Let’s CHAT about Hyperlexia: Templates

May 21, 2021 | Blog

Templates are consistent written prompts that help organize information or create a narrative. Templates can provide structure to language tasks that are typically unstructured. They are a form of written language often used academically, but they don’t always have to be! We can use templates to help with conversation skills, remembering details from our day, summarizing a story, and so much more. Templates are especially help for hyperlexic learners (HxLs) because they are patterned, consistent and predictable.

Conversation Templates

Conversation templates can be very helpful for practicing turn taking and learning appropriate responses to frequently asked questions like “how was your day?” or “what did you do at school today?” If you think about it, we use conversation templates every day:

Aniya: Hi, how are you?
Roberto: I'm good, how are you?
Aniya: I'm good too.

Here are some sample conversation templates:

Summary or Story Retell Templates

There are many types of templates for summarizing a story or retelling a story. One popular template used in schools is “Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then”

Guided Writing templates are also extremely helpful to practice summarizing a story. These can easily be scaffolded to meet the HxL’s needs by removing some words from the carrier phrase prompts or adding in additional prompts.

Guided writing resources can also be used for creating new stories or journaling. The Teacher Treasury has wonderful FREE resources on TeachersPayTeachers here.

WH-Question Templates

Wh- questions (who, what, when, where, why, and how questions) can be especially difficult for HxLs. We can support them learning the pattern of appropriate responses by using templates or graphic organizers!

Additional Resources