Would you like to turn your Read Alouds into a dynamic lesson that improves language comprehension - the upper strands of Scarborough's Rope - as well as reading comprehension and sentence writing? Trina Spencer and Doug Peterson not only have been researching these topics for decades but have made Story Champs, a series of ready-to-use stories and scaffolds. See their videos below and watch a 15 minute lesson were a student goes from describing a story in three words to retelling the story using complex sentences. 

Story Champs® is a multitiered language program that helps educators and clinicians promote academic language of diverse students. Although the primary focus of Story Champs® is on the development of a strong oral language foundation through storytelling, it also promotes other aspects of academic language that are essential for school success through information retelling, vocabulary, inferencing, and writing.

Trina and Doug have also developed DYMOND, a diagnostic assessment for language disorders and dyslexia, and CUBED -3 a series of screening and progress monitoring tools. 

Today’s guests are Trina Spencer and Douglas Peterson. Trina is a professor at Kansas University, a school psychologist and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Doug is also a speech-language pathologist and a Professor at Baylor University. Trina and Doug have been discussing today’s topic, the connection between language and literacy since they were in graduate school.   They hold differing views on this topic, which I appreciate very much. I highly recommend there talks on YouTube, called Comprehending Comprehension. 

Language Dynamics Group - LDG - to find out about Story Champs and Trina and Doug's great work:

https://languagedynamicsgroup.com/ (LDG website to explore our tools)

 https://languagedynamicsgroup.com/research/ - research page with Infographics and complete references 

https://www.youtube.com/@languagedynamics (LDG’s YouTube Channel)

 https://languagedynamicsgroup.com/video-demonstrations/ (Videos of our tools demonstrated)

 https://languagedynamicsgroup.com/webinars-recorded/ (Archived and upcoming free webinars)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrr6gJ3Bl-g&t=158s (Sold Half a Story: Comprehending Comprehension Live Audience Show)

http://trinastoolbox.com/# (I have a lot of updating to do, but there are a ton of free downloads on this site)