I am always on the hunt for engaging materials that can be used in a wide variety of ways. Recently I was sent some sequencing cards to try out and I was pleasantly surprised that they are a whole lot more than sequencing! Their name is actually and acrostic poem for what these cards were designed for.
S Sequencing and Sentence Formation
P Predicting, Problem Solving, and Picture Interpretation
A Analyzing and Answering WH Questions
R Retelling a story and reasoning skills
K Knowledge of basic concepts and vocabulary.
Just reading that made me super excited to try them out with my students (all of those areas are objectives for students on my caseload AND they are skills that support academic success).
The following sequences are included:
Going to the library
Making a lemonade stand
Preparing for a hurricane
Planting flowers
Going to the vet
A trip to the beach
Setting the table
Playing football
The only thing I wish here is that there were separate sets for school activities and family activities. I would by ALL of them if they existed!! Also, we don’t live in a hurricane area, so that sequence is not relevant to my students (but we can adapt it for preparing for tornadoes). I have also decided that I can use any of them for narrative skills, even if my students can’t directly relate.
Testing them out with my students:
I presented the cards to a group of students (3rd and 4th grade) that needed to work on inferencing, answering questions, narrative, and sequencing skills. I used the "going to library" cards and we did it as a group discussion. We started off looking at all of they pictures and trying to put them in order. After we all agreed on the order, we took turns making up the story of what was happening. The great thing about each set is that they provide a card with suggested questions for each picture. So after we told the narrative, I asked each student questions (specific to their objectives). For example: Inferencing: “Looking at the first card, what in the picture gave us a clue about where the family was going?” Questions: “Who helped the students check out the books? “What did the students need to check out books?” I was able to target each of the student’s goal with this one activity.
I could've also used it for story retelling, expanding utterances, problem solving questions, and sentence formation. You could even incorporate some writing tasks with these cards.
Student opinion:
I asked my students what they thought about the cards. They told me the liked the pictures and the size of the cards. They asked me if we could do another group project (my student called our lesson a group project, I LOVED that) with another set of the cards (I said yes of course).
I really love that pictures are realistic art and are not too “young” looking. They are prefect for elementary students or even middle school students who still need to work on these skills.
I recommend these cards for any SLP working on language skills with elementary aged students. You could also use them for articulation carry over at the same time. I just love all of the ways these cards can be utilized and the best part, all of the skills help support academic success!
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Disclaimer: Spark Innovations sent me a copy of these cards to try out. I was not paid for this review. It is my honest opinion of the product and how I use it in therapy.