In Hoop Nut, the student develops listening accuracy and phonological awareness skills by selecting a target syllable from a sequence of two syllables.
- Language & reading skills: listening accuracy, phonological/phonemic awareness
- Cognitive skills: memory, attention, processing
Does the student understand the exercise goal/task?
Observe the student as they work through the exercise demo to determine where their understanding may be breaking down. If necessary, demonstrate how the exercise works by using your hands to simulate the acorns on the screen.
- Hold up your closed hands with your palms facing the student.
- Say /bah/ without opening either hand.
- Next, say /dah/ while briefly opening then closing your right hand.
- Finally, say /bah/ while briefly opening then closing your left hand.
- Ask the student to point to the hand that opened when you repeated /bah/.
Try this a few times, changing which hand you open when you repeat the target syllable. Have the student explain back to you what they need to do to get a correct answer.
Can the student hear the syllables clearly?
Check the headset, volume controls, and background noise level.
Is the student staying focused on the task?
Always encourage students to do their best. Use active and engaging strategies while noting student motivation and stamina. Have the student turn off the Autoplay feature. Provide built-in breaks to support student focus.
Note that this task is rigorous and places a heavy demand on student attention. Providing brain-breaks may be essential to students completing the task successfully. Provide the brain-break prior to the point of frustration.
Other considerations: Some students might require longer/less frequent breaks while other will require shorter/more frequent breaks.
Can the student hear the difference between the syllables?
Hold your hand over your mouth to slightly muffle the sound and have the student identify whether you are saying /ba/ or /da/, /be/ or /de/, /va/ or /fa/.
Does the student hear something different than what is shown on the screen?
At early speech processing levels, what the student hears may seem different from what they see on the screen (the syllables written near the Go button). For example, they may see “ba da” but hear something that sounds like /ra/ /ya/. This is OK. Reassure the student that the exercise is working correctly. Have the student focus on listening to and remembering the first syllable they hear, and then identifying its match in the next two syllables they hear.
Does the student struggle to stay engaged?
Emphasize the importance of streaks—the highest number of correct responses in a row. Have the student use the 
Streaks and Completion Chart to track their highest streaks and review to see which days were higher or lower. Encourage the student to self-monitor and improve their accuracy. The sooner they complete the exercise the sooner they can move forward to something new.
Is the student aware that this exercise uses the 3-Forward/1-Back Rule to make forward progress?
Explain that accuracy is the key to moving through the content in this exercise. Students make progress based on the 3-Forward/1-Back Rule: they move forward when they get 3 answers in a row correct, but they move backward when they get 1 answer incorrect.
Because streaks record the number of correct answers in a row, charting this can help the student self-monitor by providing visual feedback of their number of correct answers in a row. Students can use the Three-in-a-Row Worksheet.
