Teaching the Alphabet – With Variety

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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

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Online Course: Introduction to Comprehensive Literacy Instruction v2 now available!

I am delighted to announce that the updated version of the Introduction to Comprehensive Literacy Instruction course is now available! The course is now available for registration at https://janefarrallconsulting.thinkific.com/courses/introduction-to-comprehensive-literacy-instruction-version-2 To get more information about the course you can download the flyer below. An additional flyer around the site licences is also available below. If you

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Communication Access for ALL Students – RICAA 2023

Communication Access means that “everyone can get their message across, no matter how they communicate.”  (SCOPE, Australia) In 1948 the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights recognised communication as a fundamental right and freedom for all of us.  Communication Access is an important follow-on from this declaration.  By aiming for communication accessibility, we recognise that

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AAC: Creating Systems for Individual Success. RICAA Conference 2023

In May, I was honoured to present the opening Keynote address at Rencontres Internationales des Communications Alternatives et Améliorées (RICAA) in Toulouse. I wanted to start by saying a huge thank-you to the conference organisers for inviting me! Merci beaucoup!! The focus for my presentation was communication autonomy – and the importance of using the

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The Problems with Hand-Over-Hand v2.0

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Hand-over-hand as a teaching strategy is increasingly being defined as restrictive practice. However, I still find that many people working in this area use hand-over-hand as a teaching strategy without being aware of the problems around it – or the fact that there are other, more effective, teaching strategies. In 2021, I published an Infographic

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Writing with All Tools Continuum v1.1

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Summer is here – and the schools in all our Australian states are either on their summer break or about to finish the school year. For me, this means I get a little more time to go through notes and pull together all the comments and feedback people have given me. And, some time to

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Flip Charts – An important Emergent Writing Tool

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A long time ago, I learned about flip charts for emergent writers, thanks to Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver. Writing flip charts were first developed by Gretchen Hanser and staff at the Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies Flip charts as a writing tool appealed to me for a lot of reasons.  Firstly, because I

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