Teaching reading to AAC users

[Glenda Anderson]

Would love to hear others ideas in how to teach reading to non-verbal students. We have started an AAC users support group for teachers of AAC users and our next topic is going to be on reading. Before I go, I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas. Best practices, unique practices, materials found helpful, AAC layouts to support the process...

[Samuel Charles Sennott]

Glenda, I have been focusing on creating good, proven literacy instructional materials into more accessible formats. Recently, at Nova in our TLC Classroom Program we have been adapting the Building Blocks Framework for Kindergarten. It is the prequel to the 4 Blocks.

Also, having many accessible books helps. Here is info on a book I just posted that is part of a larger project: Dogs by Samuel Sennott

As part of the initial preparations for an accessible books project called Books Please, check out this PowerPoint based book: Dogs, created using images from Flickr and the principles displayed in the Beginning Literacy Framework by Dr. Caroline Ramsey Musselwhite, Dr. Karen Erickson, and Ruth Ziolkowski.

Also, for those interested, this week, the excellent poetry contributions will be posted using the same format, as well as being available for download from the new One to One Thousand Wikispace.

Dogs by Samuel Sennott
http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dfg8ptwg_16f26gv5&fs=true

Note the power of using the publishing feature of Google Docs. It will be terrific to see how this tool can help in both the book creation, but also in the publishing/distribution process.

[Samuel Charles Sennott]

Glenda,

Check out Literacy Through Unity, a Working with Words Block Curriculum for Unity users, written by Dr. Karen Erickson and soon to be Dr. Gretchen Hanser.

Also, at CTG, they showed that there will be a similar curriculum for the Tango. It looked real good.

[Barb Wollak]

I think that Karen Erickson, director of the Center for Literacy and Disabilities Studies, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is doing amazing research and work with teaching literacy to kids who use aac. Gretchen Hanser is incredible, too, and leads the Deaf Blind Project at the Center. Karen teacher the only college course in the country on teaching literacy to aac users. Karen Erickson and Dave Koppenhaver's new book would be a great place to start. It has many ideas on how to adapt ideas for aac kiddos.

Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four-Block Way (Karen Erickson & David Koppenhaver) has been published by Carson-Dellosa, 2007 (ISBN 978-1-60022-125-5).

[David Koppenhaver]

I'd add a couple of suggestions to those already here if you're still hunting. First, my colleague, Karen Erickson, began in the last couple of years making a strong case for the use of "core vocabulary" rather than story-specific vocabulary in AAC reading lessons. The idea is to give kids as many AAC learning opportunities across contexts as possible. Second, Tar Heel Reader, http://tarheelreader.org/, was created by Gary Bishop (with input from Karen Erickson, Gretchen Hanser, and others) as a tool for creating and storing a library of high-interest but easy-to-read texts. Since they are digital and can be downloaded (and there are already over 1,000 books) it has become a great resource for folks like you. Finally, I'd argue that you teach reading to AAC users the same way you teach any kid--balance, balance, balance. The book Barb Wollak mentioned by Karen and me lays out how to do this.

[Rose-Marie Gallagher]

Glenda, I hope I'm not jumping into the discussion too late to be of any help. I just posted some handouts to the Rett Girls AT on assistivetech that might be useful. One set (slides and handouts) are for non-verbal, motor-impaired kids in the discussion of Resources started by Sam Sennott. The other is a set of slides and handouts under "Literacy Presentation." The Parents Corner archives at http://www.aacinstitute.org/Resources/ParentsCorner/archives.html has some good articles that apply to both home and school.

Hope you get some useful ideas!
Rose-Marie

[Glenda Anderson]

Thanks, Rose-Marie. I have been staying on top of the Rett Girls conversation. I will go back and review these again!! Thank you! Never too late.