Module 1: Squeeze and Say
The overall objective is to help students attend to instructions from an outside agent (that is, a teacher or facilitator) and then internalize those instructions. The student’s task is to follow an increasingly complex set of rules given by the facilitator. Initially, students are only required to provide a motor response (for example, when you see a picture of an animal, squeeze your hand twice; when you see a picture of a flower, squeeze your hand once).
The second level of difficulty requires both a motor and verbal response with time constraints (for example, when you see a picture of an animal, squeeze your hand twice and say “squeeze-squeeze”; when you see a picture of a flower, squeeze your hand once and say “squeeze”). The highest level of difficulty requires students to respond to and differentiate an increasing number of stimuli without picture support (for example, when I say an animal name that is long you say squeeze-squeeze and squeeze twice, and when I say an animal name that is short you say squeeze and squeeze your hand once).
This process is then applied to distinguish the syllable length of nonsense words (for example, when I say a silly word that is long, you say “long-squeeze-squeeze” and squeeze twice; when I say a silly word that is short, you say “short-squeeze” and squeeze once). Students are given opportunities to create their own exemplars in many of the activities and share these with their classmates.
Module 2: Clap and Listen
Aspects of phonological awareness and working memory (phonological discrimination, phonological memory, rhyming, and analysis of sounds in words and syllables) are the focus of Module 2. The student’s task is to respond to and discriminate smaller units of speech (that is, words and syllables) presented in progressively longer and faster sequences. For example, students listen to a series of words/syllables and when they hear a word/syllable that is different from the rest in the sequence, they clap their hands.
At first the words/syllables are phonemically dissimilar (for example, sun, sun, book, sun; ba, ba,ba,jee), and then they become phonemically similar (for example, gate, gate, hate, gate; ta, ta, ha, ta). At the next level of difficulty, the frequency of presentation is increased. At the highest level of difficulty, students produce the words/syllables sequences themselves. As in Module 1, students are given opportunities to create their own exemplars in many of the activities and share these with their classmates.
Module 3: Funny Relatives
In Module 3, the student’s task is to indicate first the syntagmatic and then the paradigmatic relationships described by the facilitator. At the easiest level of difficulty, students place two objects in relation to each other in response to syntagmatic sentence constructions provided by the facilitator. The students demonstrate both the action and the spatial relationship expressed in each sentence (For example, The kitten jumped onto the table. The kitten is hiding under the table.).
The students also respond to questions asked by the facilitator, which include both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships (For example, “Tell me what the kitten is doing. Why do you think the kitten is hiding?”). The level of difficulty is increased through expanding the length and complexity of facilitator utterances and phasing out the picture cues (For example, Sally and John want to have breakfast. Sally said, “We must have eggs for breakfast.” John said, “We don’t have any eggs, we must go to the store.” What do Sally and John want for breakfast? Where do they have to go to get the eggs?).
Module 4: Name Game
Module 4 focuses on onset and rhyme analysis. The student’s task is to discriminate onsets and rhymes. At the easiest level, students articulate onsets or rhymes depending on the facilitator instructions (For example, “I’m going to tell you about a very cute little baby I met. You know when babies are learning how to talk they can only say the first sound of words. When the little baby wanted a drink of water she said w-w-w. I want to see if you can tell me how the baby would say some other words.
If the baby wanted some cake what would she say? If the baby saw a fish how would she say fish?”). At the next level of difficulty, students use puppets to articulate both onsets and rhymes. One of the puppets always eats onset sounds and the other one always eats rhyme sounds. Using common words the students say what sounds each puppet eats. At the most difficult level, students match onsets and rhymes from sets of three (For example, “This mitten says s. Here are three mittens, this mitten says push, this one says last and this one says sing. Which mitten goes with s?”). As in earlier modules, students are also given opportunities to create their own exemplars in many of the activities and share these with their classmates.
Module 5: Shapes, Colors, and Letters
In this module, the focus is on the rapid naming of shapes, colors, objects, and letters. The student’s task is to identify and name a series of shapes, colors, and letters. Students complete a range of tasks with shapes first, followed by colors, colored shapes, and finally with letters. For example, students are first shown a series of five common shapes and asked to identify them. The level of difficulty is increased by having children first identify one shape, then two, then three, and so on.
Students are then shown a single row of shapes and asked to name them as quickly as possible. The level of difficulty is increased by adding rows, until students are naming five rows of shapes. This procedure is repeated for colors, colored shapes, and letters. Again, students create their own exemplars when completing these activities and share these with their classmates.