Create songs on a topic

Suno AI is a fun tool which will generate a song for you if you provide a simple prompt, such as a genre and topic. Sign in with your Google account and you can create a number of songs for free, and they are easily sharable by link. 

I first played around with Suno by musicalizing a funny story (at least funny to me and my friends). Last year when having a gathering to watch Eurovision, I had a full fridge of things for the party. My friends discovered that I had put (briefly) a defrosting ham for Mother’s Day the next day in a pan on a shelf below a table in the kitchen. So I’ve been teased since then about “floor ham.” I told Suno to “make a pop song about ham left on the floor.” That was the entire prompt, I didn't need to write any lyrics, but Suno has a custom mode where you can have more control over what ends up in the song.

Suno created this song. Seriously, it's a bop. I do apologize to any vegetarian readers.

Suno also created a fun song about nouns for me which I used with a student. The web or mobile version (just go to the website in your browser) will also display the lyrics to the song. Suno is a fun way to add engagement to any curriculum topic or to play with narrative language. 

Consider This: Classtools.net

The V in the FIVES criteria is for Visual! Visual supports are a simple Evidence Based Practice- give students something to explore with their eyes and you can tap:

-description/main idea
-vocabulary
-narrative language and complex sentence formulation
-social/situational awareness
-their interests/humor!

Classtools.net is an oldie but goodie, and has been around forever. In addition to its classroom tools such as Random Name Picker, a simple Soundboard and such, there are many visual activities you can use to create an "opener" or have students create something themselves. This may be particularly useful for older students.

Consider These:

Twister: create a "tweet" from any character, tap main idea, perspective taking, sentence formulation

Image Labelling Tool: upload an image and create text "hotspots" for part/whole thinking, abstract or advanced categories, description

Breaking News and Headline Generators: main idea of a narrative or expository topic, with humor!

Image Reveal: Gameify "Thinking with the eyes"

Interested in professional development for your department, school, or organization? Sean is booking in-person or remote trainings for the 2021-2022 school year. 

Driving can be a language/EF intervention context!

Having started as an elementary SLP, it's been one of my journeys to learn that with older populations, we need to keep it relevant. That whole Client Values prong of EBP can come into sharp focus when you are trying to keep students attending and engaged. 

I recently had several clients who were learning to drive. Very exciting. I recalled some hilarious blog posts I had read on Cracked some years back here and here about "Types of Drivers Nobody Complains About." The text itself is funny to read but not instructionally appropriate, but the images are great. Here's where the social cognitive concept of Hidden Curriculum and the Social Thinking® concepts of thinking with the eyes converge as a context for students to interpret these photos. This is also a good example of how Google Slides can be used to create a kind of workbook. I used this with my clients to have them interpret the photo and write (or I would write) a main idea interpretation. You could also use this to have budding drivers build self-awareness and make "notes to self" about what they can change in their own driving. You can obtain the resource here. As always with Google resources, please do not request permission for the document. To use it yourself, simply sign into your Google account and under the File menu, select Make a Copy. You can then make this an ersatz workbook by inserting a text box on any slide. 

Memorizer.me

As SLPs, at times we need to assist our students with work that is a bit pointless. I recall that Social Thinking® had some material about this; as students we are expected to follow the "group plan" and sometimes complete tedious tasks. Memorization of lists or passages is perhaps a good example. I recently needed to assist a student with memorizing a lengthy section from a book, I won't say which one. While the requirement was maybe in that zone of "Why tho?" it still was a good opportunity to apply Ehren's concept of the "strategic/therapeutic focus" and work on:

-ensuring comprehension of the passage as a whole and its vocabulary, sentence structure
-paraphrasing
-looking for opportunities for visualization
-noting language structure such as the flow from main idea to details in the passage, also several sentences had parallel structures that could be used as a memory trick i.e. adjective-infinitive, adjective-infinitive, adjective-infinitive.

Putting the passage in Google Docs and commenting in the sidebar with these memory tricks while discussing and eliciting paraphrasing and connections from the students made for a good teletherapy activity for a high schooler!

A quick Google search also found us this gem, which was great to leave my student with so that he could work on the actual memorization independently. Memorizer.me allows you to paste a passage or ordered list, then provides strategies and prompts to help you work on memorizing the language. For example, the website manipulates your pasted text to provide first letter or beginning of line cues. 

I recall having to memorize this above passage from Henry IV, Part 1 in high school and I wish I had had this tool!

Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards Website

The 2020 Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards finalists were announced recently, a development I saw on the news (you never know where you will get therapy ideas). Based on the BBC story about the awards, I found 4 or 5 photos that made for great therapy activities. For example, I used this one...

via BBC

...with a high school group in Google Slides as a way to review the concept of thinking with the eyes (Social Thinking®) but also as a review of Zones of Regulation®, starting with the Blue Zone (well, going whole-part-whole as is often recommended for teaching schemes like this). Interestingly, the order of details written here is in order of how the group members processed the picture. Again, this serves as a reminder that Google Slides makes a damn good therapy tool as a multimedia flipchart. 

Following this, I discovered that the Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards website itself is a goldmine, containing past winners and years of finalists. As you likely know a right click on any image gets you a fair-use-copyable for educational activities, but don't republish any images, especially not for commercial use. Be aware also that you will want to screenshot or save images rather than free-exploring the site itself with students. Wildlife occasionally flips the bird or engages in other inappropriate behavior.

An activity I'm doing this and next week in Google Earth

I'm long past processing that April School Vacation Week isn't happening. We all have bigger fish to fry, right? But here in MA it is always a rite of spring that brings the Marathon and some momentum leading up to the end of the school year...all that unclear as well.

However, we can simulate. Some of you know I am a Google Earth nerd, from way back when it was an application to download and you had to take a two-day class to understand it. Now, it's much easier. In Google Chrome, just launch Google Earth (or Google it); you can also use on iPad. But, Google Earth being so visual and interactive, it makes a great tool for telepractice. Consider using Google Earth for traveling to locations and working on descriptive language, situational awareness or the story grammar element of setting.

The activity I am doing is to have group members give a "tour"- could be a place they have gone to, are planning to go to, just want to go to, or even their neighborhood. I provided one- roughly main idea of place, 3 details and a story- as a model in groups. As a scaffold and also so that the activity makes social sense we talked about how a tour is a kind of conversation (thanks Anna Vagin for this and Conversation Paths, one of which I modified below- you should go purchase her amazing product on this, see a video here).

Students were given the roles of asking questions or making comments during or after my model tour and then I asked them to:

-use "future thinking" (see work of Ward/Jacobsen)
-think about a place to give a tour
-look it up in Google Earth and make sure it is searchable/navigable for an overview (main idea) and 3 details (places within it).
-think of a short story of your experience.
-at group you will verbally tell me where to go.
-please do not spend more than 10-15 minutes preparing for this
(this sent in email to parents)

Here's a video showing some of the navigation controls in Google Earth in Chrome which you can also find by, well, Googling! Typing a ? when in Google Earth will also display the shortcuts.

Amazon Prime Ads: Good context for teaching narrative structure or problem-solution

Video versions of ads can be motivating ways to target students' understanding of narrative and expository text structures. I have recently enjoyed the series from Amazon Prime in which people solve animal-related problems. Here's one featuring an adorable little horse:



As the ads are wordless, they offer an opportunity to work on student narration and also interpretation of nonverbal information.

Westby and Culatta's recently published article "Telling Tales" offers a tutorial on assessing and intervening on narrative skills (primarily personal rather than fictional), and as you know I am a big fan of (and consultant for) Story Grammar Marker® to break down and produce narrative material. I also highly recommend Dr. Anna Vagin's books (and mailing list) for terrific information on how to use video to target narrative and social cognition skills.

Here are two more in the series of ads:

My Valentine to Doodle Buddy- Part 1

A theme in recent presentations is repeat attendees (yay!) who report that their initial excitement about integrating apps in their work has waned a bit. Thankfully, following the presentation and collaboration with their colleagues, a number of people have reported to me that they have renewed excitement and additional contexts where they think these tools will be helpful for their work.

The fact is, kids' excitement and engagement in using technology has NOT generally waned, nor has the potential for its usefulness. I think as the years have passed and there are more options and possibilities, for us as clinicians it has resulted in a tendency to become overwhelmed or tune out for other reasons. For this reason, many of my trainings have included modules on overcoming "App Fatigue," which I believe should be included in the DSM 6. App Fatigue symptoms include an inability to keep up with all of the evolving information about technology (while feeling one needs to do so), and a change in mindset from "I can do that" to "Why bother?" While questions about how much technology to use and when to use it are positive, we want to avoid these debilitating effects. Treatment can include positive self-talk ("However much technology I use is just the right amount") and cutting down on the number of apps one uses, but looking to increase the number of ways you use them creatively and contextually.

I'd prescribe Doodle Buddy, which in a mixed-metaphor here I would like to celebrate in a kind of valentine over the next few days. Doodle Buddy is a simple drawing tablet app which has so many uses (it's free for iOS and not available for Android, but Drawing Desk has similar features). Doodle Buddy has the features you'd expect in this kind of app and more: tools such as a marker, chalk or pencil in all the colors you'd want, text, and addition of template, color or photo backgrounds.

Let me count the ways I often find Doodle Buddy more useful than paper in various intervention contexts:
-Markers dry out and annoy me, causing me to have to think about more objects to bring into an intervention session, including the colors I might need for a particular context.
-Paper is bad for the earth, can cut you, and is yet another object I have to think about.
-Students tend to be more engaged when this app is used as opposed to pencil and paper (though both mediums are important to work in at different times).
-Anything you make with Doodle Buddy is sharable and becomes an artifact of treatment activities (you can save your screen to the Photos app and from there to Google Drive or other places).

To end with a specific use (more to come), I long ago lost my "felts" from the Visualizing and Verbalizing® training I attended many years ago. V and V is a methodology that supports formation of "gestalt imagery" (basically mental pictures and "mind movies") to aid in comprehension. In addition to reading comprehension I have found it useful in listening both in academic and social contexts; it aligns with the Social Thinking® concept of "sharing an imagination." Students gradually learn to internalize "structure words" (e.g. what, color, size, shape, where, background, movement) to describe a visualization of language. The meat of the program is in the "sentence by sentence" level where paragraph-length information or stories are presented and students form images of the story as it progresses. The "felts" provide structure as each sentence is imaged and, later, a frame for retelling- "Here I saw a caterpillar who is black with red rings- he's moving slowly down a branch looking for a twig to crawl out on..." You can see some research citations- not all from Lindamood-Bell!- here.

Felts are fun, and you can make new ones (crafts!) or make them from paper, but lately I like to use Doodle Buddy for this purpose. I don't need four different colored felts, papers, or markers to make this, and I can make it appear gradually with each sentence or story part we review:

More on Doodle Buddy tomorrow!

Link Updates and One "for the Girls"

Some updates on other writings- so far this year I have had several columns published in ASHA Leader, in case you missed them:

May 1, 2014. Tech-Supported Wellness

April 1, 2014. 'Skitch' Up your Visual Aids

January 1, 2014. Zooming in on One Multitalented App

Recently I also posted for Mindwing Concepts on infusing use of Braidy, The Storybraid™ with Social Thinking's® terrific Incredible Flexible You™ program

When Lego's® Friends line of toys came on the market, marketed as "Lego for Girls," it met with some controversy about gendered branding. After all, there already was a Lego for Girls. It was called Lego.

Despite this, it seems girls do respond to the look and feel of Friends, and I appreciate any toy that develops hands-on, narrative and cooperative play. I also applaud Lego for their creation of a number of free, language-useful apps, even if the goal of these apps is to get people to buy more Lego. Minor critique aside, Lego does make a great product.

I recently found Lego Friends Story Maker app very useful in working with a small group of girls- the app is a pretty simple and limited scene creator, but in some cases it can be helpful to present only small arrays of choices. The goal can always be, how do we make a story of what we see here?

The app allows you to select from a variety of backgrounds (beach, school, etc) add characters and setting elements, as well as smaller props. As an added bonus, you can record an audio narration for your created scene, always a good opportunity to practice applicable speech and language targets or strategies.

Scene creators provide a context to develop all sorts of language targets, from concepts to description to sentence formulation. The app is limited in its text features (i.e. I'd really want to make a comic with it), but here's a place you can "app-smash." Just screenshot your scene and then add the photo to Strip Designer and you're good to add word and thought balloons and captions, helpful for scripting and other aspects of social development.

As in other cases, if you have any Friends or other Lego toys on hand, the app can help you practice play scripts and plans to enact with real-world toys.

Phrasal Verbs Machine

It's great to find an app that is focused on a particular skill, but also very contextual. Phrasal Verbs Machine (free) is a gorgeous example dedicated to building understanding of phrasal verbs- a verb paired with a preposition. These are known to be challenging to ESL/ELL populations but also are quite figurative in nature, and so are helpful to target metalinguistics for our more literal thinkers. The context of the app is "the circus world of The Amazing Phraso and his friends." Using the app, you can manipulate an old-fashioned "machine" to pair any of 100 phrasal verbs with prepositions.

In Phrasal Verbs View, you slide wheels to align verbs with paired prepositions, then tap view to see a terrific short animation of the phrase:

The animations play quite quickly but can be replayed. This activity is great for developing prediction and visualization skills by asking students what they think they will see in the machine for each combination.

In the "Exercise," the reverse situation is involved. An animation is played and you are asked to choose from a few choices to describe the animation, thus also working on main idea.

I hope you enjoy this unique and generously free app from Cambridge University Press- another example of a nicely designed app for older students!

Thanks to Richard Byrne at iPad Apps for School for pointing this app out.

DirecTV's "Don't" commercials

YouTube gives you on-demand access to just about anything, including commercials that have a language teaching purpose.* DirecTV's recent campaign consists of stories that start when someone is not using DirecTV, and end with an unfortunate consequence. I actually had a student suggest this series while we were using ads to learn about expository text structure. The cause-effect chain in each clip is very fun to explore, and can be used to target inference, complex sentence formulation or sequencing (you could also screen-shot each condition and make a visual sequencing activity, or place your shots in something like Popplet for sequencing). As the character's situation often changes, this provides good opportunities to explore the story grammar element of setting, do situational analysis with Sarah Ward's STOP (Space, Time, Objects, People) strategy, or even Social Behavior Mapping (see the work of Social Thinking® by Michelle Garcia Winner). Exploring a few of the clips would also allow you to work on main idea, i.e. what overall is DirecTV saying about their service as opposed to cable.

As these ads are off-color and have hints of violence, you would want to use them with an older population (especially the last two, which are a bit saucy). Also be very careful to preview each one before showing, as these ads have been parodied in inappropriate ways, and you wouldn't want to show one of those videos.

A number of the clips are embedded below- email subscribers click through to the post to see them.








These last two are definitely more for older students/teens:




*If YouTube is blocked at your school, apps such as TubeBox allow you to cache (download) any YouTube video for offline viewing, or download to your computer using sites such as KeepVid.

Cloudart

Wordle has long been hailed as a great visual way to work with language. Text or a web address (URL) can be pasted into this tool and then a word "cloud" is displayed, with emphasis on more frequently used words. In this way, the tool can be used with any digital text passage or content related website, and the visual that results can be used to develop vocabulary and skills of identifying main idea.

Worldle is not iPad-friendly due to its basis in Java, but Cloudart ($.99) is a great translation of this tool to the iPad platform.

Cloudart has a very simple interface, but with many features that make it useful! Simply copy a block of text via Safari or perhaps from an electronic book in iBooks (many samples of novels commonly used in educational settings are free), or a text-based URL (e.g. the Wikipedia article on any academic topic), and the app will generate your cloud. You can then customize it visually, and even tap to remove or change the emphasis of irrelevant/key words. The cloud can be saved as an image to the camera roll or emailed. 

Common Core Connection:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.5.2 Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.5.4 Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.

Build Language Skills Through Search

I am often asked for resources for clinicians working with older students. The relative scarcity of tech-based material for middle and high schoolers, particularly apps with relevant and age-appropriate content, has even been termed "the app gap." When working with older students, it pays to be creative and even more focused on the contexts they struggle with every day in the classroom.

I have previously mentioned here that "search is language." Conducting an Internet search involves selection of key vocabulary words, reading comprehension, zooming in on main ideas, summarizing and narrative, as well as inference, not to mention executive function skills such as time management. Search also prepares students for real life management of information. Luckily, Google has set up some great lessons for these skills, so we don't need to struggle to figure out what to ask kids to search for (beyond naturalistic opportunities to do so).

Navigate to Google Search Education and you can access both "Search Literacy Lesson Plans" and "A Google A Day Challenges." The lesson plans target skills such as search terms, understanding results, and evaluating credibility, at three different levels.  The challenges, which won't be too hard with your scaffolding, come with a slide deck including hints and the "answer" (so don't show students slides 5-6) until you are ready!

These resources work well both on laptops and in the Safari or Chrome apps on iPad.

Celebrate Speech with a "Silent Film"

Another way to promote the awareness of the importance of speech during Better Speech and Hearing Month (or other times) is to explore the idea of silent film. Many kids are unaware that there ever were films that have no sound, and any language-neutral visual can be a great context for having kids generate language. I found this treasure, "Unspoken Content: Silent Film in the ESL Classroom" just in a quick search about this topic.  The article describes how "The Painted Lady," available, like many films, on YouTube (or using PlayTube to cache if YouTube is blocked), can be used to target narrative and metalinguistic awareness.

I mention all this primarily because Google has recently unveiled a cool new resource: The Peanut Gallery. This website (you cannot access this on iPad, and it only works in Google Chrome) allows you to dictate language that will appear as "silent film" titles over any of a selection of over 12 old movie clips. The site uses Google's "Web Speech API" and is remarkably accurate. Just speak, and it will convert your speech to text within titles over the movie clip, which is then saved and shareable.

You can see one of my attempts at it here.

The Language Lens on this site, then, is that it provides you with many contexts to have students analyze situations (characters, settings, ongoing events) and generate narration related to this, which employs the interpretation of body language and emotions, as well as, potentially, metalinguistics such as sarcasm and understatement. 

You will need to insert test dialogue (e.g. "Action" or "Oh no!") just to make the film proceed at first, so that kids get the context and can plan dialogue for a second or third try (or more), as improvising may be too difficult without your scaffolding.  

Common Core Connection

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.

Google on Apple: Google Catalogs

Continuing this series on Google's offerings on iOS, here's an app I know many SLPs will LOVE.  Catalogs can provide a great therapy material, as they are visual, descriptive, personally relevant and motivating, and filled with categories!  Catalogs also provide contexts that stretch across many age levels and populations.  There have been a number of good posts about using catalogs in therapy; see Speech Time Fun for one and Speech Room News for another.

Google is naturally involved in the world of goods and services, but I find it interesting that they chose to create an app as interactive and creative as Google Catalogs (free). Google Catalogs lets you browse catalogs in a wide variety of categories, pinch to zoom and tap the tag to select items to view more information.

The truly cool thing about this app is that it goes beyond information consumption to become a creative tool. You can tap the heart icon to "Favorite" any item, and then go into a collage mode to create a picture array integrating your favorites with a themed background and text.  This creative capability allows SLPs to target categories, descriptive language, causals, conditionals and written expression, or have clients work within a budget to target functional math.

Ok, maybe I don't really NEED these things...

As you can see from the screenshot, the collage mode allows you to add items you have tagged as favorites (heart), text, change themes, and share the collage. Check out the app, and make sure you don't buy too much in the process.

Common Core Connection:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.1b Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details.

Appy-Picking Month: Buildo Museum

We clearly love to use Halloween as a topic in October, and so do our kids.  Last year I got into the Buildo "sticker book" types of apps (geared toward adding characters and objects to a scene, like Colorforms) and was a bit confused when they released Buildo Museum in the spring. Museum, huh? Does it involve docents, audio guides, and bored children? Ohhhhh, it turns out it was a haunted museum.  OK.

Buildo Museum ($1.99) has an edge on other sticker book apps (see Clickysticky series, which I also like) because of its panoramic scenes, allowing you to sweep left or right to add more stuff, and also wacky sound effects.

Also see the other Buildo apps- Rescue is a favorite of mine.

Language Lens:

-Sticker book apps are a form of digital storytelling and can therefore be used to target all kinds of story structure, from simple action sequences to more cause-effect chains. At the micro level, you can also develop vocabulary, description, verb and pronoun use.  

-Kids can follow directions to create a scene, or direct each other in a barrier task.

-Screenshot the scene to extend to a writing activity.

Common Core Connection:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.5 Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Be sure to read Jeremy Legaspi's great post on app-dapting a multitude of Halloween-themed apps toward speech and language interventions.

The Write-N-Ator!

The Write-n-ator is a site from New Hampshire Public Television based on the PBS Series Word Girl!  The site presents 20 different short clips from the TV show, followed by a writing challenge. What I love about the site is that it presents writing prompts in a fun context, and the prompts are all prime targets for S/L or literacy interventions.  They ask kids to work within basic text structures- list, sequence, or descriptive paragraphs- and could be completed in a relatively short period of time.  This would be a great resource to use when teaching kids to use graphic organizers, write basic paragraphs, elaborate and expand sentences in their speaking or writing, use main idea and details, or a variety of other IEP goals.

This would be a good resource to take some time with this summer and consider which videos you might like to use with a particular grade level(s).

George Washington's World for Kids

I accidentally back-posted this to 1/3/10 some time ago- this blog didn't even exist then!  Anyway, I lost track of it, and it would be a good resource to explore around President's Day, as well as aligning with curriculum around Social Studies and the Revolutionary War.

George Washington's World for Kids gives you an interactive glimpse into colonial days and the landmark of Mount Vernon. Although I found two of the activities at this site, Harpsichord Hero (clever take off on Guitar Hero) and Bombarding Yorktown to be quite frustrating and unwinnable, the Washington's Treasures activity would make a great task for any student studying early US history or geography.  Players are tasked to find several items by obtaining clues from people on the estate.

Language Lens:

• Obtaining clues, understanding main ideas and inferential details are all skills tapped by the Treasures activity.  
• Students also will practice spatial concepts as they navigate the estate using a map.

Movie Poster Maker

The Movie Poster Maker from Big Huge Labs could be used for a variety of purposes in language intervention. The tool allows you to upload a picture and add the text that would normally appear on a movie poster (tag lines, stars, rating, etc). It's a pretty simple interface, but you unfortunately don't get much of a preview.  It would be a good idea to be structured when creating the posters with a student (so you don't waste time). When completed, you can save the photo as a jpeg on your computer, print, or share in other ways.

Here's one I whipped up in 10 min!

Language Lens
This tool could be used for self-description, say, in a pragmatics group, or to connect with curriculum content. Maybe make a movie poster about a book, with taglines requiring a persuasive reason to see the film. Taglines could also serve to convey a main idea about a curriculum topic that wouldn't normally be the subject of a blockbuster, like Gases: Without them you'd be breathless. I just made that up. Ha.

Visible Thinking

Visible Thinking is a terrific teaching resource from Harvard University promoting the use of activities called Thinking Routines to develop students' higher-level thinking skills. Language is, of course, a manifestation of thinking, so all of the Thinking Routines promote language skill development. The routines are game-like, structured discussions (if you are familiar with KWL charts, these are basically Thinking Routines) that take place around a topic or visual context (e.g. a YouTube video, map, or picture) and lead students toward operating on higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. I often would turn to a Thinking Routines activity when I found something visually interesting, such as a book cover, and wanted to use it to elicit language within a session. A good example is the "Headlines" Routine:

"This routine draws on the idea of newspaper-type headlines as a vehicle for summing up and capturing the essence of an event, idea, concept, topic, etc. The routine asks one core question:
1. If you were to write a headline for this topic or issue right now that captured the most important aspect that should be remembered, what would that headline be?"

This article on the blog Infinite Thinking Machine provides more examples of how Thinking Routines can be used in relation to YouTube videos, such as this one:



Language Lens

• Thinking Routines are great discussion structures when you are working at the discourse level with students.
• The prompts in each routine are often related to the classic "main idea and details" type of goal, but also move students toward higher level thinking.
• The elements within each routine generally link together in ways that foster complex sentence formulation skills.