Weekly Content Update | Tracing, Contractions, & Spelling with Action
This Week at Gemiini
We've added more tracing clips to help improve motor planning and eye-hand coordination, and new clips have been added to teach contractions. We've also added a new format of clips to encourage kinesthetic learning for spelling simple verbs.
More Learning to Trace
Our newest Learning to Trace clips model tracing lines and simple shapes using translucent paper. Like our other tracing clips, these generalizations help improve eye-hand coordination and motor planning. In every moment of tracing, learners can visualize the next place their hand should bring the pencil. Tracing activities help engage communication between the part of the brain that processes what our learners see and the part that tells their bodies how to move.
Learning to Trace clips are located in Reading, Writing, & Academic → First School Years → Drawing. These are great for learners at any level of the language pyramid who are working to improve tracing skills, motor planning, and eye-hand coordination. Most students learn to trace straight lines before moving on to circles and other shapes. Tracing activities are simple to practice at home - you can print or draw your own shapes and lines and have your learner trace them onto a sheet of translucent wax paper or parchment paper.
Teaching Contractions
These Contractions clips combine voiceovers with simple visuals to help Gemiini learners understand contractions. The first visual provides a simple equation teaching the original words from which the contraction is formed. The second visual generalizes the meaning of the contraction by teaching how the meaning of a sentence does not change when a contraction replaces the original words.
Understanding contractions is an important part of receptive language, reading comprehension, and writing. We recommend using these clips with students working in Level 5 or higher of the Language Pyramid. Clips teaching the contractions students are having the most difficulty with can be added to their assignments from the full clip library. Most of our contractions clips are located in Reading, Writing, & Academic → Grammar. A simplified Fast Flash format can be found by searching for the contraction you want to teach in Reading, Writing, & Academic → Reading → Fast Flash.
Spelling with Action
Our new Spelling with Action clips provide playful, energetic models of actors spelling verbs out loud while performing the actions the words describe. These clips use an energetic and playful tone to encourage viewers to follow along with what's happening on the screen. This is a great model of kinesthetic learning, a learning style where students learn by moving their bodies and engaging with the physical world. This kind of learning can help establish a connection in your student's mind between words and the concepts they represent.
Spelling with Action clips are great for students who are learning action words in Level 4 or higher of the Language Pyramid, or for any learners who are practicing spelling. You can find these clips in Reading, Writing, & Academic → Spelling → Fun With Verbs and in Spoken Language → Action Words → Ing Form W/Out Tense.
If you'd like help using this content or any clips from the Gemiini library in your student's assignments, schedule a call with one of our product specialists. If you'd like to learn how to customize assignments or upload your own clips, check out the articles in our Knowledge Base. If you're looking for clips that don't exist on the site, please send a content request to videos@gemiini.org.