About this activity
A seven-page sequence built for a device: boy go park, boy play swing, boy fall down, boy hurt or sad, mom help boy, boy feel better, boy go home. Then three harder pages — tell the whole story, tell it again adding one word about how he felt, and tell a story about your own day in five messages. Narrative is usually taught in speech and rarely on the device, which leaves AAC users with requesting fluency and no way to say what happened.
How to use it in a session
Do the pages in order and do not skip the retell. Each page is a single message, so the load is low; the work happens on page eight, where the student has to hold the sequence and produce it without the pictures carrying it. When they add a feeling word on the next page, that is the beginning of story grammar rather than a picture sequence. The last page — a story about their own day — is the one to keep coming back to across sessions.
What to listen for
Watch whether the sequence survives without the page prompts. Many students can produce each message and still cannot order them, and that gap is the target. Listen for the internal response — hurt, sad, feel better — because a sequence of actions with no emotional line is a description, not a story. Adding one feeling word is a real milestone.
Carrying it home
Retelling the day at dinner is the same skill. Ask for three messages about what happened, in order, and resist filling in the middle one. A photograph from the day gives the student something to build the sequence around.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- First through fifth grade, and older students who are combining symbols but have not been asked to narrate.
- Is it free?
- Yes — every page plays without an account or a card.
- My student produces the messages out of order. Where do I start?
- With three pages, not seven. Order is a separate skill from message production, and it is easier to build on a short sequence the student can already say.