The Joseph Robert Shaw Foundation

Helping Children Recover from Brain Injury

Accessing Online Resources with AAC

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I rely heavily on the Pioneer Valley Book Builder subscription to create books for the children I work with. You can put a child’s name into the program and print out a book at the child’s guided reading level with their name within the text. This is a great resource, especially during this time of quarantine. As I was exploring the site the other day I came upon their Digital Reader, which is currently free. It allows you to access books digitally at your child’s specific reading level (they also have a free assessment if you are not sure where to start). There are even videos for some of the books that will guide the students through introducing the book, word work connected with the book, as well as writing connections with the book. 

As I watched my own kindergarten daughter participate in this virtual guided reading lesson from guided reading guru Jan Richardson, I couldn’t help but think of Joey – can these resources work for him as well?

I’m hopeful this resource may provide a great opportunity for Joey to experience quality guided reading lessons while he is at home. His family can play the book introduction and put the book on a large screen for him to read – this means nobody has to hold the book up for him and the words (depending on the screen used) will automatically be larger. 

Joey can use his device to read the beginning of the repeated, short sentences one each page (taking turns with his family so he does not get exhausted by the repetition). Most of the words on the pages are on his device. If Joey is resistant to reading the words on his device, he can read it silently in his head while someone points to each word on the screen. Afterwards, his communication partner can ask him questions about the story – “What is dad eating?” “What does Dad like?” and he can answer using the device.

The videos do ask for a child to have a whiteboard and marker with them so they can write – but instead of writing Joey can be asked to find those letters on his QWERTY keyboard on his device. 

The teacher asks “read this with me” or “say this with me”. The video can be paused so that Joey can make that sentence on his device, or he can at least find a target word on his device. If the sentence is “I like to eat apples”, Joey can find the word “like” on his device. As the recording asks for responses, the family member can pause it to give Joey the wait time needed to answer the question on his device. The lessons include a word study component, which Joey can participate in with his device.

It may take some adapting to make the videos interactive for Joey and students like him, but it could be a great resource to keep reading skills going during this time. It also gives him access to excellent grade-level instruction via the video, asking him exactly what would be asked of a typically developing kindergarten student. Because it is in an individual setting, the pace will be able to be slowed down to allow Joey to respond with his device – adapting the pace but not the content. 

I hope this will let Joey and other kids like him practice some of their skills.

 

 

Getting Joey Reading

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Joey continues to impress us with his strong visual memory. It seems as though I can introduce a sight word to him once, and he will soon be able to find it from a field of six. His ability to receptively identify these words in isolation continues to impress me. So we know he is able to recognize words. How do we get him from reading these words to reading and understanding what he reads? How do we measure that? How do we know when he is achieving it and it is time to increase the level of the work we give him?

One way I am working to make leveled guided reading books available to him is to use the on-line books offered from Pioneer Valley press. These books allow me to put Joey’s name into the book (giving him an anchor word on each page), and to print the books out at home. Although Joey and I can take turns reading each page of these books, using his device is laborious when matching each word, and he often makes mistakes, not because of his ability to recognize the word, but in his ability to maintain the motor control of his neck and to select the correct word. In short, it’s exhausting and no fun.

To work with his receptive strength, I began taking the repetitive line from the book, laminating and cutting out each word so that it becomes a sentence puzzle. From there, Joey can use the laminated and velcro words to match what is in the book we are reading together. When the author of the book changes the pattern between “the” and “a”, Joey must check what the author says and then find the matching word. It encourages him to look at the whole word – not just the first letter, and put the words in sequential order – using one to one correspondence – on the page. 

This technique allows Joey to practice many of the reading skills all beginning readers are developing, while letting me see how he is progressing in these concepts of print. The greatest problem here, is that Joey has not bought into the idea of the pattern texts within the leveled books. After he’s matched a sentence once or twice, he sees no need to do it again, even if the sentence is changing slightly each time. And I don’t blame him. It is boring, especially when he is used to reading more exciting books with me.

His kindergarten teacher has begun to give him sentences to read to himself and then asking him to match the sentence with a picture to access if he is actually able to comprehend what he is reading. This is brilliant, and a simple way to assess his comprehension without forcing him to painstakingly identify each word in a text on his device. 

We know he’s making progress in reading and everyone on his team is dedicated to developing his ability to read. We’re just watching him to determine the best way. Stay tuned as Joey shows us how we can teach him to read!

Another Silly Book For Working on Core Words

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Another fun book Joey and I recently discovered together was Stuck, by Oliver Jeffers. In it’s ridiculous plot, a boy’s kite gets stuck in the tree. To problem solve this he throws EVERYTHING into a tree – his cat, a boat, the fire department, etc. In the end he gets an ax… and throws it into the tree too. Luckily, the ax knocks the kite down (but leaves everything else at the top.)

When I first picked up the book it seemed simple and silly – both of which are a plus. Simple books tend to give us more opportunities to encourage interaction from Joey, instead of simply having him listen as I read. I laminated a picture of a tree and covered it in velcro dots. Then I found clip art of the items the boy threw into the tree and made velcro cards so that Joey could find each item and place it into the tree – watching as the tree goes from having one item to being ridiculously full.

To support Joey’s counting in a sequential order I also added a numbered list so that the velcroed items could begin on the numbed list and Joey could carefully take off each picture in sequential order and add it to the tree.

Because of the character’s repetitive actions of throwing the item into the tree, It is an easy book to incorporate core words into. Joey can easily talk about what is happening in the story by labeling the items being added into the tree, or using prepositions to describe where the items are – in, up, on.

The first time I read the book with Joey he paused halfway through and said “100.” Yes – it feels like there are 100 items going into the tree. I love that Joey’s words give him the opportunity to show that five year old number sense – anything that is “a lot” is obviously 100 – not accurate, but it captures the assumption going on in their five year old brains.

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Admittedly   , Joey seemed to lose interest in this book after awhile. It was a fun initial book, but didn’t give us the sustaining power that Room on the Broom, or Not a Box has. Now I’m off to find more engaging books.

It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny

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In trying to find a book that Joey may find engaging, I grabbed It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny by Marilyn Sadler.  This is one of those books I’d never classify as quality children’s literature, but it has all the right elements to be an engaging read aloud for the four through six year old crowd.

  • It has a relatable storyline – someone who doesn’t quite fit into his family, or someone who just wants to see what life is like being someone else
  • It has repetitive, predictable text, where the reader lists all the animals P.J. Funny Bunny does not want to be. This makes it easy for children to join into the read aloud experience, either verbally or non-verbally
  • It is four and five year old sense of humor funny. A bunny trying to be a possum? Too silly. But the humor does not involve needing to make inferences or understand that characters have two different ideas.
  • It involves bad body odor (from a skunk, or course)
  • It’s characters are common storybook animals
  • It has simple, bright pictures without too much detail

To make this as engaging as possible for Joey while he does not have his device, I gathered toy animals to represent each animal in the book (except the possum. I don’t have a stuffed to possum. I don’t think TY ever made one in Beanie Baby form, but I could be wrong.) Lately Joey’s taken to sifting through my bin of animals in order to select each one as we come to that page in the book. He likes to be presented with multiple choices of animals, and then dig through to find the correct animal. This is a change in our practice, from when I’ve just handed him the animal, or when he chose between two animals I held up. As his motor skills are increasing I suspect he likes the challenge and the independence, as well as the opportunity to think through which animal he needs.

In addition to using the physical toy representations of the animals, I also laminated clip art pictures of the animals and put velcro on the back so that Joey could take the pictures on and off his tray. This also makes it easy for us to line up the animals, count them, and use the pictures to tell number stories. Just like with the toys, Joey now likes to be presented with all of the choices. He scans his options, finds the correct animal, grins, and works on coordinating his motor skills to reach the correct picture and pull it off the page.

As I began to read the book to Joey and introduce the opportunities for interaction with him, Joey’s smile grew. He loves having opportunities to participate, and truthfully, seems to believe the more opportunities, the better.

After Joey became more familiar with the book, I realized I could transition from “what animal is this” to “what animal will be next?” Joey’s grin grew even bigger when I asked this question, and he was fast to show off his memory of the order the animals were presented. There are nine animals in this book, so I was fairly impressed that he was able to put the animals in order with 100% accuracy. I’m not sure I could do that, and I’ve probably read the book over 100 times in the course of my own childhood and using it as a teacher.

Now, while we wait for Joey’s device to be fixed, I’m off to find another equally engaging read aloud for Joey. We can’t have him bored and quiet when we know what he is capable of!

Making Books More Engaging

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Without his device, Joey has been choosing to read books that give him more opportunities to interact during the read aloud. He wants to hold an animal, wave a magic wand, or move a velcroed piece around on his work tray. Last week I wondered just what was so appealing about Room on the Broom that we couldn’t break away from reading it. Through looking at what the Room on the Broom read aloud structure looks like for Joey, and considering that without his device read alouds can be more of a listening experience than an interactive one, I realized I needed to increase the opportunities for Joey to engage during a book. [Read more…]

Saturday Serenade

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Test post for Saturday Serenades https://www.musichealsglennjan.com/saturday-serenades

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