Alberta Summer 2015 Course on Supporting Literacy for Students with Low Incidence Disabilities

Over four years ago, I received the book Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way as one of the resources for a provincial community of practice I was involved in. The book was the answer to this nagging feeling that there had to be a way to think about "real literacy" for the students that I was working with. So that year, with PODD training behind us and this book in hand, I began the process of shifting toward comprehensive literacy instruction with the students that I work with. Toward the end of that year, I traveled to Toronto to go to a week long course with the authors of the book, Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver. I returned home and began the process of implementing  what I learned, but the fact that we were also shifting from self-contained to inclusive practices meant that there were times in the next couple of years where decisions about priorities had to be made. After two years of experimenting, I felt we were in a much better place to take a more systematic approach to things and so, last summer, I went to learn from Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver again at Camp ALEC. I returned from that camp not only fired up about literacy, but also fired up about core vocabulary and ensuring that students have a language system that allows them to more deeply engage in literacy learning and life in general.

As this past year ended, I was feeling like we were now on the right path and then the opportunity to see Karen and David again, this time right here in Alberta, presented itself.  I have just returned now from spending another week learning from them and am once again excited to put what I've learned in to practice. I am sure that it will take me some time to fully process all that I've learned but for now I am just going to share my thoughts around the things that most resonated with me at this point immediately following the course.

It's All About Language and the Connecting Arrows
Last summer, when I was able to interact with proficient AAC users, I came to better understand the need to focus on language and communication as a larger part of the picture than what we had been doing. Last week the diagram that is presented very early on in each course and speaks to how speaking (AAC), listening, reading and writing develop in interaction with each other with language permeating every aspect of learning spoke more loudly to me. It was interesting that the statement was made that as time goes on, there is an increased understanding that "the arrows" are what is important about this diagram because that perfectly reflects what I've been discovering over the last few years of trying to put this in to practice. I also find it interesting how language sits as the heart of what thinking and learning are and that I was well in to my teaching career before I ever thought intentionally about language.

A Deeper Understanding of Emergent Literacy
The first course that I took was focused on conventional literacy and so when I returned, I started immediately to try to implement the conventional components with students who were actually at the emergent level. Through the next couple of years, I researched and modified to try to create programs that were more geared toward emergent learners.

Last summer, at Camp ALEC, it became much clearer to me what emergent and conventional programs should look like.  I have a couple of students though who would appear to be "conventional" because they know all of their letters and a whole lot of sight words and can even sometimes answer rote questions from 1970's reading programs. The problem is, these students do not engage in generative writing or just talking about books during shared reading. They are literally lost for words in these situations... either because they are just coming to be able to use their communication system in a generative way or because they have a history that doesn't include any exposure to this type of generative approach to learning.

The statement made this year that emergent literacy is connected to opportunities to actively engage and construct meaning over time with print really resonated with me and confirmed much of what I had been thinking through this past year as I backed up with some of these students to working on the emergent, rather than the conventional, literacy "to do every day" list that was shared during both this course and last year at Camp ALEC. I walked away with more clarity around the idea that for students at the emergent literacy level it is about us creating these opportunities for engagement so that all the foundational pieces can be in place before we focus in on the conventional level.

Universal Design for Learning and Students with Significant Disabilities
I have posted quite a bit in the past about UDL so really appreciated that there was time dedicated to speaking about what it means to  apply UDL concepts to planning for instruction for students who have significant disabilities. Ultimately, applying UDL concepts to this population of students works against the traditional behavioural approach that has been taken in special education and requires a paradigm shift.

UDL is founded on the idea of learner variability and an understanding that the learning process engages three different brain networks including the recognition network (the what of learning), the strategic network (the how of learning) and the affective network (the why of learning). To design learning that addresses learner variability means ensuring that there are multiple means of representation (recognition network), multiple means of expression (strategic network) and multiple means of engagement (affective network). Traditional approaches to teaching students with disabilities is not rooted in a multiple means approach as it is often about rote, repetitive learning of the single task that is currently being "mastered". This approach looks at the what of learning in isolation of the how and the why and often involves some type of extrinsic way of motivating students. The shift to thinking about repetition with variety to ensure multiple means of representation and expression and to focusing on engaging students by focusing on the functions of literacy can be a pretty big paradigm shift when looking at how education should work for this population of students.

Ultimately, I was just thrilled to be sitting in a room where UDL was being discussed with explicit focus on students who seem to often to be left out of the UDL discussion.

Supporting Communication
This is one that I came back from Camp ALEC last summer understanding much more deeply but the work that we did with core boards during the workshop last week got me even more excited. David and Karen have been doing work around developing core vocabulary boards that will be available to everyone that can be used as a bridge for those students who need a way to communicate but do not have a comprehensive language system. For a better explanation of this, check out the module on core vocabulary from the DLM Professional Development website. During the week, we used the core boards a few times to engage in different literacy activities and it was great to see just how much conversation could be generated with just the first 40 words. The bottom line is that being able to engage in conversation during literacy activities does not have to be restricted to answering yes/no to lists that have been generated. I went in having a pretty good feel for the power of core but being able to engage with it during the week has me even more excited about it as I could see how it can be used in creating back and forth interactions and in developing much needed skills related to being strategic with the words that are available.

One other important statement that was made during the stretch of time that we were playing with core in one of the activities is that it positions us as communication partners to really support the student and ask questions to understand what they are trying to say. This moves us away from the idea of not responding until something is said in some predefined format and toward authentic and meaningful communication.

Dynamic Learning Maps Professional Development Website 
I wanted to end this post by including a piece that I was very aware of before taking this course but came to better understand how it can be used in implementation during the course. So much of the information that David and Karen present at these workshops is now available to anyone online for free through the Dynamic Learning Maps Professional Development website. What a goldmine this is for people who were in the position I was in four years ago - feeling like there was so much more to what literacy instruction could be for these students but not really confident about how to make that happen. Now, all it takes is to go to the Dynamic Learning Maps Professional Development website and begin working through the modules they have there. The great thing from the implementation standpoint is that a person can work through the modules on their own or use the facilitate module resources to work in a group through the modules. This also opens up opportunities to go back and relearn the things that have been presented or have something to pass on to those who want to learn more about any component of a program that we are trying to implement.  It's such an amazing resource!

CCN Alphabet - Sharing What I'm Learning About Supporting Students with Complex Communication Needs

It's hard to believe another year has come and gone. There were many times this year when I sat down to write a blog post but then the words just didn't seem to come.  It wasn't that there was nothing to write, but perhaps more than so many of the things that I have been thinking about for the last few years starting to become consolidated in practice and in the time I wanted more to step back and experience it and let it evolve rather than to wrap too many words around it. 

When I adopted my son 16 years ago, I knew that we were beginning a "special needs journey" but I did not know that we were also beginning a "complex communication needs journey". In those early days, I imagined a very different life for both him and I as his childhood years have unfolded.  

When I made the decision to move from "general" to "special" education 9 years ago, I also knew I was on a new journey, but, again, I was unable to imagine what parts of that journey would become my North Star. 

There are events that stand out now looking back but more so then the events, what stands out is a deepening awareness of how our knowledge evolves; How the way we see things changes as what we know and experience changes.  

Up until five years ago, the work I was doing around communication with students with complex communication needs was pretty restricted to things like sign language, PECs, eye-gaze boards with only single layers, yes/no choices...etc. The work we were doing around "literacy" with this population was also restricted mostly to "literacy experiences" but we dabbled a bit in sight word reading programs. The school experiences of the students that I worked with were also restricted a majority of the time by the walls of our self-contained classroom. 

The journey began with feelings of discomfort that I could not put my finger on, and then opportunities began to open up - a 2-day PODD training by Linda Burkhart, Literacy and AAC courses by Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver, Communication and Literacy workshops by Caroline Musslewhite, taking my Masters in Inclusive Education and Neuroscience, support from some to educational practice away from a self-contained classroom and toward supported inclusion in age-appropriate general education settings, Alberta's Literacy for All initiatives...etc. Through it all, the awareness of importance of literacy, language, and communication in reference to a person's autonomy and quality of life has grown.  

In the middle of this growing awareness are explorations on how to make it all happen...which leads to more learning and more awareness. We have, by no stretch of the imagine, figured it all out. I'm pretty sure we have still just only seen the very tip of the iceberg.  But we are also making progress and learning a few things along the way.

This summer, I want to do a series of blog posts and share what I (as a result of many interactions with students, parents and professionals) have been learning and thinking about supporting students with complex communication needs (CCN).  I thought to frame it in an alphabet style and do 26 posts - one for each letter of the alphabet - sharing these thoughts.  Tomorrow, I will start with A...

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Links to Completed Posts in this Series
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A is for Aided Language Stimulation 

B is for Behaviour
C is for Communication Process
D is for Descriptive Language
E is for Engagement
F is for Facilitators
G is for Generative Language
H is for "Helping"
I is for Inclusion
J is for "Just in Time"
K is for Keyboard
L is for Language of Control
M is for Motivation
N is for Narrative Development
O is for Opportunities
P is for Play
Q is for Qualified (Presume Competence)
R is for Robust Language System
S is for Self-Determination
T is for Talk About
U is for Urgency
V is for Visual Supports
W is for Wellness
X is for Fix (Communication Repair)
Y is for Yelling
Z is for Zone of Proximal Development
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Coming Full Circle: Reflecting on Camp ALEC

It has been a week now since I have been home from a ten-day trip to Philadelphia to be a part of Camp ALEC. I am still challenged to put in to words a reflection of the camp. I'm sure it is going to take more than one post when all is said and done.

Just to give a big of background... Tina Moreno, one of the two ladies that made this camp happen, explained the camp perfectly in her blog post yesterday:

This was the first Camp ALEC and the first camp of its kind offered in the United States. Together, we gathered 15 campers and 14 educators, speech-language pathologists and school administrators from the U.S. and Canada at Variety Club Camp and Developmental Center in Norristown, PA for a week of reading and writing assessment and interventions–plus a typical summer camp experience.  Each camper received a total of 17.5 hours of individual and small group assessment and instruction throughout the week.  The goals of Camp ALEC included building the skills of the adults who participated and determining how the campers... can be supported in further developing their reading and writing skills during the coming school year.  At the conclusion of camp, parents had an opportunity to have a conference with their child’s educator,  as well as Karen and David, and left with a report detailing the results of their informal reading and writing assessment and instructional recommendations.  Our hope is that parents will share those recommendations with teachers so that they can implement evidence-based instructional strategies that will ensure greater progress in school. (http://voices4all.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/what-i-learned-from-camp/)

In June 2011, I attended the kick off to the Literacy for All community of practice in Alberta. It was the first time I was exposed to the Whole to Part framework and to the resource  Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way. In August 2011, Linda Burkhart came to our area and did a two-day PODD (Pragmatic Organizational Dynamic Display) workshop.  The combination of being a part of this community of practice and gaining a deeper understanding of language and communication through Linda Burkhart's workshop and the fact that we were trying to figure out how to create more inclusive programs for students with complex communication needs in our division projected me down a path of exploration related to language/communication, literacy, inclusion and empowerment. 

In May of 2012, I flew to Toronto and attended a week long intensive Litearcy in AAC course taught by from Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver. Although I learned much about literacy during this camp, the context that I was in the middle of in regards to being in the beginning stages of a Masters program in Inclusive Education and Neuroscience, our changing focus for the students that I had been teaching in a self-contained classroom and this immersion in information about language/communication and literacy, drove me to start thinking more deeply about learning more generally rather than just focusing in on all the amazing literacy and communication content.

It was becoming clear to me that although I had been teaching for almost 20 years at this point, I had never really taken the time to time to define or understand learning. I had thought more about the content I was trying to pour in to students then designing and facilitating exploration and discovery. It was actually only as I made the shift from general to special education that I started to see the difference between training/teaching and learning.

Sadly, this is probably because in special education we may have gotten trapped in believing that learning is rigidly linear, that learning with accommodation is not "real learning", that people with intellectual disabilities learn differently than those without (i.e. need everything broken down in to small pieces), and/or that it is more important for people with intellectual disabilities be drilled through "life skills" programs than to learn curriculum-driven academics. Rather than focusing on the function of what is meant to be learned, we focus on the broken apart steps/skills and/or the content  and we conclude there is nothing that a student with an intellectual disability could get out of it. We don't recognize the opportunities that exist if we shift to focusing on function of what is happening in the learning experience. We want immediate tangible results so rather than engaging in the sometimes slow and frustrating process of finding ways to break down barriers to curriculum-driven learning, we fall back on a reductionist behaviour training approach and end up trapping these students in a world that will be hard to ever expand because expanding works inside-out rather than outside-in. 

In the middle of everything that I was learning and experiencing, the question of how we shift the paradigm and start thinking about learning from the inside out instead of the outside in for and with this population of students emerged. It seemed there were a million separate pieces to answer... that maybe I the answer would never be one that could be clearly articulated because it was just too complex.

Training is often a passive process and is rooted in compliance. It is often a one-size-fits-all process. In education we like to train because the result of training is behaviour or simple memorization and we can objectively measure behaviour and memorization. We also like to train because we view it as an efficient process as we can "reach" a whole bunch of students at once. Training is an outside-in process. It is driven by those doing the training. Training results in putting our effort and resources in to managing and directing other human beings. The realm of training is limited... particularly to those who need support or accommodation to engage in the process of learning. 

Learning is about developing and empowering people from the inside out. Learning is about the individual... but it also about the collective as learning is social and interactive process. There is a recognition that each person will learn something different from an experience because each person comes to the experience with their own unique background. Learning is messy. Learning can be noisy and chaotic. Learning can be frustrating. Learning might not result in a final product. We ultimately cannot actual control other people's learning. We can only create the conditions for it and support it. Learning is about design. Learning results in putting our energy and resources in to design and support and the growing of other human beings as individuals. The realm of learning is unlimited as long as one has the facilitated freedom and the literacy and communication skills that are critical to the learning process.

I have much to write about from this past week at Camp ALEC but I'm starting with the fact that this feeling of upset... of cognitive dissonance... of all of this being too big to manage or do anything about or to articulate... that I have been feeling since I sat in that first meeting for the Literacy for All Community of Practice three years ago is starting to subside to a manageable level. I am beginning to see the path through the forest. This camp allowed me to work directly with kids who were developing (or had developed) strong language/communication and literacy skills. I could clearly see how this is a starting point for all the other things that are part of the forest. These kids were empowered and driven and full of life... and the life they were full of was very much their own. Their futures were not limited to what others had decided for them even though they relied on others for care-related needs.

At the end of the week I was sitting at dinner with one of the campers and the same lady (Tina) whose blog I linked to above. This camper had known Tina for years.  Tina had a son who was attending the camp who was close in age to this camper.  This young lady was explaining to Tina how she needed to step back and let her son be independent of her at camp.  She stated that he is a young man and he needs to be able to make decisions and function on his own without his mother's interference.  I was able to get to know Tina's son through the week as he was one of the campers and she clearly did not need this lecture.  Her son was an amazing and independent young man.  This conversation was more one that this young lady needed so that she could consolidate the empowering experience she had during her first whole week on her own.  She said it so passionately. She clearly was not just reciting rhetoric.  She knew this as a result of consolidating her personal experiences.  This ability to articulate thoughts like these comes from focusing on authentic language and literacy learning.  It is not just about the words that are coming out... It is about the fact that she would be able to expand on and defend what she is saying because she clearly understood and owned it. She had made her own personal connections rather than just reciting what had been dumped in to her.

This past May I completed my Capstone project for my Masters program.  At the time I was trying to answer the question of how we create cohesive and continuous inclusive programs for students with complex needs.  When I was done writing the paper I mostly just felt frustrated.  I felt that, although there was a lot of great content in the paper, it was still too big and too scattered and too overwhelming to figure how to move all of the theory in the paper in to practice in reality.  I could not see the path in the forest... it was all still trees and underbrush. 

If I were to write the paper now, after spending this time at Camp ALEC, I would narrow it down to focusing in on building solid communication and literacy learning opportunities because it is now clear to me that everything else that was in the paper will expands out from there for these students.  If we get that piece right with them, they will have the skills and understanding needed to make the other pieces right themselves.

It amazes me how dynamic and non-linear (and exciting) the process of learning and understanding can be. The experience of these past three years has helped me to more deeply understand how what we key in to and process and integrate at any given time is extremely dependent on the background that we bring to learning.  Each time we are exposed to new ideas we will see something different because we come to them from a different starting point than the last time.

Generative Writing for Students with Significant Disabilities

What does writing for students with significant disabilities look like?  How can we engage them in the process of writing?

It is important not to mistake tasks that develop matching, memorizing, copying or fine motor skills with the learning process of writing.  Students with disabilities need to experience the same processes as those without when developing writing.  They need to scribble and explore and progress from being emergent to conventional writers.

Writing also supports the development of reading skills.  Above is a diagram of the "Whole to Part Literacy Framework" which outlines the need to develop skills in word identification, language comprehension and print processing in order to achieve the goal of silent reading with comprehension.  Guided reading, writing and developing communication system skills all fall under the "language comprehension" umbrella.  The writing tasks that we do with the students that I work with cross between developing communication skills, communication system skills and engaging in and learning the writing process. 

Below is an outline of some of the things are now embedded in to writing programs for students, some things that we are developing as part of their writing programs and a couple of things that I am looking to add to writing programs this fall.  Some of these things are done in general education classes drawing on content from those subjects, some fit right in to the literacy structures that exist in classrooms as all students have choice in their writing and some are done in a one-on-one or small group direct instruction setting.  Many have only been added in the past two years after I had attended workshops and courses by Linda Burkhart, Karen Erickson, David Koppenhaver and Caroline Musselwhite.  Before that the "writing" we were doing was the practice on matching, memorizing, copying and fine motor skills I referenced a the beginning of this post.
 

--------------------------------------------- Alternate Pencils  

Many students with complex needs either cannot or have significant difficulty using a pencil.  Alternate pencils offer the opportunity for students to do letter-by-letter generative writing. 

 

One no-tech Alternate Pencil is an eye gaze board (example to the left).  To use this system, the student first gazes to one of the five clusters of letters.  Once the student has picked the cluster they want, they then do a second gaze to one of the five areas and use the color coding system to say which color of letter they would like to write from the initial cluster.  That process generates one letter that the person working with the student would write down.
 

For example, a student might gaze to the cluster of letters in the top right hand corner. This means he/she wants to write the letter P, Q, R, S or T.  The student then gazes to the top left hand corner which means that he/she is choosing the yellow letter from the first cluster of letters indicated.  The letter the partner writes down is "Q". 

 

Another no-tech option is a flip chart.  An example of this is included to the right.  The top of the chart contains clusters of letters.  This process requires that the student that is doing the writing has a definitive yes and no response.  This could be using switches or any body action.  We try to encourage head movement sideways for no and up or down for yes as that is generally universally understood but if that is not possible then we find whatever is going to work.  In the letter-by-letter approach we would ask a continuous string of questions starting with "A?".  If the answer is no, we ask the next letter. If the answer is yes, we write it down.  Once we write a letter down we continue by asking that letter again and keep moving through.  The process can also be done in clusters - asking the student if he/she wants one of the letters on the first page and if he/she says yes then go through the letters one at a time.  This is partner-assisted step scanning process is one that is familiar to our students that we use this method of writing with as we use it for choice making and when communicating with P.O.D.D. books (have written about these before but will be adding a new post about these again soon). 

 

A couple of less complex alternate pencils that can be used with student who have more functional use of their hands but still struggle with the fine motor aspect of printing include options like letter stamps, magnetic letters, letter cards, letter stickers, keyboards...etc.  There are

several options for keyboards for those with fine motor challenges.  The example on the right is the "Big Keys" keyboard. IntelliKeys is another option that offers a lot of versatility including making tactile representations. 

 

The point of using alternate pencils is to allow student access to a way to generate letter-by-letter writing right from the "scribbling stage" of writing.  A student does not have to be able to generate what we call "real words" to use an alternate keyboard just as a student doesn't need be able to write whole words before they start using a pencil.  In fact, a child will use a pencil for a long time before they generate conventional words.  Alternate pencils create the same opportunities for exploration or students who cannot hold a pencil.  When we use alternate pencils, we always work with the student to pick something that we are going to write about through some of the approaches outlined below (Weekend Words, Experience Books, Photo or Picture Captions, Remnant Books) or we pick a topic with the student related to something that he/she is reading or studying. Once we have a topic, we start writing and let them generate whatever series of letters they are going to generate.  We do not direct or interfere and when the student is done we "read" what they have written about (make the letter sounds) and then talk about their topic with them. 

 

Writing is one part of a student's comprehensive literacy program.  At the same time as a student is working on writing, they are also spending time doing word work and self-selected and guided reading.  As they develop skills in these areas, they will move towards more conventional writing in a similar process as a scribbling child moves towards it.  By allowing "scribbling" we are setting a student up for autonomous, generative writing rather than just copying. 

 

The Center for Literacy and Disabilities Studies offers further information and resources on Alternative Pencils.

  --------------------------------------------- Using Remnant Books for Writing Topics    A remnant book is very similar to a scrapbook.  The book contains tactile items, short explanations and/or pictures that represent experiences, activities, places, people, etc. that make up a student's narrative.  Remnants might include things like souvenir that were bought, an item from nature, a receipt from going somewhere, packaging from a toy.  The remnant is placed in the book along with a picture (if possible) and a short explanation on a sticky note.  The short explanation is just so the communication partner would have something to talk about.  It is not meant to be "perfect writing". 

A remnant book is meant to be used to facilitate and encourage social interactions and conversations.  The items in the book give a focus for the conversation and allows for the same type of "what I did last night" or "remember when"

conversations that other students have regularly.

Using remnant books requires commitment from home and school as the idea is to ensure that a student's stories are recorded so that they can be talked about at different times.  Ultimately a remnant book should travel between home and school and be added to anytime there is a story worth sharing.  Although it is nice to have a an actual physical article, it is not necessary every time.

The remnant book can be used either as a way to facilitate conversations or as a resource to pick topics to write about.  When using it for writing, the student would choose a story that he/she wants to write about and then alternate pencils would be used to create a picture of writing related to that object.  The advantage of having the topic is that when the student is done writing we are able to have a conversation about what they wrote the same way as we would have conversations with other emergent writers who came to us with a picture they drew and emergent writing (scribbling) under the picture and wanted to tell us what they "wrote".  In this way, students come to understand the process of writing in the context that makes sense because there is a purpose of writing - to tell a story.

We watch closely for signs of connection during this process.  If we see word approximations or even single letters related to the topic emerge, we talk about these with the student.  At the same time, we do not interfere too much as we do not want to disrupt he process of writing.  We do also at times demonstrate using the alternate pencil for our own writing - so we pick a topic and go through the process as a demonstration so that the student can see what we are doing in generating words. 

Note: We also add to the remnant books ourselves when an activity happens at school that would be something that can be a story to share at another time.  This opens up opportunities for "how was your day at school" conversations at home.
 

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Picture or Photo Captions

 

Pictures and photographs can be used a topics for writing in the same way as the pages and topics from a student's remnant book can be used.  Photographs have the added motivational factor of being personalized.  Pictures can be tied to any topic or just pictures of things that a student likes or enjoys.  For a student who is included, topics the pictures or photos could be linked to vocabulary of the topic that is being studied in that class.  Again, students are allowed to generate their own writing using their alternate pencil and what they write is added as a caption.  If these are topic books for curriculum areas, we do also put the typed word in and sometimes include a PEC representation, a written definition and/or put the pictures in a talking photo album (like the one pictured at the right) and record the word or the definition of the word.  For personal choice topics that are more related to a student just writing a story of their choosing, we do not add in all of these things and let the final piece of writing stand as the student's writing. 
 

We can also do this activity online by using Quizlet and making cards with images on and then having the student use an alternative pencil to caption those images.   --------------------------------------------- Weekend Words  

This one that we have not yet tried.  I was introduced to it through the Literacy for All Community of Practice that we have been involved in for the past two years.  The idea is for parents to send a list of 5-10 Weekend Words to school each Monday morning.  The words are meant to represent the student's weekend activities, interactions, feelings...etc. When it is time to write, the words are used just like the Remnant Book items or the Photos and Picture Captions outlined above. 

 

On a side note, there is an excellent opportunity for communication here too as the words could start a conversation using the students communication system and there may perhaps be a need for messages to go back and forth to get more clarity.  We use step-by-step communicators with some of the students I work with for messages to go back and forth between home and school.  We are currently working on ensuring that the messages that go home on these are more student-driven and this might be a good step in to that as in the conversation to figure out the weekend words we might discover together some more questions that we need to ask and then can work to figure out the details of those questions and record it so that the conversation can continue at home. 

 

--------------------------------------------- Writing Books for Tar Heel Reader  

Tar Heel Reader is a "collection of free, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a wide range of topics.  Each book can be speech enabled and accessed using multiple interfaces, including touch screens, IntelliKeys with custom overlays and 1 to 3 switches."  Students may also write and publish their own books using picture from the huge collection at Flickr or pictures they upload.  The books can be on any topic and are very easy to write. 

 

When writing books for Tar Heel Reader we move away from using Alternative Pencils and use the student's communication system instead. This means we are generating either sentences word by word or the student is giving general ideas and we are putting them in to words or sentences. This is because whatever books we finish should go up in the public library although you do have the option to just permanently leave them in draft form. 

 

Because books are so easy to produce on Tar Heel Reader it is a great place to make accessible reading-level appropriate books for students on any topic of their choice so books can be made related to curriculum content of general education classes.  It is often hard to find the time to do this but if it is being done as a writing activity, the book then is stored publicly for any future students taking that same class to access as they need it.  

  --------------------------------------------- news-2-you Make Your Own Class Newspaper  

We have been using news-2-you for three years now.  I've posted about it several times on this blog before.  This past year they added a new feature that allows you to interactively create your own symbol supported class newspaper that mirrors the format of the current events paper that you get each week if you subscribe.  It uses a series of interactive screens with questions about what will go in to the news story. The process involves a lot of communicating, choice making, and thinking as to construct the news story you need to be able to come up with the details of the event you are writing about.  Once you are finished answering the questions on the interactive pages, it prints off in newspaper format. 

 

This is a great process as you can embed listening comprehension in to the process.  We have started with the city newspaper, found a story that is interesting, read the story and then answered the questions, picking out the key details of the story, using the students communication system through the whole process. 

 

--------------------------------------------- Writing Cards Using P.O.D.D. Books Could use any communication system or partner assisted scanning process.  

Authentic writing tasks are always a hit... particularly if you send something out and something comes back!  This is something we did very extensively three years ago when we were in a fully self-contained setting.  Parents sent in a list of important dates throughout the year and we would spend time every couple of weeks making and writing cards and then mailing them out.  It was embedded in to a personal calendar learning process.  At that point we did not yet have P.O.D.D. communication books.  Our communication approaches were much more restrictive and so we relied on students agreeing or disagreeing with what we believed should be on the cards. 

The P.O.D.D. book offers a lot more extensive vocabulary and allows the student to be a lot more autonomous in generating the message.  Again, because this is a card that will be sent to someone, we do, for the most part fill in the blanks between the words the student picks using his/her P.O.D.D. book.  We also have moved towards buying a pack of multi-purpose cards and using them rather than making the cards so that we are focusing on the writing and communication processes rather than the arts and crafts component.  This becomes one of several options that the student has to choose from when it comes time to work on writing. 

 

--------------------------------------------- Mad Libs - Using P.O.D.D. Books  Could use any communication system or partner assisted scanning process.  

This one is probably more a communication activity than a writing activity as there are a lot of opportunities to move through the P.O.D.D. book to choose different words that fall in to categories.  I'm not sure how much explaining Mad Libs need but the basic idea is that you start with a page where you generate words that fall in to different categories - noun, name of a person, description word, action, adjective...etc. and then once the list of words is generated, it gets transferred to the Mad Lib story (an example to the left) and then you can read the story with the words that were put in to it. 

 

In the reading process there are again opportunities to work on both comprehension and communication and the Mad Lib itself could become a remnant for a students Remnant Book if it is particularly funny.  

 

--------------------------------------------- My Story Maker and Read-Write-Think  

My Story Maker is an interactive story making website from Carnegie Library.  Students are able to make many choices.  A note that the visuals for the choices are relatively small and the choices could not be hooked up to a scanning system so choices have to be done through partner assisted scanning if a student cannot access the mouse of a computer.  

The student has any number of choices during the process of writing the story.  Each time a choice is made, both the element in the picture an a line of text explaining what is happening are added to the story.  A student can create a whole story without ever writing anything but they can also go in and edit or add to any of the text that comes up when elements are added. 

When the story is done, it can be read online or it can be printed off and made in to a personal little book.  This is an activity that works well with a whole class as it is pretty naturally scaffolded and works great for student who are not sure what to write about.  Younger kids really liked the way the books came out looking like real stories and every student comes out with a similar looking books that can be shared.  For students working on partner assisted scanning there are countless opportunities for that throughout the creation of the story.  

If using this for story writing, it is worth thinking about adding in a "planning" stage that is not so visually stimulating before writing the story.  There are a lot of great interactive planning tools to do this on the Read-Write-Think Website.  This website has many other ideas for writing and communication.  For example: Bio-cubes, Essay Map, or Trading Card Creator.
 

--------------------------------------------- First Author Writing Software

This is a new product and I have just started exploring the trial version that I got.  It looks promising particularly as a way to have student doing work on content-specific curriculum with minimal time needed for set up.  Because the video does such a great job of explaining it, I'm just going to include an outline form the website and the video...

 

From the Don Johnson Website: "First Author is a software tools that supports beginning writes, especially those with special needs, across all phases of the writing process.  as a computer-based writing environment it operates in parallel with exemplary models of writing instruction.  First Author provides the writer with essential accommodations such as picture prompts, word banks, on-screen keyboard, auditory feedback and other tools to ensure a successful writing experience.  It is accessible to all students, including those with severe speech and physical impairments."

   

Exploring the website I also found a document on First Author Writing Measures that hold a lot of potential as a writing assessment tool for this population of students.

Using the Nonverbal Approach to Promote Literacy

Link: http://web.utk.edu/~mbc/KnoxCountyNRAPresentation.pdf

 

I came across this Power Point presentation a few weeks back and have since found a couple of research studies on the "Nonverbal Approach to Reading (NRA)".  When I attended the "Literacy and AAC" course put on by Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver in May, they spoke of the goal of reading instruction being that of "reading silently (in your head) with comprehension".  Seems logical but for students who do not talk what does this mean?  From everything that I've read what it means is that we need to be explicit about teaching them to read silently in there head.  We need to actually talk to them in the teaching process about what they are hearing in their heads while reading. 

 



 

I'm excited to begin trying this NRA method with a few of my students after Christmas.  I am using a modified approach to Patricia Cunningham's "Systematic Sequential Phonics They Use: For Beginning Readers of All Ages" with three of my students and have now created NRA Power Points to go with the word wall words that are introduced with this program.  One of the research articles that I read talked about including a motoric prompt to go along with steps of the NRA approach as they were then able to tell when students transferred the skill and were using the approach with other words.  I'm excited to add in this NRA piece.

Interactive to Independent Literacy: A Model for Designing Literacy Goals for Children with Atypical Communication

Article Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10573560490429050

 

I knew immediately that this article was to like this article when I read the quote that it opened with: "Researchers and professionals need to work actively to reverse the forces at work in our culture that lead to the ostracism of children who are different." 

 

Over the past year and a half, my views about literacy instruction for the students that I have on my caseload have changed quite a bit.  I have been fortunate enough to take workshops and/or courses form Linda Burkhart (PODD Communication), Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver (Literacy in AAC Course) and Caroline Musslewhite (Literacy Workshop and Communication Circle Workshop).  I have also participated, along with two different teachers from the school I work at, in the Literacy for All project last year and this year.

 

It is not that I didn't believe in literacy instruction for "my" students so much as I was thinking of literacy as a series of lock step skills that needed to be mastered.  Sadly, a drill based approach to literacy still seems to be a reality for many with disabilities even against that fact that so many classrooms have moved to approaches that are much more comprehensive and interactive.  The functions of literacy skills seem go quickly get lost in this approach and these students are then faced with the added challenge of low motivation on top of the challenges presented by their disabilities. Without the context of what one is doing, it is hard to stay motivated to to do it. 

"For all children to bcome members of their literate communities, we must consider reading and writing not as end products but rather as socially communicative practices that begin to emerge early in childhood as other communicative abilities do. Both oral and written language are thus viewed as primarily communicative practice, and an intervention to achieve that end is best viewed as situated practice."

This article goes on to present a model for five level literacy instruction that is influenced by the Social Interaction Model, the Participation Model and the Situated Pragmatics Model along with possible goals for each of the five levels. 

 

It reflects the path that we have started down with the students that I have on my caseload over the past couple of years.  It is not always an easy path as it is slow and the focus is on interactions and the process rather than individually produced products.  The model is based on interaction to create understanding in the emergent stage and only moving on to conventional literacy when there is a deeper understanding.  The reality is that we can push students in to the emergent stage long before understanding and get the paper products that some would equate to learning so much quicker. 

What is the benefit of this approach?  How much research has been done?

It's all still so new and when it's about students with complex communication needs it is sometimes hard to measure these things.  Sometimes we need to just assume that these students will develop literacy skills in much the same way as others but they will require more time and because of limitations, they will also require others to be more deligent of keeping it all going.  I believe in the end the benefit will be motivation.  The article itself speaks to the benefit being that focusing this way also focuses in communication and interaction and these two things result in an increased quality of life for anyone. 

 

What I know is that making this shift has resulted in increased levels of interaction and engagement both with others and with literacy skills.  I know that I am imagining going places with letter by letter generative reading and writing that I had never imagined before with some of my students.  I know that I can see a deeper link between communication and litearcy and have found new ways to teach both in the crossover between the two.  I know that these skills we are working on are more authentically transferable then what we had worked on in the past. 

 

Finding this article was exciting for me because it framed so much of the learning journey about literacy and communication that I've been on (and will continue to be on) over these past couple of years. 

Literacy for All Pilot Project Update

Way back at the beginning of the year, I posted about the "Literacy for All" pilot project that our school was going to a part of for the 2011-12 school year.  The project involved bringing educators from across the province of Alberta together to examine literacy learning for students with significant disabilities. In this past year we have met face to face, met online, participated in a online community, and used and examined the resources "MeVille to WeVille" and "Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way".  The project was built upon the premise that ALL students can learn literacy.  Being part of this project has given me the opportunity to further explore what it means when we say that we are going to teach literacy skills to students with significant disabilities and ultimately culminated in a desire to learn more.  It is evident that there is much that we can do by way of teaching literacy to students in this population and I'm excited to take what I've learned this year and continue to expand on it in years to come.

As the project wraps up, a wiki has been created to share information about literacy learning for students with significant disabilities.  My understanding is that the wiki will continue to be updated.  Check it out at http://abliteracyforall.wikispaces.com/.

Literacy in Augmentative and Alternative Communication

This past week I traveled to Toronto for a "Literacy in AAC" course that was delivered by Karen Erikson and David Koppenhaver (the authors of the book "Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four-Blocks Way").  The focus of the course was on developing literacy skills in students who have complex communication needs. 

I do believe in literacy learning for all students but this course challenged me to further redefine what "literacy learning" is for the students that I teach.  I have been moving towards an understanding of generative reading and writing over the past couple of years but coming to understand that and actually having a plan of action around how to make that happen are two different things.  I came out of this course feeling like there is now an action plan and that plan is rooted in ensuring that the students that I am responsible for have a comprehensive literacy program that includes interactions related to each of the four blocks of literacy during the course of their days.  For the elementary and junior high students that I have this will mean using curriculum overlapping as they will be in inclusive settings for a large portion of their day.  For the elements that are more important to do directly, we will do a pull out intervention time to work on this.  For the high school students that I have I am looking at creating a literacy class that is equivalent in time to a five-credit course as well as finding another time in the day for students to do self-selected reading.

With some of my students we will be starting at the beginning and for others we will be building on the emergent skills that they already have.  Being part of the Alberta Education "Literacy for All" Pilot project this year has put us in a situation where we have built some of the foundation that we can build on with this new information.  

I would have a hard time summarizing all that I have learned so am hoping to do it over time in reference to what we learn as we implement different aspects.  Where we start is to rethink the need for exploration and interaction without limits related to reading and writing for all of the students that I teach.  So that means using alternate pencils to "write" in the same way that preschool students "write" (i.e. scribble a bunch of letter like figures) without correcting or trying to direct - but rather just naming letters and exposing the student to purposes for writing.  A couple neat suggestions around finding purposes for writing included using remnant books (which I have tried using in the past to create opportunities for communication) where everyone in the students life adds pictures and items to the book related to some thing that happened in their life.  Whomever adds the picture and item also adds a sticky note with a brief description of what it is about.  Then when it is time to write, the student picks which item in his/her writing book that he/she wants to write about and then he/she writes using an alternate pencil.  Here is where what we would have traditionally done needs to be rethought.  Instead of showing the student how to use the alternate pencil to write the words that you want to write about the the thing that he/she has picked to write about, you allow the student to just write - put down whatever letters he or she says he/she wants to put down when writing and you talk to them about their writing - in the same way that you would look at your toddlers picture with scribbles under it and know that is his/her writing at that time.  They did say that it is okay to to pull out one letter and write a word related to the topic but to not do it in a way that corrects and to not take away or direct their writing at this point.  As students are exposed to a comprehensive literacy program, their writing evolves as a result of the interaction of the components of the program.  A second idea was to put "captions" on pictures - again not correcting or directing but allowing for exploration and interaction.  It is a bit of a shift.  I'm excited to get started.  

This is obviously only a small piece.  As I start to figure out how to take all of this stuff that is spinning around in my head and put it in to action I am sure I will be writing more.