TEACHER FEEDBACK
Caldwell Elementary School
Hearing Impaired Program
Wichita, Kansas

Diana Smith
adsmith@fn.net

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998
Valerie, I am so excited about the coloring book level. It is great.!! I love these drawing & description pages. They are terrific!!!! If possible I would like to have your permission to work on doing the same thing for the Level 2 Reader. I believe that would help my students immensely. It may only be necessary to do something like that with the 1st Reader. By the time we move to the next stories, they will probably understand what we are doing. But I think with the first one we will have to move a little slower. Thanks for all your great work!!!!!

Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998
Another use for the flashcards, which I typically use in my classroom, is to use them to construct sentences in a pocket chart, on a table, on the floor, or wherever. This would be a step before the children actually wrote the signs. A sentence or paragraph or story could be developed in this manner and then written. You could use it after a field trip or any kind of classroom experience to record what happened. The children could develop it together and decide which event occurred first, second, and third.

I am hoping to have an IBM or clone in my classroom soon so my children can actually type from the SignWriter program. I am working on that donation.

As far as the amount of content on a page in your levels of "The Three Bears"--- I think what you have done in the coloring book form is great. Your coloring book format is great for little kids. It highlights the story and starts on their beginning level. It gets them to retell the story in their own words. We want creativity on their part. In that way we can determine their level of comprehension. The higher the level the more detailed the story can become. You need some stories to use as teaching tools. Other stories can be written in their full richness. Variety is the spice of life.

Thanks for all your hard work. You can quote or copy any of the above comments if you wish.

Your friend,
Diana Smith
adsmith@fn.net

Caldwell Elementary School
Wichita, Kansas

Diana Smith is a participating teacher in the
SignWriting Literacy Project.

Click here to read Diana's reports on the project.


 

 

Please feel free to write if you have questions.

Valerie Sutton
DAC@SignWriting.org

 

Deaf Action Committee for SignWriting
Center For Sutton Movement Writing
an educational nonprofit organization
P.O. Box 517, La Jolla, CA, 92038-0517, USA


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