Spring Adapted Readers

April is Autism acceptance month and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to show you how I use my adapted readers with ASD students.  My students often have several  characteristics that impact their learning such as little to no speech, poor or no fine motor skills and poor attention skills. 

  The first thing to remember is that all children, including those with autism, CAN learn to read.  The second thing to remember is that a child does not need to be able to speak in order to read.  

So how do we teach students with little to no verbal skills?  How do we prove it?

I had been adapting some of my commercially bought leveled readers by reproducing the text and then having the children move the words to make the sentence in the book.  The only problem was that because my students needed so many opportunities to practice the same words over and over again in different contexts, I ran out of books that were simple enough for them to read.

The other issue was that some of my students had poor fine motor skills and pieces would often slide off slant boards or get knocked to the ground by shaky fingers.  I needed Velcro.

I decided then that I would have to make my own. 

Since spring was coming up, this first set is geared toward spring activities.  Book one has three words per page and book two has four.

By limiting the options that I give to the children, I gear it to their level.  Once the child gets good at finding words, I will add some distractors to make sure they are reading the words in the book.

I also made some take home books that the kids could cut and paste, color and then share with their family.

Flash cards with some of the vocabulary in the books were used for "write the room" and comprehension activities.

The problem with standardized assessment kits is that the comprehension question require verbal skills.  How do we prove a child with no verbal skills can read?

Can they pick out sight words?

Can they match sentences to a given picture? 

Can they answer comprehension questions?

I made some comprehension questions to go with my stories.  There is one question per page.  Some of the questions require general knowledge and some require relating the story to their life.  All the questions can be answered without verbal skills.

I've included an assessment sheet to keep track of your students answers.

Comprehension question choices can be reduced to three or even two choices if students need more limited options.

Spring Alphabet Freebie

I can't believe that spring break will be over tomorrow.  

It hasn't felt much like spring here yet.

It's been too cold.

 I thought I would brighten up the day with a little freebie for back to school.

I still have some students that don't know all their letters yet, and those that do, still need to practice matching upper and lower letters.

Here are some pictures of it in action.

Click on the last picture to grab it for free.

Match the upper case bears with the lower case flowers.

How to Make 5 Green and Speckled Frogs

With the move to a play based curriculum here in Ontario I spent the last half of last school year really examining what I'm doing in the classroom.  I want to move to a more inquiry based program but being in special ed my students often need to be taught specifically how to do something and then have the opportunity to practice that skill over and over again.  A lot of what I do is very hands on as it is.  

My 5 Green and Speckled Frog Interactive books were a big hit with the kids and they used them over and over again as they acted the song.

For those students that need something more concrete, I thought, what about an actual log and some stone frogs.

So I went on the hunt for the perfect log.

I found 5 smooth stones and painted them like frogs (I hope they look like frogs).

Originally I went looking for some blue construction paper for my pool, when I came across this blue cookie tray.  I was perfect for what I needed.

Once the children had used the frogs and log for a few days, I added some magnetic numbers to see what they would do with them.

Bee adding freebie

I am so thankful for my fellow teachers and all that you do.  

Here is a little freebie you. 

Children pick 2 numbers and add them together.  They then cover the total on their mat with a bee.  The first person to cover their mat wins.

Click on the picture below to grab it for free.

No Prep Spring and Freebie

At this time of the year, we continue to work on beginning sounds and word families.  

These no prep sheets don't require any motor skills. 

If your student can't colour, use bingo dabbers to mark the correct answers. 

 We made our word family puzzles into a little book.

First we cut them up.

Then we put them back together in a little book.

You can get a sample of this package by clicking on the picture above.  Once you are on my TpT page, click on the preview button to get the sample for free. 

Spring blends - No Prep

It looks like spring is finally here.  

Our playground is open and we were able to get outside to play without snowpants.

We are moving on to blends for our word work.  I love these sheets because the children can be independent doing them while I work with a small group.  They are an excellent tool for me assessing their knowledge afterwards, as I can gauge pretty quickly who has "got it" and who hasn't.

It doesn't hurt that we are also working on fine motor skills with the cutting and pasting.  This is also great for my students that don't have any printing skills.  No printing involved.

I had the children colour in the pictures on the right.

Then they cut them out.

Once that was done, they glued the pictures starting with the blend on the bear's tummy, in the box at the top.

For this activity the children had to put the correct flower on the stem.

We cut out the flowers.

and then we glued the flowers on the stem with the correct blend.

Then we coloured them in.

Spring blends will be on sale for 1/2 price until Friday.