Neuron Learning Resources and Tools
- Foundations I
- Foundations II
- Reading Level 1
- Reading Level 2
- Reading Level 3
Foundations I
Interventions for Foundations I
PLEASE PRINT OUT THESE INTERVENTIONS AND KEEP THEM ON FILE TO REFER TO WHEN NECESSARY.
Helpful Interventions for Foundations I
SKY GYM
This is a processing exercise and many students find it difficult. The student must identify the difference between high, medium and low frequency sweeps.
They must aim to get 9 trials in a row correct and as many 9s as possible in a session.
If 9 is too difficult try getting 3 in a row correct and then another 3 and another and so on.
See attached Three-In-A-Row-Worksheet https://help.scilearn.com/toolbox/docs.htm
Start by giving a tick for every correct trial. When the student gets one wrong, put an “x” and explain that he is about to start a new lot of 9 and not to worry about the one that they have just got wrong. Each time they get one wrong start a new line of 9. If they get 3 in a row wrong then they will go down a level. Some get distracted by the one or two they get wrong and go on to respond incorrectly.
Be sure to emphasise that the wrong one doesn’t matter. If the teacher/parent knows what the correct answer should have been, for example, if they clicked on ‘high’ ‘low’ and it should have been ‘high’ ‘high’ make a note of that next to the ‘x’ as very often we can see a pattern. The student may have difficulty with one particular combination.
Sometimes we name the sounds. The high frequency we call ‘me’ and say it in a high pitched voice. The low frequency we call ‘Joe’ and say it in a low pitch tone.
Other times we visualize the sounds. for example, we say the high tone is like a bird that says ‘tweet!’ which again we say in a high pitched voice and the low tone is like a frog and make a frog sound in a low pitched voice.
If you have access to a piano please play the highest note and the lowest and ask the student which is high and which is low. Gradually over time play the notes closer together until finally they are beside each other on the keyboard all the while asking him the same questions. If you do not have a piano simply use the Virtual Piano and work on that.
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/music/piano/
Or Google it !
Some students like to practice on the demo before starting their exercises.
WHALIEN MATCH
If the student is struggling with this exercise try to help them to understand that this is a memory game and that it helps a lot to develop a systematic way of pairing the phonic sounds/words.
Encourage the student to start on the first row always working from left to right. Then go onto the second row, then the third and then the fourth. This way he will know which Whaliens he has clicked on.
When we start on the first Whalien on the first row ask the student to say what they heard for example ‘cap’ then ask him to make a picture in his mind of that cap and tell you what that picture looks like, “It’s a baseball cap and it’s blue” or “it’s grey like my granddad’s”, then go onto the 2nd Whalien on the first row and do the same ‘cat’ “It’s black and white” then go onto the 3rd and do the same. Then go back to the 1st and ask if they remember what it was, if not, click on it again and try to remember it again doing the same with the 2nd and 3rd. Every time they click they lose a point so we don’t want to click on these three too often. If they can remember three he may remember a fourth as he goes through the 16 Whaliens on the screen. If they cannot remember 3 try 2 but always try to remember more than 1 sound.
This is the beginning of comprehension where the student is trying to remember what they just heard and this exercise will help him greatly later when reading text. It is also great for spellings and tables.
Please see attached word list for this exercise. The student should not refer to this while working on the exercise. He must focus on the sounds of the words. Use it away from the computer in addition to his daily session.
See attached Wordlists.
ROBO-DOG
Make sure that the “Help” mode is switched off. You do this by clicking on the question mark on the screen.
Print out the Error Reports. Look at the Initial and Final Consonant sounds and vowel sounds the student is struggling with. Work on words on the attached list.
Play games like “I spy with my little eye something beginning (or ending) with …”
When teaching the student the phonetic sounds please ensure that everyone teaches the same sound for each letter.
Here is a link to an excellent video which you may find helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ksblMiliA8&t=95s
ELEBOT
Print out the Error Report for this Exercise. Work on the areas of difficulty away from the computer and in addition to the daily computer sessions.
If you would like me to send you screenshots for this exercise please email me.
SPACE COMMANDER
Look at the Error reports and print them out. Highlight the areas of difficulty and work away from the computer, if necessary.
Colours, Shapes and prepositions can be the issue here.
It may help to work with the concrete. Get a chess board and cut out cardboard shapes, colour them in, and place them on the board. Read out one instruction at a time for the student to follow. If they struggle to remember the entire instruction ask them to tell you what it is they think they heard. This way they are engaging their working memory. Try not to repeat the instruction but give a different one. Start off with the simple instructions first.
MOON RANCH AND HOOP NUT
You will see the written symbols for the sounds written on the screen.
Sit with your student and ask them what they are hearing. Very often it’s not what is being presented to them e.g. ‘ba/da’ but something completely different. Sometimes they really have to force themselves to process/register the correct sound (hearing is not usually the issue).
Remember that the sound has been modified and does sound a bit weird. It’s been proven that it’s easier to train the brain to process sound accurately when we slow the sound down.
MOTIVATION
Small rewards can be a great motivation. You will know best what your student will enjoy and what they will appreciate.
Would you like to know more? Contact me at joyce@neuronlearning.com
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Joyce
Foundation-I-Whalien Match Word-Lists.pdf
Foundations I - Scope and Sequence
Foundations I - Exercises
Ele-Bot Exercise
In Ele-Bot students progress through five speech processing levels. Within each speech processing level, Ele-Bot presents content that covers a range of grammatical content and difficulty.
Students develop English grammar and vocabulary skills by identifying the picture that best represents a sentence or answers a question.
Hoop Nut Exercise
In Hoop Nut students are asked to choose between 2 syllables that sound very similar, such as /ba/ and /da/.
Hoop Nut improves students’ ability to rapidly and accurately recognize confusable sounds. It trains the brain to act quickly so these sounds aren’t blurred together, which often results in a listener having to ask someone to repeat what they said. Our brains must be able to identify these sounds to understand what someone is saying. If a sound is perceived clearly in the first place, it’s easier to recall it clearly later.
Hoop Nut helps students to clearly perceive and represent these easily confusable consonant sounds.
Moon Ranch Exercise
Phonological fluency affects reading fluency. If students are unable to quickly and easily distinguish between all the sounds presented in a word, they may mispronounce or misremember words in a passage.
Building phonological memory and fluency with Moon Ranch can help students strengthen reading skills by training them to hear all of the sounds in a syllable or word.
Robo-Dog Exercise
In Robo-Dog, students listen to a target word and view 2-4 pictures, then click the picture that best represents the target word they just heard. Students work on two separate types of content, phoneme discrimination, and academic vocabulary.
Fluent use of math and science vocabulary is integral to understanding concepts as well as developing and consolidating skills in these domains. If students don’t understand domain-specific vocabulary terms, they are unable to follow classroom instruction or comprehend written text material, which will negatively affect their academic achievement in those subject areas.
Sky Gym Exercise
In Sky Gym, students identify and sequence frequency sweeps—sounds that change in pitch from low to high (“Weeps”) or high to low (“Woops”). What does this have to do with being a good listener and reader? The frequencies and durations of the frequency sweeps resemble some of the rapid transitions in the sounds of the English language.
Use the Three-in-a-Row Worksheet to help the student visualize their progress and become more focused on accuracy and consistency.
Sky Gym improves students’ ability to recognize frequency sweeps quickly and accurately.
Space Commander Exercise
In Space Commander students listen to directions and then follow them by selecting or manipulating one or more tokens (objects) based on color, shape, and/or size.
As students mature and exercise working memory, they develop strategies to enhance their working memory and learning skills. Working memory strategies are also used to enhance retention of story sequences and chronology.
Finally, working memory strategies employed during reading of texts from varied academic disciplines like mathematics, science and history enable the student to further develop study skills as well as integrate content from several subject areas.
Whalien Match Exercise
In Whalien Match students match objects representing different, but similar sounding syllables/words together. Whalien Match exercises students’ auditory processing by helping their brains improve their ability to distinguish these individual sounds and differentiate them from one another in closely related combinations.
Whalien Match helps students develop sound discrimination, phonemic awareness and listening skills.
Foundations I - Space Commander Key Vocabulary and Instructions
Key Vocabulary
on
between
beside
away from
touch
big
little
(and any additional key words from commands chosen at teacher’s discretion)
Space Commander Instruction
Touch the green circle.
Touch the yellow square.
Touch the blue square.
Touch the white circle.
Touch the red circle.
Touch the blue circle.
Touch the green square.
Touch the yellow circle.
Touch the red square.
Touch the white square.
Touch the little green circle.
Touch the big red circle.
Touch the big white circle.
Touch the big red square.
Touch the little yellow circle.
Touch the big green circle.
Touch the big green square.
Touch the little white circle.
Touch the little blue square.
Touch the big red square.
Touch the white circle and the blue square.
Touch the blue square and the red circle.
Touch the red square and the green square.
Touch the green square and theblue square.
Touch the yellow circle and the red circle.
Touch the blue square and the yellow square.
Touch the red square and the yellow circle.
Touch the white square and the red circle.
Touch the green circle and the green square.
Touch the blue square and the yellow circle.
Touch the little green circle and the big yellow square.
Touch the little red square and the little yellow circle.
Touch the big green square and the big blue circle.
Touch the big red square and the big blue square.
Touch the little red square and the little green circle.
Touch the little white circle and the little blue circle.
Touch the big red square and the big white square.
Touch the big green circle and the big red circle.
Touch the little blue square and the little white circle.
Touch the little yellow square and the big blue square.
Put the blue circle on the red square.
Put the green square between the red circle and the blue circle.
Cover the green circle with the blue square.
Cover—with the green circle—the blue square.
Touch the green circle and the blue square.
Touch the green circle and the blue square.
Put the white square away from the yellow square.
Touch the squares, except the yellow one.
Put the white square beside the red circle.
Put the blue circle between the yellow square and the white square.
Except for the blue one, touch the circles.
Touch the red circle—No!—the green square.
Instead of the yellow square, touch the white circle.
Along with the yellow circle, touch the green circle.
First, touch the yellow square, then, touch the blue circle.
After touching the yellow square, touch the blue circle.
Put the red circle beside the yellow square.
First, touch the blue square, then touch the white circle.
Before touching the white circle, touch the blue square.
Put the yellow square on the red square.
Foundations I - Word Lists Robo-Dog and Ele-Bot
Foundations I -Ele-Bot Screenshots
Here are a few examples of Ele-bot screenshots
Foundations I - Robo-Dog Screenshots
Foundations I - 9 in a Row Worksheet
Foundations II
Interventions for Foundations II
Foundations II - Scope and Sequence
Foundations II - Exercises
In Cosmic Reader students listen to a story while looking at pictures, and then answer questions and follow instructions related to that story. It comprises three stories: Chicken Licken, Big Bad Pigs, and Little Red.
Students develop English grammar, following directions, vocabulary, and listening comprehension skills.
In Paint Match students will be able to hear small differences in sounds in English through a listening game. Students will be able to use what they know of word pronunciation and sound-letter relationships to succeed in the Paint Match exercise.
The students develop phonological awareness and sound-letter correspondence skills by matching words into pairs using the fewest attempts.
In Polar Planet, the student clicks the Go button to start. Polar Planet presents a target word, then presents a series of words associated with ice blocks that move from left to right. The student must click the ice block when they hear and /or read the target word. Students will be able to use new words they learn to successfully complete Polar Planet
Students develop phonological awareness, word analysis, and sound-letter correspondence skills
In Tomb Trek, students will be able to pronounce and define new words in English using a matching game and teacher support. The student clicks the Go button to hear a target word. The exercise then presents two words that differ by initial consonant or final consonant.
Students develop phonological awareness and sound-letter correspondence skills by identifying a target word when presented within a sequence of two words.
In Jumper Gym, the student clicks the Go button to hear a sequence of sound sweeps. A sound sweep is classified as weep (a sound sweep that goes up, from lower to higher frequency) or woop (a sound sweep that goes down, from higher to lower frequency). The student must then click the up arrow or down arrow to reproduce the sequence of sound sweeps correctly.
Students develop advanced listening accuracy and auditory sequencing skills by identifying a sequence of sound sweeps.
Foundations II - Word List
Foundations II -Cosmic Reader text and Screenshots
Here are a few examples of Cosmic Reader Screenshots.
Foundations II -Cosmic Reader Lesson 1
Foundations II -Cosmic Reader Lesson 2
Key Words
singular
plural
-es
-s
more than one
one
objects
form
Cosmic Reader Lesson 2 – Chicken Licken script and content
Cosmic Reader Lesson 2 – Big bad pigs script and content
Cosmic Reader Lesson 2 – Little Red script and content
Foundations II -Cosmic Reader Lesson 3
Key Vocabulary
on
between
beside
away from
touch
big
little
(plus additional keywords from commands chosen at teacher’s discretion)
Cosmic Reader Lesson 3 – Chicken Licken script and content
Cosmic Reader Lesson 3 – Big bad pigs script and content
Cosmic Reader Lesson 3 – Little red script and content
Reading Level I
Interventions for Reading Level 1
Reading Level 1 - Scope and Sequence
Reading Level 1 - Exercises
In Buzz Fly, students progress through 5 levels of difficulty. At each level, the exercise increases
the following factors to make the task progressively more challenging:
• Narration rate
• Vocabulary level
• Text length
Students build listening comprehension skills by answering multiple-choice questions about fiction and nonfiction passages that have been read aloud.
In Bear Bags, the student sorts groups of words into sound-based categories that are represented by lunch bags. First, Bear Bags presents a set of lunch bags and introduces the sorting rules.
Students build phonological awareness and phonics/decoding skills by sorting words based on initial,
medial, and final sounds.
In Bedtime Beasties, the student reads an incomplete sentence and sees 4 possible answers on cards. The student must choose the correct answer to fill in the blank.
The student builds listening and reading comprehension skills by selecting the correct picture, word, letter, or punctuation mark to complete a sentence.
In this exercise, a rabbit magician transforms words with his card tricks. The student assists the magician by selecting the missing letter to complete the spelling of a spoken word.
Students build spelling and phonics skills by selecting the correct letters to complete the spellings of spoken words.
In this exercise, the student sorts groups of words into semantic and linguistic categories that are represented by mailboxes.
Students build vocabulary skills by sorting words into different categories, such as conceptual, semantic, and grammatical.
Reading Level 1 - Word List
Reading Level 2
Interventions for Reading Level 2
Reading Level 2 - Scope and Sequence
Reading Level 2 - Exercises
The object of Ant Antics is to match a picture to its descriptive title.
To work on Ant Antics, the student clicks the Go button on the globe to see a picture projected on the classroom wall. Then, four sentences or phrases are displayed on the notebook. The student must click the sentence or phrase that best describes what is happening in the picture.
Students develop critical reading and sentence comprehension
The object of Leaping Lizards is to select the correct response to fill in the blank and complete the sentence.
To work on Leaping Lizards, the student clicks the Go button to start. An incomplete sentence is displayed. In the beginning, the sentence is also spoken aloud. Then, the lizards display four possible responses. The student must click the card with the word, letter, or punctuation mark that best fills in the blank and completes the sentence. Students improve sentence comprehension and vocabulary.
This exercise builds vocabulary, punctuation and capitalisation skills, as well as word morphology, prefixes, and suffixes.
The object of Dog Bone is to listen to passages while reading along, then independently re-read passages and answer multiple-choice questions.
To work on Dog Bone, the student clicks the Go button on the podium to start. A page of text from a fiction or nonfiction passage is presented. The exercise poses a question about the text and the dogs below present four possible responses. The student must click the response that correctly answers the question.
Dog Bone helps improve listening comprehension, reading skills, and working memory
Reading Level 2 - Word List
Reading Level 2 - Screenshots Ant Antics
Reading Level 2 - Screenshots Dog Bone
Reading Level 2 - Screenshots Leaping Lizards
Reading Level 3
Intervention for Reading Level 3
Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.
Reading Level 3- Scope and Sequence
Reading Level 3- Exercises
In Scrap Cat, the student reads words and sorts them into 2-4 categories
The student sorts more than 300 words into categories that focus on various aspects of word knowledge:
• word meaning (semantics)
• part of speech (syntax)
• sound (phonology)
• structure (morphology)
Students are able to Build vocabulary, grammar, and decoding skills
In Twisted Pictures, the student views a picture and reads four phrases or sentences, written in the museum guidebook, below. The student must choose the phrase or sentence that correctly describes something in the picture.
The students build reading comprehension skills.
In Chicken Dog, the student helps the hot dog vendor by listening to words and selecting the correct letters to complete partial spellings of those words. Periodically, the student will have the opportunity to complete a one-minute “speed round” where they can earn extra points as they rapidly review words they have previously learned.
The students build spelling and phonics skills.
In Book Monkeys, the student independently reads fiction and nonfiction paragraphs, and then answers multiple-choice questions that tap into literal, Inferential, and causative comprehension.
Students build reading comprehension skills.
