to describe (things, people, animals, et cetera). However, the bubble map can be used very effectively in combination with other graphic organizers like the compare/contrast matrix.
After co-constructing representations of Assistance Dogs with students the clinician discusses the relationship among them. The compare/contrast matrix pictured above can be used to support the clinician comparing attributes of two types of service dogs. In doing so, the clinician models the process of generating informational discourse, reminding student how information in the cells also relates to the main idea and overall organization of the text.
Students must generate the expressive language necessary to identify key ideas and details to summarize expository discourse, and since expository texts often lack imageability for pictography, mapping informational texts for seventh grade students means summarizing using specialized vocabulary, specific phrasings, and complex grammatical relations (Ukrainetz & Peterson, 2021).
After the read aloud, co-construction of the informational text and discussion, the plan of the proposed lesson transitions to scaffolding generalized accounts in decontextualized discourse using a role play activity. Role playing relating to informational topics replicates information-based exchanges that and another way of providing students with experience talking about topics in general ways. Using Assistance Dogs we will support the comprehension of informational text by the small group through practice generating summaries with supporting details as well as answering main idea and inferential questions through a role-playing activity based on the attributes of service dog types compared by the clinician and students (in the compare/contrast matrix).
This activity lesson plan concludes by providing each of the three seventh grade students in a small expressive/receptive language group, including JB, with a practical and engaging way to internalize the main idea and key details of the "Assistance Dogs." Students can individually answer questions designed to simulate summarizing the text by answering questions related to ideas ideas explored in the role-play experience. This will reinforce their understanding of the text and its content.
Materials:
"Assistance Dogs" text (provided above)
A role-play scenario related to Assistance Dogs (described below)
Question cards (main idea and supporting detail questions provided below)
Visual aids (see above bubble map and compare and contrast graphic organizer)
Timer
Activity 1: Read Aloud, discussion and co-construction of representations from informational text
Begin by reading aloud the "Assistance Dogs" text to the small group, identifying the main idea in the first paragraph and noting important details located throughout the text. After reading, engage the students in a discussion having student complete the Cloze blanks in the provided bubble map and filling in the cells of the compare/contrast matrix with student input. Use a timer to keep the activity moving, with each student having a specific time limit to respond.
Activity 2: Role-Playing Scenarios Scaffolding Generalized Accounts
Provide role-play scenarios related to the personification of assistance dogs, assigning each student a different role as a type of service dog where they describe how they help a person needing help managing diabetes or a visually impaired individual. Visual aids like the clinician completed compare/contrast matrix to help scaffold ideas to support the role-playing activity and make it more engaging.
Activity 3: Question Cards
Allow the students to answer main idea and inferential questions. The following question cards are designed to simulate summarizing the text by answering questions related to the main idea and supporting details in Assistance Dogs:
References
Lundine, J. P., Harnish, S. M., McCauley, R. J., Blackett, D. S., Zezinka, A., Chen, W., & Fox, R. A. (2018). Adolescent summaries of narrative and expository discourse: Differences and predictors. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49(3), 551-568.
Ukrainetz, T. A. (2015). School-Age Language Intervention: Evidence-Based Practices. PRO-ED, Austin.
Ukrainetz, T. A., & Peterson, A. K. (2021). Sketch and speak: An oral, written, and graphic expository strategy intervention for secondary students. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 6(6), 1357-1373.
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