Jane Farrall Consulting - Page 14 - Literacy, AAC & Assistive Technology

Symbol Supported Text: Does it really help?

Jul 13, 201315 Comments

The introduction above has been written in symbols. Did you find it easy to read? Did you struggle to read it? Is the version below easier? When I first started working as a speech language pathologist, nearly 25 years ago, we were all using symbol supported text to help our struggling readers and writers. We

Literacy Lab: a great tool for quality literacy instruction

Jun 18, 20135 Comments

Please note: this resource has been discontinued. Literacy Lab is a fabulous piece of software for use as part of balanced literacy instruction from Mayer Johnson. The software is aimed at emergent readers and writers, providing a range of simple, easy to use highly motivating activities. I have been using it for a few weeks

Zybox for iOS - updated and upgraded!

Jun 8, 20131 Comment

Please note: this product has been discontinued The Zybox for iOS is a switch interface from Zygo that uses VoiceOver to control the iOS and any VoiceOver compatible apps on your iPad or iPhone. I reviewed it earlier this year and posted a blog about it on the 31st of March. However, the Zybox has

Predictable Chart Writing: Group Writing for All

Jun 6, 201315 Comments

Recently I have been talking a lot to teachers about doing group writing in their classroom. As teachers implement a balanced literacy program in their classrooms, it is important that writing happens daily - and that writing happens for real reasons. Writing is one of the most complex tasks that we ask students to do.

Literacy and AAC Presentations from AGOSCI 2013

May 4, 20136 Comments

Yesterday I was very lucky to present three papers around the topic of literacy instruction for students with complex communication needs (CCN) at the 2013 AGOSCI Conference. The first presentation was with the awesome Dr Sally Clendon. Sally and I both do similar consulting roles - although Sally is based in Auckland, New Zealand. We

Connect2Educate: AAC and iPads in the Classroom

May 2, 20132 Comments

Today I presented with Fiona Barron from Malkara Specialist School at the AGOSCI 2013 Biennial Conference. Last year Fiona had a whole class of students who used iPads with Proloquo2Go as their high technology communication device - and the presentation today was shared the journey in her classroom with the delegates at the conference. The

Apps for AAC: Adding iPads to your AAC Toolkit

May 1, 20136 Comments

Today I am delighted and honoured to be presenting a pre-conference workshop at the 2013 AGOSCI Conference in Sydney with Janelle Sampson from Two Way Street and Kelly Moore from the Independent Living Centre in Western Australia. Below are links to the presentation resources. Part 1: Display content from SlideShare Click here to display content

Favourites and Collections - Creating bookshelves in Tar Heel Reader

Apr 16, 20133 Comments

This is my third blog post about the new look Tar Heel Reader. I am finding these new features so useful - and I hope you are too. In this post I'm going to focus on Favourites and Collections - both of which are great ways to store and share groups of books in Tar

Zybox for iOS - another VoiceOver switch interface option for the iPad

Mar 31, 201312 Comments

The Zybox for iOS is a new switch interface from Zygo that uses VoiceOver to control the iOS and VoiceOver compatible apps on your iPad or iPhone. The most significant advantage of this adapter is that it is the first one I have tried that plugs directly into the port on the iPad. This will

Using Tar Heel Reader in app mode on your iPad

Mar 17, 20138 Comments

This is my second post in a short while about Tar Heel Reader - but I just wanted to take a look at some of the great new (and old) features while Tar Heel Reader's new look is still fresh! The second of these features is full screen or app mode - which is a