TA3 modal can/will + infinitive
Intervention outline
You will need:
- Shapes: oval (with blue arrow)- diamond- hexagon
- Action pictures
Intervention Steps:
- Check-up vocabulary: for actions that some people can and other people can’t do, e.g. drive, swim, type, hop, knit, cook, bake, ride. Lay out these action pictures and ask the child to identify the picture as you say them. Discard any unfamiliar verbs.
- Ask the child to sort pictures into things they can/can’t do.
- Teach coding: oval – diamond (with blue down arrow) – hexagon. Write can on the diamond and place one of the action pictures that the child can do in the hexagon (on a bare blue line).
Say the sentence together. Pick another action picture, put it in the hexagon and ask the child what else they can do. Help them construct the full sentence, e.g. I can swim. Repeat for several more actions.
- Ask the child to re-sort the action pictures for someone else, e.g. Mum or brother. Change the name in the oval and make up sentences for that person, e.g. Tam can bake a cake. Depending on the child’s production errors, show how can doesn’t change and/or there is no ending on the word in the hexagon. Model correct production. If the child drops the diamond completely, e.g. I swim.
Say: “Yes, I know you swim a lot. That’s because you can. I can swim too. Tell me you can swim. Say: ‘I can swim.'”
Find actions that two people can do to practice plural subjects, e.g. “We can swim. Mum and Tam can drive.”
- Introduce a time line and make a list of a few ‘future time markers’ e.g. tomorrow, later, next week/weekend/year. Write these in the when time triangle. Ask the child when they will next do one of the actions e.g. ride a bike.
- Lay out the coding for will sentences e.g.:
Repeat steps 3-4 using will and time triangles. Show that the will doesn’t change and the hexagon doesn’t have an ending. Model and practice these sentences, giving explicit feedback on errors. If the child drops the will completely, say: “Yes, I know you ride a bike. When will you ride it next?” Give suggestions, e.g. “On Sunday? This evening? Tell me you will ride it this evening?”. Say: “I will ride my bike this evening.”
7. Reducing shape support: Repeat with multiple examples using less SC support, but then bring back to check responses.
8. Monitoring: SLT start to make “errors”, get student to spot and correct them.
- Using shape/lines templates as an aid
- Without the templates
9. Consolidation: At the end of each session, review previous sessions and start to mix up a range of subjects and verbs in different sentence types,
e.g. “Mum and Dad can ride a bike. They will ride them on Sunday.”
10. Generalisation: Set up activities where the child has to say which people can do which skills e.g. “A guitarist can play guitar. A magician can do magic. A baker can bake bread”. Talk about what will happen next, e.g.” The magician will do a trick. The guitarist will play a song.
Additional Resources
