Alphabet Books Galore!

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It’s Book Week here in Australia – with the wonderful theme of “Books Light Up Our World”.  In honour of Book Week I thought I’d write about alphabet books. Alphabet books come in all sizes and types and for all ages. They can be fiction and non-fiction, based on photographs or illustrations, customised or generic.

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Teaching the Use of Inner Voice in Reading

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Reading silently WITH comprehension is the goal of all reading instruction. Every literacy learner and every literacy teacher is aiming towards this goal. Many students go through a process at school where they learn first to read “out loud” and then move to using their inner voice.  But for students with complex communication needs (CCN),

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Shared Reading: Focus on Interaction

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Shared reading is a collaborative learning activity that emulates and builds on the bedtime book experiences that many children and parents have together. The focus during shared reading is on the interaction. Shared reading is appropriate for any emergent reader, no matter their age and can be done individually or in small groups. Focus on

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Leading to Literacy

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I was very privileged to be invited to do a plenary presentation at the Queensland Association of Special Education Leaders‘ annual conference.   Below is the presentation I gave on “Leading to Literacy” where I got to talk about the fabulous Willans Hill School and the four years of our journey implementing balanced literacy instruction

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Working with Letters, Sounds and Words in our Classrooms

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Working with letters, sounds and words are important components of literacy instruction in our classrooms. Emergent students need explicit and incidental instruction around the alphabet and sounds, to improve their alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness.  Conventional students need to learn how words work. Below is a checklist I use with teachers in working through the

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Self-Selected Reading in Our Classrooms

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Self-selected reading is often seen as the easiest literacy block.  However, to develop a student’s love of reading requires careful resource curation and an awareness of their interests and preferences.  Below is a checklist I use with teachers in working through the self-selected reading block in their classroom. The two main guiding rules are: It

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AAC and Literacy in Partnership to Develop Language

Today I was lucky enough to present at the AGOSCI 2015 National Conference with the amazing Helen Tainsh on using literacy and AAC intervention to develop language. Helen works in both early intervention at the Cerebral Palsy Education Centre and in private practice, where she supports a number of students in mainstream schools.  Currently, I’m

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Self-Selected Reading: Books for Every Reader

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The AGOSCI Conference continued today.  My first presentation for the day was with the fabulous Sally Clendon on the topic of Self-Selected Reading.  As promised, the handout for the presentation is shared here. Display content from SlideShare Click here to display content from SlideShare. Learn more in SlideShare’s privacy policy. Please enable JavaScript in your

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Keedogo & Keedogo Plus: Custom Keyboards for the iPad

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Recently Apple released iOS8 – and once again there were a number of accessibility features added with this update. For a round up of accessibility changes and additions check out the excellent summary from AbleNet – iOS8 Accessibility. One of the new features is the ability for developers to create their own onscreen keyboards for

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