Tag Archive: reading

TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘All Are Welcome’!

September 14, 2020 by - Leave your thoughts

TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘All Are Welcome’!

Welcome to Year 2 of the TELL ME About It series, guest authored by Jeanna Antrim and Maggie Judson. For the past year, they’ve written monthly articles to discuss how they support preschool teachers who are implementing the TELL ME program with their young students. Maggie and Jeanna are speech-language pathologists who work in the Assistive Technology Department for the Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative (BASSC) in southern Illinois. They are AT/AAC facilitators and provide evaluations, direct therapy, consultations, and trainings with school teams. In Year 1 of this series, Jeanna and Maggie focused on the 11 books in the TELL ME program.  In each of those posts, they shared a lesson plan, activity suggestions, video demonstrations, and much more. You can see their previous posts in the TELL ME About It series below. Max’s Breakfast If You’re Angry and You Know It The Lunch Box Surprise Come Out and Play, Little... [Read More...]

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PrAACtically Reading: Books Featuring Children & Youth with Disabilities

August 17, 2020 by - 1 Comment

PrAACtically Reading: Books Featuring Children & Youth with Disabilities

Here in the US, a new school year is starting, and while it will look very different from the previous years, we always get excited for the opportunity to consider new educational materials. In today’s post, we’ve listed books that include characters with disabilities for those who may want to include those in their educational programs. The books in these lists vary in terms of their subject, target audience, and reading level. As with any book that you consider providing to children and youth, be sure to review it first to determine its appropriateness for the individual reader. Some of the books, particularly those for teens, have scenes that are intense and may contain mature content, and/or strong language. Note: If you have others that you would recommend, please reach out to us and we will update the list. Books Featuring Children & Youth with Disabilities AAC Dancing Daisies (2013)... [Read More...]

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Site of the Month: Literacy Instruction for Students with Significant Disabilities

June 29, 2020 by - Leave your thoughts

Site of the Month: Literacy Instruction for Students with Significant Disabilities

Looking for comprehensive information on effective literacy instruction and research-based strategies to support students with significant cognitive disabilities and complex communication needs? Today, we highlight the Literacy Instruction for Students with Significant Disabilities website, a resource developed by the Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium (ERLC) that can be used in planning a new literacy program or enhancing one already in existence.  The site is broken down into 6 main areas. Getting Started provides a framework for this instruction and offers guidance for determining whether instruction for individual learners should focus on emergent or conventional literacy.  The Access to Communication section offers a number of resources to support access to and early development of skills in the areas of linguistic, social, operational, and strategic competence.  Access to appropriate reading material and to effective writing supports both contain important foundational information and practical resource suggestions. More in-depth information is also provided for emergent literacy... [Read More...]

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Asking Good Questions During Interactive Book Reading with AAC Learners

June 18, 2020 by - Leave your thoughts

Asking Good Questions During Interactive Book Reading with AAC Learners

Books are a terrific way to build language, and we often use shared reading to facilitate learning and provide practice in using specific skills. When we read, we go beyond the text in the book to comment on the narrative and illustrations (e.g., “Oh no! He fell out of the tree.” “This one is my favorite. I love his shiny scales”), and ask questions (e.g., “What happened to his pants?” “How does he feel?”). Interactive book reading helps to background knowledge, and connect things in the book to the learner’s own life experiences, among other things. Asking questions is a big part of what we do in interactive book reading. Not only do they help us keep the learner engaged, but we also use them to model and provide practice on specific language targets. However, too many questions can cause learners to shut down, so we have to ensure that... [Read More...]

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TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘Come Out and Play, Little Mouse’

April 13, 2020 by - 1 Comment

TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with 'Come Out and Play, Little Mouse'

It’s time for another edition of the TELL ME About It series which focuses on AAC, language, and literacy learning with preschool children. Maggie Judson and Jeanna Antrim are back with more great ideas for AAC intervention, this time focusing on the book, Come Out and Play, Little Mouse. Maggie and Jeanna are speech-language pathologists who work in the Assistive Technology Department for the Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative (BASSC) in central Illinois. They are AT/AAC facilitators and provide evaluations, direct therapy, consultations, and trainings. You can check out the earlier posts in this series below. No, David Go Away Big Green Monster What Do You Like? Here Are My Hands From Head to Toe I Went Walking Brown Bear, Brown Bear TELL ME AAC Literacy Kits Be sure to see their videos modeling book reading with two AAC systems toward the end of this post. TELL ME About It:... [Read More...]

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AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week #15: April 2020

April 12, 2020 by - Leave your thoughts

AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week #15: April 2020

Happy Sunday, AAC friends. To those who are celebrating Easter, Passover, and other holidays, we hope you find joy and meaning as you find new ways to commune and celebrate with those you love. We are all adjusting to this new way of being. If you’re interested in some AAC reading, here are a few suggestions. Monday – PrAACtical Perspectives: Normalizing AAC Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: AAC Telepractice Thursday – Finding My Words: Considerations in Language Displays and Organization A few weeks back, we asked those who provide AAC telepractice services and wanted to publicly share that information to complete an online survey. You can access that information in the edited version of that post. If you are looking to do some book-related AAC teaching this week, check out some of Karen Natoci’s popular literacy-focused posts from the archives. PraAACtically Reading with Karen... [Read More...]

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PrAACtical Resources: Tar Heel Shared Reader

February 27, 2020 by - Leave your thoughts

PrAACtical Resources: Tar Heel Shared Reader

If reading is a priority in your AAC work, you’ll want to explore today’s featured resource, the website Tar Heel Shared Reader. Developed by a team at the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this variation of the popular Tar Heel Reader website provides PCS  symbol support for core words that can be used in discussing each book. You can learn more about Tar Heel Reader here. Their newest site focuses on interactive book reading and contains all of the same wonderful features as the original version plus several additional options. For example, you can specify which core words you are targeting while reading the book so that those appear in a strip below each page. That enables us to use those in modeling the symbols for those words as we talk and read the story. Sample phrases and sentences to... [Read More...]

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TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘What Do You Like?’

January 20, 2020 by - Leave your thoughts

TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘What Do You Like?’

Welcome back to another installment of TELL ME About It, guest authored by Jeanna Antrim and Maggie Judson. Maggie and Jeanna are speech-language pathologists who work in the Assistive Technology Department for the Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative (BASSC) in southern Illinois. They are AT/AAC facilitators and provide evaluations, direct therapy, consultations, and trainings with school teams. In this series, they discuss how they support preschool teachers who are implementing the TELL ME program with their young students. Today, they walk us through the ways that they facilitate AAC use while focusing on the book ‘What Do You Like?’ Don’t miss their Lesson Plan, video demonstrations, and other resources at the end of the post. TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘What Do You Like?’ TELL ME About Reading: The fifth book in the TELL ME program (Teaching Early Language and Literacy through Multimodal Expression) is “What Do You Like?”. ... [Read More...]

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TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘Here Are My Hands’

December 16, 2019 by - 1 Comment

TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘Here Are My Hands’!

Welcome to a new edition of TELL ME About It, with AAC Specialists Maggie Judson and Jeanna Antrip. Maggie and Jeanna are speech-language pathologists who work in the Assistive Technology Department for the Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative (BASSC) in southern Illinois. They are AT/AAC facilitators and provide evaluations, direct therapy, consultations, and trainings. They’ve collaborated on a series to share their experiences in supporting preschool classrooms that implement the TELL ME program that Lori Wise and I created. If you missed the earlier posts in this series, you can get caught up using the links below. From Head to Toe I Went Walking Brown Bear, Brown Bear TELL ME AAC Literacy Kits TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘Here Are My Hands’! TELL ME About Reading: The fourth book in the TELL ME program (Teaching Early Language and Literacy through Multimodal Expression) is “Here Are My Hands.” A... [Read More...]

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AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week #48: December 2019

December 1, 2019 by - Leave your thoughts

AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week #48: December 2019

Happy Sunday, AAC friends. If the holiday hustle and bustle has been keeping you busy, you might have missed our AAC posts from this week. Monday – Fringe Vocabulary: How to Select and Not Neglect Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Building AT Capacity Thursday – A PrAACtical Day of Thanksgiving Friday – PrAACtically December: Some AAC Resources for A Year of Core Vocabulary Before you go, we have a few more posts that may be of interest. PrAACtically Reading with Karen Natoci: I Eat Thanksgiving Dinner PrAACtically Reading with Karen Natoci: Hello, Holidays! 5 Different Gifts to Give To A Classroom PrAACtical Ideas: AAC Core Vocabulary Practice for Workshops and Inservices Video of the Week: Helping Students with Autism Prepare for Non-routine Events  

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