In Whalien Match, the student develops auditory word recognition and phonological awareness skills by matching pairs of syllables and words.
- Language & reading skills: listening accuracy, auditory word recognition, phonological/phonemic awareness
- Cognitive skills: memory, attention, processing
If you are wondering about the slowed sounds, info on the strange sounds here
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. Make sure the student clearly understands the task of the exercise. Ask: “Can you tell me what this exercise wants you to do?” If needed, explain how the exercise works. Say: “Click the object, listen to the sounds, and match them together to clear the screen.”
Can the student repeat the word or sound they are trying to find?
When the student can hold the word or sound in their working memory it will increase their success with this exercise.
Is the student attempting to find matches in a haphazard way?
The student has a limited number of clicks to find a match. The more they click around randomly looking for a sound match, the more clicks they lose and the less progress they will make. Clicking randomly will decrease the number of available clicks more quickly than using a strategy. Guide the student in using the following strategies:
- Teach the student to use a left-to-right, top-to-bottom strategy. After clicking the first object, the student should hold that sound in their memory while they go left-to-right seeking the matching sound. Clicking in a pattern can help the student remember the sound for each location on the screen.
- Have the student remember the first sound and then click until they find the matching sound. If the student can’t remember the first sound, have the student click the location again to commit it to memory.
- Have the student continually whisper the first sound until they locate the matching sound. When the student finds the match to the sound they are whispering, have them go back and click the original location to complete the match. Repeat this process with the next sound.
Is the student confused by the speech processing?
Work with the student to listen for “sounds” vs. “words.”
- Simulate environmental sounds (beep of a horn, moo of a cow, roar of a lion, and so on) and have the student repeat what they hear. The student will almost always be good at this. Go through several examples.
- Then, transition to the kinds of sounds students hear at the earliest levels of the exercise. For example, when the word cap is heard at processing level 1, the student will usually hear it as cowp.
- At this point, ask the learner to repeat the sound 5 times. This gives the student the opportunity to refocus and use repetition as a strategy for improving their working memory.
- Transition the student to working in the demos and have the student repeat the first sound they hear 3 to 5 times before clicking other objects on the screen.
