Second Myth: Students With Autism Cant Learn With Conventional Curricula For Reading So We Have To Make Our Own
Please understand that I have a great appreciation for how hard teachers work to create materials for their students, to individualize curricula for the students and to adapt materials. However that is not creating a curriculum. A curriculum is a scope and sequence. It tells you what to teach and in what order. You can read more about it in this post. Sometimes it gives you the materials to teach it, like PCI, but many times it doesnt. Creating materials to teach reading, unless you are developing a true scope and sequence and testing it out in real research, is not creating what we are required to use to teach all students how to read: a scientifically based reading curriculum.
However, teacher-made and supplemental materials are useful and often critical for giving the students additional practice, but they arent the curriculum themselves. For instance, I love using the Edmark Functional Word Series for older students . Students need more practice on these words, though, in a variety of situations to be able to use them functionally in their environment. So, I make task cards and file folders for them to practice the words.
Free And Fun Elementary Reading Websites For Kids
Heidi Reina, M.S., Ed, is an educational technology integrator and teacher, reviewing free educational websites and apps.
Discover 10 teacher-recommended websites with free games, interactive activities, videos, and read-along stories to help your child practice reading.
After Reading: Focus On The Process
As part of your post-reading discussion, talk with your student about how their predictions evolved as they read. When students first start to practice predicting, they havent had much time to build up their observational and critical thinking skills. Thinking about your own thinking is a very advanced cognitive process!
Again, its really important to avoid framing this part of teaching predicting as were your predictions right or wrong? Instead, focus on how their predictions changed and evolved as they read. Point out any surprises or twists in the story, and how it can actually be really fun to have a story go in a different direction than you predicted.
Read Also: Which Shots Are Linked To Autism
Connect With Other Online Students
We recognize the importance of social interaction for our students with special needs to improve their communication skills, which is why eAchieve coordinates volunteer events for our online students to meet and form lasting friendships with other online students at eAchieve.
Though students with special needs may find it difficult to interact with their peers in conventional ways, we provide students the opportunity to develop those skills in a safe environment with peers who have similar learning disabilities.
First Myth: All Students With Autism Should Have Primarily A Sight Word Curriculum
Now the first clear problem is that all or never trap. Nothing in autism is always or never, or all or none. Yes many students do respond well to learning sight words. However that does not and SHOULD NOT keep us from introducing phonics to them. Phonics is a door opener for all children. Failing to do everything in our power to teach this approach will significantly impact the childs progress in school. This doesnt mean that some students will be more successful with sight words, it just means we shouldnt assume thats the case if they dont make progress on the classroom curriculum.
Recommended Reading: How To Manage Autism Meltdowns
Online School Can Be Ideal For Students With Aspergers
Although Asperger syndrome is no longer an official diagnosis, the term is still widely used to describe children who are generally on par with their peers in terms of developing spoken language, but who struggle to communicate in social situations.
Fewer distractions
A students difficulties associated with Aspergers can increase with age, as expectations around social behavior become higher. Because children with Asperger syndrome typically have average or above-average intelligence, issues caused by social pressures or distractions in a traditional school environment can keep them from reaching their academic potential.
A high percentage of children with Aspergers also have sensory challenges, like being overly sensitive to sounds, light or smells. Online learning lets students choose and create their own learning environment to better manage sensory overload.
Incomparable accommodations
While teachers in many brick-and-mortar schools are able and willing to make accommodations for students with Aspergers or high functioning autism, a traditional classroom setting still has many limitations and drawbacks. Virtual learning gives students and their families the freedom to access high-quality accredited courses however and whenever suits them.
Affordable and accessible
Avaz Lite Aac App For Autism
iOS rating: 5Categories: Speech
Avaz Lite is an AAC a free speech app. It provides assistance for children with autism who struggle in interacting with others. It can create Picture Exchange Communication System book, that will create a PDF file in the app and can be printed and stored in a binder. This app can help your child increase communication skills and keep track of your childs progress.
Read Also: Does Being On The Spectrum Mean Your Autistic
Asd Readings Unique Instruction Methods
All children can use the program-even those who are non-verbal.
Uses graphics, audio and animation to reinforce meaning.
Links written and spoken language so that one reinforces the other.
Provides customized instruction that adapts to each child.
Systematically assesses a child’s skills and overcomes errors.
Cognitive Language And Reading Programs At Home
- Are you looking for homeschool autism help, but concerned you are not qualified to manage it at home?
- Have you heard about Fast ForWord, but its only available at a clinic?
Gemm Learning provides Fast ForWord at home with remote monitoring and coaching. Its an affordable homeschool program for autistic children that trains cognitive and reading skills, in self-paced exercises that you can manage at home without formal training.
Fast ForWord relies on brain plasticity, the brains ability to change if exercised appropriately. Fast ForWord strengthens the processing weaknesses associated with autism.
Read Also: Is There A Symbol For Autism
The Best Autism Apps For Ipad Iphone & Android
iOS rating: 4.8Categories: Social Skills, Speech
Proloquo2Go can provide assistance to nonverbal children with autism. It features natural-sounding voice and speech which can be generated by simply tapping buttons with symbols or typing the word. Most individuals report improvements in communication, behavior and general well-being.
Give Very Clear Instructions
All children get the best chance at success if they understand exactly what they need to do. For many children with ASD, having one step of verbal instruction at a time helps them to prioritize new information.
All instructions in Reading Eggs are given in a succinct, explicit way to help children understand the activities. It breaks the task into short, manageable chunks. The clear instructions can be heard as many times as needed before beginning each activity in every lesson. Many activities repeat across lessons and this helps children become familiar with what they need to do, so that they can focus on learning new skills.
Read Also: Amber Necklace For Adhd
Mastery Of Knowledge And Skills
Demonstrate proficiency and deeper understanding: show mastery in a body of knowledge and skills within each discipline
Apply their learning: transfer knowledge and skills to novel, meaningful tasks
Think critically: analyze, evaluate, and synthesize complex ideas and consider multiple perspectives
Communicate clearly: write, speak, and present ideas effectively in a variety of media within and across disciplines
Ensure that curriculum, instruction, and assessments are rigorous, meaningful, and aligned with standards
Use assessment practices that position students as leaders of their own learning
Use meaningful data for both teachers and students to track progress toward learning goals
Engage all students in daily lessons that require critical thinking about complex, worthy ideas, texts, and problems
Reward Your Childs Progress
It is important to make the lessons mastery-based and to include a visual way for your child to mark her progress, such as a chart where she can paste stars for each lesson learned.
And dont forget to use words of encouragement every step of the way. Simple encouragement like Good job! or You did great! or Excellent! goes a long way toward building confidence and self-esteem in children, motivating them to keep learning.
Read Also: What Will Happen If Autism Is Not Treated
Zooming In On The Reading Foundation Skills Block
In the EL Education K2 Reading Foundations Skills Block , students engage in a curriculum steeped in the science of reading that strengthens their orthographic mapping skills through multisensory techniques, such as movement and music. Orthographic mapping may sound obscure, but its at the heart of developing literacy. Its the essential process of mapping phonemes with graphemes , and bonding those to memory.
With all their senses engaged, students who have traditionally struggled with reading disabilities can still develop the pathways for mastering those essential skills. And all students are empowered to find joy in reading and develop habits of character through goal-setting and reflection. See it come to life in an EL Education classroom:
Predictions Throughout The Day
Encourage your student to make predictions about various parts of their day, but dont stop there. Help your child verbalize why they are making a specific prediction. Heres an example:
Teacher/Parent: What do you think youre going to do after school today?
Child: Have a snack, go to soccer practice, and do my homework.
Teacher/Parent: What makes you think youre going to go to soccer practice?
Child: Its Tuesday and I have practice on Tuesday and Thursday.
Teacher/Parent: You dont think it will be cancelled?
Child: No, it only gets cancelled if its raining, and its hot and sunny today.
Teacher/Parent: Great job using your weekly schedule and your weather observations to make that prediction!
Recommended Reading: Is There Medicine For Autism
How To Get Nessy Reading And Spelling
You can sign up for Nessy Reading and Spelling on their website, and you can use the coupon code BLOG17 to get 15% off! You can also follow along with Nessy Learning on , , , and , or you can download their free ebook called Dyslexia Explained. I would highly recommend trying Nessy Reading and Spelling with your kids to add a bit of fun to your homeschool, especially if theyre struggling with dyslexia or other reading struggles.
If you loved this post, you might also enjoy..
About Kaylene
Teaching Reading With A Screen
For A-Man to learn to read, we needed to integrate reading into his favorite activity And his favorite activity right now? Anything with a screen. TV shows, tablet games, computer games and videos, whatever. Thankfully with Nessy Reading and Spelling, everything is done online in a games and puzzles format that lets A-Man practice his reading skills without even realizing hes doing school.
Read Also: What Severe Autism Can Look Like
Draw Whats On Your Mind
Starting off small when visualizing is a great way to help students with autism build their visualization skills. This drawing activity is great for students who could doodle for hours, but dont enjoy writing.
- Give your student a simple noun with no description, for example a flower. Then ask them to picture the flower and say, Draw whats in your mind.
- Add descriptive details to help students practice more complex visualizing. For example, you could say, Im thinking of a crazy sunflower thats as tall as a tree and has purple leaves. Then ask them to picture it and say, Draw whats in your mind.
- You can work up to reading descriptions of settings, characters, and events from books out loud and have students draw what theyre visualizing.
- You can take breaks during reading to make quick drawings of whats going on in their mind. This is a great way to encourage visualizing to self-check for comprehension while reading!
Sequencing Strategies For Teaching Kids With Autism Reading Comprehension
Sequencing is the ability to arrange events into a beginning, middle, and end when it comes to comprehending a text. Readers who can do this have stronger comprehension of a text than readers who cannot. Whether fiction or nonfiction, most books are narratives, so understanding a sequence is important. Sequencing is part of a group of skills known as executive function. It is also a processing skill. Sequencing becomes important across all subjects in school .
Here is how you can explicitly teach a student with Autism reading comprehension sequencing skills:
You May Like: How Does Someone Get Autism
Third Myth: There Is No Scientifically Based Curriculum For Students With Autism
Curricula arent determined, in most instances, to be scientifically based for a diagnosis that is not specific to the reading problems that a student demonstrates. They are evaluated for how they fit the characteristics of the individual reader. Even though students have an autism diagnosis, that does not mean they all have the same difficulties with reading.
I have graduate students I teach tell me that they dont have specialized curricula for their students so they use website-based curricula. That is ok if you have vetted the online curriculum to see if it is scientifically based. Some, like Headsprout from Learning A-Z has a ton of research to support it. But much of what you find out on the Internet is an attempt to make money but not necessarily an evidence-based practice. Its not that internet-based or teacher-made tools arent usefulthey are vital. But you have to check to see how they fit with the scope and sequence of what you need to teach.
Read And Follow Instructions
A huge reason teaching sequencing to students with autism matters is that it is how we get value out of informational and instructional texts. Pick a high-interest activity for your student and either find or create instructions to follow. Depending on your students reading abilities, you can use words or pictures for the instructions. Here are some ideas:
- Baking cookies, making a fruit salad, or doing anything that involves following a recipe
- Building a small Lego set using the pictorial instructions
- Performing a science experiment
- Playing tag, hide and seek, or any game your student really enjoys
Read Also: How To Get An Autism Diagnosis For Adults
Read Together With Your Child
As your kids get older, they can join in as you read to themor they can even read to you. Simple books like those by Dr. Seuss help new readers build confidence while learning about concepts like letter sounds and rhymes. By sharing books together, you’ll help your child develop a love of reading, which is crucial for helping them become better readers.
Storybooks are wonderful to read together, but you can also read instructive books. Another classic guide is Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox, and Elaine Bruner. This easy-to-follow book includes stories and lessons for kids to complete, along with advice for parents on how to present the lessons.
Make It Functional And Focus On Comprehension
After all that, remember that reading is only useful if it can be used and if there is comprehension. Many of our students learn to word call where they can read and say all the words, but they dont know what they mean. Again, the SLP can help with this. Many students will need additional practice on comprehension and there are many teacher-made tools out there that can be used to practice the skill. If you are looking for materials to support reading curriculum, drop me a comment or an email and Ill send you some resources.
Don’t Miss: Happy Autism Awareness Month
Why We Love All About Reading
We love All About Reading because the lessons are attainable for A-Man.
Were doing the pre-reading program, and its moving at a slow enough pace that hes grasping the concepts.
Hes got a really good grasp on his letters, and were taking the rhyming word practice slowly as he learns to pair words and listen to the ending sound.
I also love that its simple for me to do.
The cards for each lesson go into a box and are divided by lesson, so I have everything at my fingertips and ready to go.
A-Man is also getting much better at coloring with the practice.
He loves that each letter is paired with an animal, and hes really enjoyed listening to the stories included in the book that go with each letter.
Thats huge, because A-Man typically hates being read to.
How Can We Best Teach Reading To Students With Autism
I was reading a discussion in a forum online recently in which a parent or teacher asked for advice about teaching reading to her child or student with autism. The forum was primarily made up of educators. I am always interested in ideas to teach our students how to read, so I was interested to see what was being said. It actually brought some things to light about peoples preconceptions and myths about teaching reading to students on the spectrum.
Now let me preface by saying that am definitely NOT a reading expert. I wish I was but it just never happened. However there are a lot of things I have learned about reading instruction and students on the spectrum that contradicted many of the things that were being mentioned.
If you have some knowledge to share on the subject PLEASE DO!! I would love for folks to share what they know and resources they use in their own classrooms that are scientifically based. In the meantime, I wanted to share some ideas to think about in making decisions about reading instruction for students on the spectrum.
You May Like: How To Tell If A Kid Is Autistic
Dino Tim Full Version: Basic Math For Kids
Android rating: 4.5Categories: Math Skills, Educational
Description: This app is for children at an early age. It can help them learn geometric shapes, vowels and consonants. The app can provide great excitement by solving puzzle games and learning basic math skills. It also allows users to change language and help children learn foreign languages at an early age. This is a great tool to improve the knowledge of the young minds with the help of a cute dinosaur named Tim.