This year I was very honoured to be invited to give the keynote presentation at the virtual AAC Conference, AAC in the Cloud.
The topic of my session was shared reading - and my focus was on "Let's Be Interactive".
I had set the topic before COVID-19 had such an impact on our lives - and I was extra grateful to have the opportunity to speak on this topic because I wanted to emphasise the importance of interaction in reading books. I've seen some videos recently which have been focusing on using books with AAC to teach core vocabulary or on vocabulary on an AAC system. While these are important, we also need to ensure that we do a range of activities during shared reading, and we need to be aware that it is often the engaging interactions we have around books that build vocabulary and other skills. Most importantly, we need to always remember that shared book reading shouldn't focus on testing.
One of the many advantages of the AAC in the Cloud conference videos of all presentations are made available free of charge after the conference has finished (and registration for the conference is free ass well). So, you can watch all the presentations from the 2020 conference by going to the conference schedule at https://www.aacconference.com/schedule.html and then clicking on the link to each presentation. Watching presentations through the conference site gives you the option for a certificate of attendance. And, the option of watching presentations later is particularly helpful for those of us in Australia since the conference takes place in the middle of our night!
A couple of days ago, the team from Coughdrop (who host the AAC in the Cloud conference) sent me the link to look at my feedback from the conference session. I was very relieved to see that the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, since it is always tricky to present online with no real time feedback. I had also worried that I was speaking too fast - but only one person mentioned this so that was a relief too!!
Lots of people asked for extra information in the feedback and this blog post is my response to that! But before I move onto the extra information, here's the original information again:
Above is the video of my presentation - and the handout and resources are available through the conference website, or I have put them below.
Extra information as requested
Extra Shared Reading Videos
The most common request was for more examples of shared reading. So here are some videos that I hope are helpful.
Mary-Louise Bertram doing shared reading with PODD, which is mostly at Levels 1 and 2 when inviting participation
The Grove Education Centre is an amazing school in Adelaide, South Australia, that I am lucky enough to work with regularly. South Australian schools only closed for four days this year with Coronavirus - but lots of families chose to keep their students at home. So, the Grove, like lots of other South Australian schools, provided information for families at home. From the Grove this included a number of shared reading videos on their Facebook page - and that gives me an opportunity to share three of their videos.
The first is a shared reading video aimed at the Middle School Students. The featured book is “There’s a big green frog in the toilet” with invitations to participate aimed mostly at Level 1. There are four other videos with this book (one for each day of the week) on their Facebook page. Click here to watch the video.
The second is a shared reading video aimed at the Junior School Students. The featured book is "Where is the Green Sheep? " with invitations to participate aimed mostly at Levels 1 and 2. There are four other videos with this book (one for each day of the week) on their Facebook page. Click here to watch the video.
The third shared reading video is aimed at the Middle School Students. The featured book is "A Dinosaur Ate Dad's Hair" with invitations to participate aimed mostly at Levels 2 and 3. There are four other videos with this book (one for each day of the week) on their Facebook page. Click here to watch the video.
And you can also look at my previous blog posts on shared reading, which also contain video examples:
Books
The next most common request was for the list of books I used. So here goes:
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
- Whose Nose by Jeanette Rowe (unfortunately out of print at the moment)
- Edward the Emu by Sheena Knowles, illustrated by Rod Clements
- How the Birds Got their Colours on Tar Heel Reader
- Airplanes from Reading A to Z (subscription required and 14 day free trial available)
Print Referencing
The only other request was for more information about print referencing. I'm hoping that handout specifically on this area (in the list above) helps with this. The other point I would like to make here is that you can do print referencing with any print - you can build it into anything from a shopping list to a post-it note. You can definitely embed it in Predictable Chart Writing.
And I hope you all enjoy doing lots of shared reading - and let's keep it interactive!
