Weekly Content Update | Homophones & Blends
This Week at Gemiini
Our update this week reviews content that focuses on developing articulation and early literacy skills. Our homophones clips use visual support to make the different meanings of homophones easy to learn and remember, and our blends clips use the same principles of visual support to strengthen our learners' awareness of the sounds made by different letter combinations.
Homophones
Understanding homophones can be a challenge for individuals with communication difficulties, but with lessons that use strong visual support we can help our learners define and remember the meanings of different homophones. Gemiini's homophone clips provide a clear visual example of each word before giving a longer definition and an example of contextual usage. Using visuals this way is a great strategy for helping learners who are more literal-minded or who have stronger visual processing abilities.
Our homophones clips begin with a comparison of images showing the different meaning of each word in a homophone pair. Each word is spelled out below the image and lights up on the screen as it is read out loud by one of our actors. The clip cuts to a pronunciation closeup and then to a definition skit in which the images and words appear in sequence while our actors give brief explanations of what the words mean and how to use them in a sentence. At the end of the clip, the simple image comparison repeats to drive the concept home.
Learning homophones is critical for expanding vocabulary. Our homophones clips are great for improving early reading comprehension, writing fluency and general word use. These clips would be wonderful additions to assignments for any learners with enough receptive language to understand the definitions. Our homophones clips are located in Reading, Writing & Academic → Vocabulary Builders → Homophones.
Blends
Gemiini's blends clips teach letter sequences that appear frequently in words. Our format models articulation and generalizes each blend to show how they maintain the same pronunciation even as they appear in different words. These clips help students practice articulating letter combinations and develop the ability to quickly recognize groups of letters that form the building blocks of many common words.
The Gemiini clip library currently features clips that teach an assortment of two and three letter blends. The midshot and closeup in these clips focus on the pronunciation of each blend. In the generalizations, each blend is combined with other letters to make different words. Visual support is provided and each word is spoken by a closeup that appears above the image to model the shape of a mouth as it articulates each part of the word.
Blending individual sounds together in a sequence to form full words is an important skill for speaking and early literacy. Our blends clips are great articulation exercises and help our learners become stronger readers. Depending on your student's needs, you can choose to use the full clips with the generalization or to include only the midshot and closeup segment in your assignments. These clips are suitable for students who are working in Level 2 or higher of the Language Pyramid. Blends are located in Spoken Language → Articulation → Sounds and are prefixed in the title with Blends (articulation).
If you have questions about teaching homophones or blends or about integrating any of our content into your student's assignments, schedule a call with one of our product specialists. If you need clips for a topic that doesn't exist on the site, please send a content request to videos@gemiini.org.