Comparing and Contrasting

I actually made this activity in preparation for a student who is about to be on my caseload, but her IEP has not yet been completed.  She is in third grade, so I will start with the easier concepts (level 1) and move to more challenging items (level 2) as she becomes better at describing the relationship between objects. 

Not only is level 1 easier because it contains visuals, but the concepts involved are also more straight forward.

The main appeal of level 1 is that it has pictures, so those non-readers can participate.  However, I’ve also added a set of cards that lists short, simple, written verbal cues that helps describe what the similarities and differences between the objects are. You can choose whether or not to use these with your students.  For those who can read, I’m going to put out a couple options and let the students choose which are applicable.  pairs of objects have only 1 similarity/difference and some have 2 or 3.  Since there is only 1-2 words per card, the student must elaborate and expand his utterance to describe what exactly “stripes” means.  The pages of these are just after the appropriate cards, for easier organization.  I plan to write numbers on the backs of each card to know which visual they pertain to.  I didn’t include them on the front of the cards because the kids would be able to figure this out. 🙂

Here is an example.  Similarities are on the smaller cards in purple writing; differences are on the longer cards with green writing.

Level 2 becomes more difficult with the use of words, no pictures, and an increase in difficulty of the ideas targeted.  I also tried to make them more age-appropriate for the older students (i.e. the use of the word “Facebook”! – *Gasp!*)

I’ve also made this poster to teach (and use as a visual prompt and fade your verbal prompts) to illustrate the most likely ways that objects are similar to and different from each other.  If a student is having trouble, it will be helpful to just point to the box on this poster that is applicable to the pair of objects rather than giving verbal prompts.  Hopefully he/she will be able to come up with a reason with just this visual!