Abigail practices one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by pointing to letters on a frequency-ordered low-tech alphabet board to write a caption for a photograph. Having multiple opportunities to practice learning the sound of the letter and its location on the communication board is the first step to becoming proficient writing with letters. Here she dictates letters to her teacher. As she becomes more competent, she’ll complete the task independently by writing directly to a computer and word document.

Jet is learning to become more independent finding initial consonant, medial vowel, and final sounds in three-phoneme words using picture/letter cards that cue him to the letter sounds without his teacher’s help. The letters are evenly spaced under the picture of the word so that it’s easier for Jet to see and indicate his choice to his teacher as she silently points to each letter. As he chooses his letters, his teacher moves them to the top of the board. When the word is complete, his teacher allows Jet time to blend the letters to read the word.

As you can see from his facial expression, Jet is very pleased with the fact that he’s spelled the word ‘wag’ all by himself!

Students are given multiple opportunities to practice blending and segmenting onsets and rhymes of single-syllable spoken words. Here, Jackie’s teacher is modeling how to blend sounds to find the correct word to match its picture. Jackie can’t say the sounds or blend the onset and rhyme out loud, but she is being taught how she can use the inner voice in her head to say the sounds as her teacher models. Accommodations to the text and pictures follow cortical visual intervention guidelines.

Jackie uses a switch to scan to the picture of a hat on her SGD. When she finds and selects it, the word, ‘hat’ will be said aloud. Hearing the sounds in the word will help her decode and pick the matching written word on her worksheet. This is one strategy that supports Jackie becoming more independent when decoding. In addition to using her SGD to support her reading, text and pictures on her worksheet are enlarged and simplified. The worksheet itself is placed on a specially designed document holder that attaches to Jackie’s SGD mounting pole and this makes it easier for her to split her visual attention between her worksheet and her SGD.

Abigail relies on visual accommodations to support her decoding of onsets and rhymes. Worksheets adapted with ‘glow writing’ are placed on a light box, positioned in her preferred visual field, and the lights in the room are lowered.

Numerous YouTube phonics videos are used to engage students when they are learning letter sounds. Students respond to the animations, the music and the ability to repeat the video as many times as they like.

Savannah reads her book on community helpers with text adapted using cortical visual impairment intervention guidelines. The words, written with ‘glow’ letters, are presented on black background, backlit by the computer. The teacher helps Savannah track words by pointing to each word as she reads.

Jet practices reading high frequency sight words found in his community helper book, using his communication device to say the words aloud. This strategy supports both his academic and communication goals. Jet also practices reading without his device and will rely on his inner reading voice to help him build reading fluency.

Students are encouraged to read print, pictures, signs, logos, and brand names that they’ll find at school and in their homes and communities. Fletcher is choosing a logo of one of his favorite stores so he can write a shopping list with his mom.

Fletcher is tracking and reading text from left to right by using photos of faces paired with names of people in the large photograph.

Adam is presenting his weekly survey to his classmates. Individual ‘bubbles’ with students’ pictures and their written opinions are created using a black background PowerPoint slideshow. The pictures and text are printed and pasted on poster board to support Adam’s classmates reading the poster.

Abigail has finished writing and is re-reading her animal report. She used her high frequency words from her word wall to assist her. Her work is presented on a light box, with enlarged ‘glow’ lettering and a simplified photo.

Abigail is independently reading an adapted leveled reader and is encouraged to use her inner reading voice while she reads.

The classroom provides opportunities for reading in all subject areas. Jet is reading the labels to pick the appropriate day for the calendar.

Aidan reads a variety of materials containing pictures and conventional text.

This student is on the road to becoming a conventional writer! He’s given opportunities throughout the school day to share his ideas through written communication using an alphabet keyboard. Today he’s writing an informative piece about his favorite community helper, an office worker. With help from his teacher he’s chosen a picture and now he’s ready to write independently.

Students who use AAC devices benefit from simple tasks to build operational competence with their alphabet keyboards. Roman is completing the exact same worksheet using his SGD interfaced with his desktop computer as his general education peers do using conventional pencils. Text fields created on Roman’s worksheet allow him to write in the document. And, like his peers, the more proficient he becomes at generating actual letters the more time he has to think about the ideas he wants to share through his writing.

Students communicate through writing for different reasons. For this assignment, Jet is being asked to recall information from a previous lesson so that he can answer the question: ‘Who is this community helper?’ He will finish the sentence, ‘I see a___’ by using his SGD to type on his computer. Visual phonics cards cue him to the sounds of letters and high frequency words are always available on his personal word wall to the right side of his computer.

Each student’s access to an alphabet keyboard is unique. Our students can use different modes for writing letters. With movable arm support, Savannah is learning to use her fingers to type on an enlarged alphabet keyboard.

One of Aidan’s ‘pencils’ are letter tiles. He’s getting practice putting the tiles together to spell his and his classmates’ names.

Abigail is using her vision to learn more about the letter ‘m’ using enlarged ‘glow’ letter tiles presented on a light box. This helps her as she transitions to letter tiles and her computer.

Abigail uses a scanning array on her computer to complete her writing assignment.

The large, outlined letters on Abigail’s computer screen makes it easier for her to see and access the alphabet for writing.

Jackie is reading all the words on her sight word wall and learning to type the first letter of those words using her onscreen alphabet keyboard. As she becomes more proficient, she can eventually use word prediction when writing. This and similar strategies can make writing easier and faster for students using AAC/AT.

Participating in collaborative conversations about literature topics is part of the Common Core curriculum. Students practice speaking with peers and teachers following conversational rules like following an agreed upon topic, commenting on what others say, asking questions, and learning respectful conversational discourse like listening to others and taking turns.

Abigail is learning key details and vocabulary necessary to understand a map illustrating a typical community. Using her hands free walker, she’s able to ambulate and get a close up look at the different areas illustrated by the map. The lesson makes real-life connections to the unit book, ‘Where Do I Live?’ by Neil Chesanow.

Fletcher’s SLP is teaching key ideas and details using photos adapted for Fletcher’s cortical visual impairment to support multisensory learning during a language arts unit on farm animals. The photos are presented on a light box and a directional light is used to emphasize the important physical details of the horse.

Working independently is an important skill for older students. During a unit exploring the characteristics and relationships of families, Aidan is participating in independent self-selected reading and enjoying a book about a family using Raz-Kids, an online reading program. He follows along as the book is read aloud on the computer.

Asking and answering questions about details found in literature selections is required in second grade. Using her speech generating device, Abigail asks a question about the book ‘No, David’ by David Shannon.

Students play a highly motivating game of Jeopardy while recalling main ideas from their unit on communities. A toy microphone encourages the students to use their SGDs to speak out loud to the group. Jet is searching for his answer.

Arjun is learning how to use his speech generating device in order to answer a question during the Jeopardy game. The SLP is modeling how he can respond.