Teaching Vocabulary The “MadLib” songs were created to teach the vocabulary words within the block with context in a fun and silly way. These songs were named after the color of the block. Some of the lyrics for the blue block include: “Every day I want more music, it brings color to my life. I say no one can deny it; it’s a good day to hear a melody. The numbers and the pictures that the sounds create just look and see the beauty that it makes”. Our music therapist did a fantastic job creating these songs and recorded them for the team to use. Samples of these songs can be found at the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/se279vpdfsamvqn/AABfqQVd7x UDH9xWS4Lr2dIfa?dl=0 Expanding the Teaching Team members used different songs during instructional time and when modeling words as part of an activity. For example with Corinne, we may have used a “Name That Tune” song for repeating the pattern to get to the number icon in the blue block (scan, scan, select, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, select, or drum, drum, cymbal, drum, drum, drum, drum, drum, drum, cymbal) prior to a math lesson. During literacy activities, we would pick one or two core words to focus on and use the songs that included those vocabulary words. We would use the “Name That Tune” songs to teach how to get to the word or use the“Instructional”songs to teach about the block that contained the target word. These teaching strategies were used by all team members to support academic activities as well as during direct instruction.
Image 4: More Block in CoreScanner
ask the student to repeat more complex patterns, such as drum, drum, cymbal, drum, drum, cymbal.
Pairing Sound Patterns with Words Depending on the communication system the student is using, we choose eight to 10 core words that have some meaning as a place for the student to start. In our example with Corinne, one of her favorite words was “more.” With her device layout (see Image 3), the pattern to get to more was: scan, scan, select, scan, scan, select, scan, select. So our team put together a “Name that Tune” song which played the sound pattern: drum, drum, cymbal, drum, drum, cymbal, drum, cymbal and identified it as how to get to more. So this song type had the target vocabulary word and the sound pattern to get to that word using the two switches. Corinne learned that repeating the pattern with the switches helped her get to more on her device faster. Once the motor pattern was established, we would move on from that word and introduce a new core word in its place using another “Name That Tune” song. Teaching Navigation with Songs CoreScanner has eight cornerstone words. The “Instruc- tional” songs focused on the cornerstone words. In order to get to the more block, Corinne needed to hit her mover twice and the chooser once. The song then has two drum sounds and one cymbal sound to indicate that the user is now in the more block. The song lyrics then list each of the words within the block and drum sounds to represent using the switches to scan through the block: drum, drum, more, drum, color, drum, no, drum, good, drum, numbers, drum, look, drum, yes, drum, help, drum, bad (See Image 4).
Image 5: Customized alphabet in CoreScanner
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