Jane Farrall Consulting – Literacy, AAC & Assistive Technology

The Importance of Keyboarding

Sep 15, 20241 Comment

A few weeks ago I was talking with a teacher – and she told me that she had a student whose parents didn’t want them to use a keyboard, which puzzled me. Keyboarding is a very important skill for all of us to develop. It is how we do a large part of our writing

Goodbye Tar Heel Reader….. and hello Monarch Reader

Sep 4, 20246 Comments

Today was a day with a sad ending – for me and many others. It also has a new beginning – but I will get to that later on…. The sad ending that happened today is that Tar Heel Reader, an incredible resource for many of us who work with beginning readers of all ages,

Using the Simple View of Reading for Guiding Comprehensive Literacy Instruction with Literacy Learners with Significant Disabilities

Sep 1, 2024

This is a long blog post – if you would rather read it offline or have a copy of it, you can download it as a PDF below. Literacy and Individuals with Significant Disabilities Evidence is clear that children with intellectual and developmental disability can gain meaningful literacy skills with explicit instruction (Allor et al.,

Tools for Writing 2024 Style: A suggestion and selection guide

Jun 22, 20241 Comment

Learning to write can be really challenging – and teaching it can be really challenging too! When I started implementing Comprehensive Literacy Instruction, it was the area that I struggled most to implement. Some of the students I was working with weren’t able to hold a traditional pen or pencil – and some of them

Developmental Writing Instruction Version 2: Online Training now available

Jan 28, 2024

I’m very excited to let you know that the online training Developmental Writing Instruction v2: Writing Assessment, Development, Teaching & Learning is now available. Version 2.0 of the course uses the Writing with All Tools Continuum as a framework to support writing assessment – and also a framework for intervention helping us to teach

Writing with All Tools Continuum v1.2

Jan 15, 2024

I’m very happy to let you all know that version 1.2 of the Writing with All Tools continuum is now available. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback and suggestions for the continuum – please keep them coming!! The main changes for v1.2 are: The following documents have been updated for V1.2: The updated documents are

PODD communication books in Mind Express 5

Jan 6, 20245 Comments

Like many people working with individuals who cannot rely on speech alone to be heard and understood, I regularly make PODD books and other more complex low tech AAC resources. In May this year, I was involved in running an AAC camp in France. For this camp Helen Tainsh, Mathilde Mella and myself produced a

Moving Towards a More Inclusive Model of Reading: the Active View of Reading

Dec 2, 20239 Comments

There are many different models of reading in English. Each of these has been developed in an attempt to explain the very complex skill of reading. Earlier this year I was introduced to a model of reading that I am very excited about – The Active View of Reading – and that I want to

Developmental Writing Instruction Version 2: Writing Assessment, Development, Teaching & Learning

Nov 18, 2023

As usual, a large part of my time this year has been spent focusing on writing – assessment and instruction. As part of this, I have been spending time updating my online writing course – and I’m delighted to let you know that on December 20th I’ll be launching Developmental Writing Instruction v2: Writing Assessment,

Teaching the Alphabet – With Variety

Nov 2, 20233 Comments

Many of us work with students who are just starting on their journey of learning the alphabet – or who are at different stages in learning the alphabet. Erickson and Koppenhaver (2019) identified 10 success factors that are important to be included in literacy instruction with students with significant disabilities. Number 3 on this list