Students using Colourful Semantics

Testing my hypotheses using Colourful Semantics.

I have continued to use Colourful Semantics with a few of my students.
The picture is a motivator. Also using the ‘Who, doing, what , where” visual
helps the student structure their sentences better.
This student was able to add more details to his writing. He said 'I like this writing".
He will recites the 'Who , doing, what ' out loud as he writes.

This student is using nouns and verbs, but is still missing the little words.
The sentence is then modeled to her by the teacher and she is able to copy.
She was more motivated and wrote her sentence immediately.

This example is of a student who is only beginning to write.
He knows what he wants to say and tells his sentence to the teacher, he attempts the ‘THE’.
There is no pressure for him to write, we are looking for ideas. He enjoys having the Pictures as visual
supports and he is also following, ‘who, doing what.’

Questions we can ask about writing

As teachers , here are some questions we can ask about the way we teach writing.

Writing is a complex task, involving ideas, language, words, spelling and transcribing or selecting letters. We need to teach all of these skills – and eventually students need to be able to do all of these, within the one task, to become writers.

Overall guidelines

• Do you have time scheduled for an independent writing block every day?
• Are your students using a pencil or alternative writing tool that allows them to focus on the cognitive aspects of writing e.g. alphabet board, flip chart, keyboard, eye gaze system, iPad and app, computer, pen or pencil?
• Does their writing tool include access to all 26 letters of the alphabet?
• Do your students have real reasons for writing? (and remember – writing never involves copying and tracing; writing involves thinking of ideas, language, words AND transcribing)
• Do you model writing to your classroom each time before you ask them to write?
• Do you have a time for writer’s chair so that students can share their writing with others?

• For emergent students
• Are you giving your students lot of opportunities to learn the function of writing without focusing on the form e.g. following through on notes handed to you, writing yourself reminders and then using them, writing a morning message?
• Do they have daily opportunities to write without standards using a writing tool with access to all 26 letters?
• When they have finished writing do you say “now let me show you how I would write it” and model writing rather than interrupting them during the writing task or putting demands on their writing?
• Are you offering them a range of writing tasks, such as writing about personal experiences, high interest topics, classroom topics, letter writing, signing in?
• Are you following through on writing tasks e.g. posting letters?
• Do you have a daily or weekly shared writing activity, such as predictable chart writing?

Writing (with an alphabet chart, teacher scribes)

💚Student signing in→

For conventional students

• Do you focus your modelling of writing on different aspects of the writing task each day e.g. using the word wall, using capitals, using punctuation, thinking of ideas, thinking of your audience in planning writing, using different sorts of vocabulary, etc.?
• Are you modelling aspects of writing for a while before you expect your students to start using them?
• Are you including free writing so that students learn to self-select in this block?
• Have you done a chart of topics “we all know about” with your class as ideas for free writing?
• Are you using the prompt “tell me more about that” to get students to extend their writing?
• Are you teaching students to edit writing, starting with teaching them to edit your writing and then transitioning to their own?
• Are you using editing checklists as students start self-editing e.g. “do my sentences have capitals and punctuation, do all my sentences relate to the topic”?
• Are you encouraging your students to publish?

Colourful Semantics

What is Colourful Semantics?

Hypotheses - 3  

If I use the Colourful Semantics program to motivate students, will this then help them to form a sentence independently.

My students struggled to understand the parts of a sentence. I began teaching what WHO, DOING WHAT , WHERE means using The Colourful Semantics programme. We worked on many examples.
I began to use this program when one of my emergent students was really struggling to construct a simple sentence. He wasn’t able to recall events from the weekend, had no idea of subject and verb. This program uses visual supports which helped the student. I spent a few weeks teaching what WHO, DOING WHAT MEANS. 

Colourful semantics is an approach created by Alison Bryan. It is aimed at helping children to develop their grammar but it is rooted in the meaning of words (semantics).

Colourful semantics reassembles sentences by cutting them up into their thematic roles and then colour codes them.

The approach has 4 key colour coded stages. There are further stages for adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions and negatives.

1.     WHO – Orange

2.     WHAT DOING – Yellow

3.     WHAT – Green

4.     WHERE – Blue

The approach helps children to organise their sentences into key levels. The approach is used in stages and helps children develop language and vocabulary in addition to grammatical structure. It can be used to help children who are starting to develop language and have limited vocabulary to confident talkers who struggle to organise the grammatical content of their sentences.

Who can use Colourful Semantics?

The approach can be used with children with a range of Speech, Language and Communication Needs including:

·       Specific Language Impairment

·       Developmental Delay or Disorder

·       Autistic Spectrum Condition

·       Down Syndrome

·       Literacy difficulties

Why use Colourful Semantics?

There are a range of benefits to using this approach, including but not limited to;

·       Encouraging wider vocabulary

·       Making sentences longer

·       Helps children to answer questions or generate responses to questions

·       Developing use of nouns, verbs, prepositions and adjectives

·       Improves story telling skills

·       Can be transferred to written sentences and written language comprehension

·       Can be carried out individually or in small groups

After explicitly teaching my student to use this program, the next few examples are of students at different levels

This is one of my student's work sample using Colourful semantics, just with visuals

In this example, the student isn't writing independently, so  I wrote what the student said and modeled what needed to be done. 

This student is writing with support. Using colorful semantics to help her construct her sentence,this is what she wrote. 

All three examples show students using Colourful Semantics, but at their individual level.

Will this work for my other students?