Rhyming dinosaur story with sensory options and sounds

Dinosaur story aimed at children with SEND with a focus on communication and sound discrimination. Sensory story add-on.

Dan is a young, curious dinosaur who is a little braver than his mother would like. He is tired of all the things he has being doing from day to day. He decides to leave his nest and explore the jungle.
Dan encounters 5 different sounds and stops to investigate the different animals that are making those sounds. As the day draws to a close, he realises he is lost and needs to listen carefully to hear his mother’s roar. Dan follows his mother’s roar and finds his way back home.

This story is aimed at children who have special educational needs, it has a strong focus on communication and interaction. That being said, it will be enjoyed by all children who appreciate rhyming stories and repetitive refrains.

The rhyming repetitive refrain encourages children to join in with the actions, and the additional communication board and PECS symbols support children who are non-speaking. Using the communication board and PECS symbols alongside the story gives children with additional needs a voice to answer questions or make comments about the story.

Throughout the story there are opportunities to listen to the different animals by using the interactive red button. Along with being an engaging tool, it helps to develop the child’s auditory discrimination which supports both language and reading skill development and is the building block for phonemic awareness.

I have previously used this story with a student group who were quite diverse, ranging from PMLD to Year 1 level. We read the story at least once a week over ½ a term and by the end of the term they were motivated to join in and use their communication aids. We printed out the slides and made them into a book which was placed onto the class bookshelf and pupils would often choose it as their favoured text.

• This story can also be accessed by children who have profound and multiple learning difficulties by incorporating additional sensory stimuli throughout – The resources needed are outlined at the beginning of the PowerPoint.

• At the end of the story there is a short game to guess the sound.

• The PowerPoint slides can be printed (2 slides per page) and made into a book for guided reading.

• Worksheets to develop sentence building skills can be bought separately.

Colourful Semantics - https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/colourful-semantics-stomp-roar-let-s-explore-13004167

Sentence Building - https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/sentence-building-stomp-roar-let-s-explore-13004173