Instruction Manual

This section contains the instruction manual for Pictures Are For Babies. Tutors are responsible for operating the program correctly and in accordance with the instructions given here. If the student is in the very early stages of learning, tutors can skip the instruction for sentence, reading comprehension, and writing courses until they reach those courses.

Lite licenses of the program are offered for free on a donation basis so that prospective users can try it out without financial risk. Information on how to obtain a Lite or Full license is available on the license page.

Quick Instructions🔗

Despite the length of this manual, Pictures Are For Babies is very simple to use. The full manual is detailed in order to answer any questions that tutors may have and to provide them with the necessary context to understand the reasoning behind the instructions. However, at its core, most of the instructions can be summarized in a few steps:

• Start the lessons: Open the software and then select the folder where the student's progress is stored. You'll see your first lesson with example symbols, words, sentences, texts, or modeled writing exercises.
• Assessment: Check the type of the lesson, which is either reading or dictation. Then go through all the examples.
  • If it's a reading lesson, mark the example if the student read it correctly.
  • If it's a dictation lesson, instruct the student to look away from the screen and mark the example if the student spelled it correctly from the tutor's dictation.
  • Only mark examples as correct if the student responds automatically and correctly.
• Intervention: Perform a simple protocol that any fluent reader can do depending on the type of material covered by the lesson. This usually means teaching them how the examples they missed are read or written. No phonics rules or fancy terms are involved. Detailed instructions are found in the sections of the manual that cover the different types of courses.
• Move to the next lesson: The software will use the structure of the curriculum and the student's past performance to generate a stream of lessons that are optimized for them.

As you can see, once you are familiar with the protocols for intervention, the software is very easy to use. As the student advances and solves more lessons without needing intervention, the sessions will become more and more enjoyable and rewarding for both tutor and student.

The rest of each section of the manual provides full instructions on the material covered by the section. Below is a list of the other sections of the manual and what they cover:

• Installation: Instructions on how to install the program.
• User Interface: Instructions on how to navigate the user interface.
• Reading Break: Instructions on how to conduct reading breaks, a fun and relaxing way to rest when the student gets tired or frustrated during a session.
• Symbol Courses: Instructions on how to conduct instruction and intervention for the symbol courses.
• Word Courses: Instructions on how to conduct instruction and intervention for the word courses.
• Sentence Courses: Instructions on how to conduct instruction and intervention for the sentence courses.
• Practical Advice: Practical advice for tutors on running sessions.
• Lite Version: Instructions on how to use the Lite version in individual and group settings.

Full Instructions🔗

There are two roles in a training session. The student is the person who is learning to read and write, and the tutor is a literate adult (or older child) who is responsible for operating the program, guiding the student, and delivering instruction when needed. The general instructions to run a training session are as follows:

• Start the program and navigate to the "Practice" tab.
• Click on the "Select Folder". If you have not used the program before, create a new folder at a convenient location on your computer and select it. If you have used the program before, select the folder you used previously. Progress and settings are stored in this folder.
• Upon successfully doing that, the "Practice" tab will show a new lesson. There are two types of lesson.
  • Reading lessons show examples of words, sentences, or texts that the student is expected to read out loud.
  • Dictation lessons show examples of words or sentences that the student is expected to write down on paper based on the tutor's dictation.
  • To avoid letting the students see the examples during dictation lessons and to prevent them from reading other examples during reading lessons, all the examples start as hidden.
• The tutor looks at the type of lesson to know how to proceed.
• For each example, the tutor clicks on the "Reveal Example" button to show the example.
  • In reading lessons, the tutor asks the student to read the example out loud. If the student reads it automatically and correctly, the tutor clicks on the "✗" button to mark it as correct.
  • In dictation lessons, the tutor instructs the student to look away from the screen and to write down what they hear. If the student automatically and correctly writes down the example, the tutor clicks on the "✗" button to mark it as correct.
  • Clicking on the "✗" button turns it into a "✓" button. Clicking again turns it back into a "✗" button, which allows the tutor to correct mistakes.
  • It is very important that tutors only mark examples as correct if the student responds automatically and correctly.
• After tutor and student have gone through all the examples, the tutor performs tiered intervention based on the student's performance and the type of lesson. For example, in the word courses this involves explicit instruction on how words are pronounced and how their sounds map to their letters, and additional work if students remain stuck in the same lesson.
• After the intervention, the tutor clicks on the "Next Lesson" button to move on to the next lesson.
• A new lesson is shown, and the tutor repeats the process until the end of the session.
• If the student gets tired or frustrated, tutors have the option to switch to a reading break that is meant to be fun and relaxing. Full instructions on how to conduct reading breaks are given in the reading break section of this manual.
  • Students can come back to do more lessons after the reading break or end the session there.
• When the session is over, tutors click on "Next Lesson" to submit the score of the last lesson and exit the program. Sessions should be at least 15 minutes long, but sessions longer than 1 hour (with breaks included) are not recommended. The program works best with regular sessions rather than infrequent and long ones.