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Reading
By Michelle

I work with students with severe and profound disabilties, but I have also worked with students iwth mild to moderate impairments. I also like Project Read for students who are ready for phonics. My criteria for being ready
is that they have basic language skills and they understand the concept of reading (i.e., the marks on the page communicate something). For lower students who are not able to learn a rule and generalize it to other words, I prefer DISTAR or Reading Mastery from SRA. I supplement this by reading good literature and doing lots of comprehension and language development with that. If

I am not sure if a child is ready, I let him try. If we have to, we can drop back to sight words, but often they will surprise you with what they can do.

If they don't understand what reading is or if their language is too impaired for phonics, I usually start off with a sight word approach. Teaching Reading to Children With Down's Syndrome is a good beginning program for any congnitively disabled child. It is put out by Woodbine Press and can be purchased at Barnes and Noble for about $20. I'm going to be implementing Failure Free Reading for the first time this year. I'm excited. I think it is going to work well. Their website is www.failurefreereading.com

For your non-verbal kids, you may have to drop back to interpreting pictorial symbols if they are very low cognitively. The Mayer-Johnson Materials are excellent. I love their Hands-On Reading program. Circle Time Stories is also good for the little ones. Check with your speech therapist to see if your district has the materials. For more information on using picture symbols, check out www.dotolearn.com. There is also a good site for picture literacy. I'll find it and post it later.

You will also spend a lot of time on just developing oral language. Your speech person will be a good resource. I read a lot of patterned books and emergent reader books with my kids. After enough repetition, my one talker can verbally supply some of the important words and my non-talkers can supply nouns by pointing to illustrations or picture communication symbols.

As for math, you will probably find that you make most of your materials using simple hands-on objects. It will really depend on what skills are on their IEPs. Mayer Johnson has a math program for nonreading/nonspeaking students. I also like Math Their Way.

I also do a lot of "application" activites. For example, we might read and follow directions to prepare a recipe that requires measuring and counting. The same thing can be used for steps for an arts/crafts project, a science experiment, or other hands-on projects. We also enjoy making books about things we have learned. This is a great way to allow for expression for kids who are not writers.

One thing I am doing this year is focusing on money skills in a daily functional application. Each student will have 2 jobs everyday (1 in class and 1 breakfast/lunch job). They will earn a quarter for each job completed correctly (with hand-over-hand assistance as needed). They can earn additional quarters for extra jobs or outstanding performance.

These quarters will be kept in their "banks". The banks are made from plastic bowls with lids. I cut a slot in the top of the lid. For the OI kids I made them a little larger; for the VI kids I outlined them in a contrasting color. I chose some pop off lids and some screw on lids based on the motor skills I wanted to reinforce.

At the end of the day, we have snack. The students will select a snack card from the menu. The "price" is written on the card and their are dots for the correct number of quarters. Depending on their ability, they will match quarter to dots or count quarters to purchase items. Once we get quarters down, we'll add in pennies and then nickles. I'm using real coins because of my kids' vision, motor, and cognitive needs. Your guys might be able to handle play coins. I am also thinking about "fining" my two highest kids when they misbehave. (The others wouldn't have a clue of what that meant.)

Sorry this is so long. I'd love to swap ideas through the year if your interested.