Special Education

Enbrighten: A Reading Comprehension Game for Children with Special Needs

Recently, I had the privilege of attending the CEC conference in Grand Rapids. While at the conference, I attended a session entitled, “Sane and Savvy Strategies for the Busy Teacher.” While at this session, I listened to the presenters, Erika Lusky and Julie Rains, share a comprehension game called Enbrighton that they created to help students with special needs better understand what they read and develop higher level thinking when discussing a book.

About Enbrighten

Enbrighten™ is an engaging and thought-provoking comprehension game designed to empower students with the tools necessary to approach and ultimately understand both narrative and informational text. This strategy emboldens students and teachers to establish comprehension as a process of cognition rather than something assessed by an isolated set of comprehension questions.

Enbrighten™ also encourages the development of metacognition, critical thinking, listening, and speaking skills within the classroom environment. It is designed to act as a supplement to any curriculum and can be used with any preexisting classroom text.

Although the game was developed for a classroom setting, I think there are many ways it could be adapted for parents to use when reading with their children as well. Here is an overview of the Enbrighten Comprehension Game

Materials Needed

Step 1

Each student is assigned a strategy job. If playing the game with a large group, students can work in teams.

Step 2

Understanding the strategy jobs: Summarizer: The student who is assigned this role needs to summarize, or recap in 1-2 sentences, what the story is about. Vocab Master: The student who is assigned this role needs to refer to the text to pick out 1 or 2 "trick" or "interesting" words, write that word down, and use context clues to come up with a definition. They may then use a dictionary or other resource tool to check their definition. Connector: The student who is assigned this role needs to make a connection to the text. They can make a text-to-text connection, text-to-self, or text-to-world (these types of connections will need to be taught before the game is played!) Clarifier: The student who is assigned this role needs to clarify any part of the story that may be confusing. This person should go after the questioner. If another student (or team) poses a question, it is the clarifiers job to answer. This is arguably the most difficult strategy job and should only be assigned to those students who would succeed at this job. Personally, I have yet to introduce this strategy job into my classroom. Visualizer: The student who is assigned this role needs to draw a picture of what is happening in the text. Predictor: The student who is assigned this role needs to make a prediction, or guess, as to what is going to happen next in the story. Questioner: The student who is assigned this role needs to pose a question to the other students/groups about the text. They can also ask an open-ended question or write down a question that they were confused on while reading. *Students are provided with sentence starters to help them begin to process what they want to write about/discuss

Step 3

Text is read aloud, within the small groups, or independently. (You can differentiate depending on skill level of students and level of text.) Students can take notes on what is being read.

Step 4

At an appropriate stopping point, ask the students to each write down one idea from the text based on their strategy.

Step 5

Call on a group, or student, to share their idea. Stress to the students that points are not earned for correct answers but for sharing ideas, getting the discussion started, or explaining your thinking. Students (or groups) can also receive points for expanding on another person’s (groups) idea. The Enbrighten website does provide a rubric for each strategy job that can be purchased. This is beneficial if the game is played in a classroom setting to allow for student progress to be monitored and their work to be evaluated. Overall, this game seems like a great way to get students discussing books. Each strategy is aligned to the common core and can be paired with other reading supports to assist students in the skill of comprehension. Again, please visit the website for more detailed information! I have provided an overview of the game but for more information, please visit their website at: http://www.saneandsavvystrategies.com