1 of 19

and Interactive Reading, AAC users and Building our Schema
�
Presented by: Sharon Redmon, MS, ATP

2 of 19

Interactive reading and shared reading experiences are more meaningful when students are able to rely on the schema/background knowledge, and can access the vocabulary to make meaning and participate in comprehension activities. All students need background knowledge to become successful readers. Students with Complex Communication Needs (CCN) are no different.

Vocabulary, AAC and using descriptive teaching techniques and The Expanding Expression Tool™

Anchor activities, connected text like books from Readtopia, CROWD in the CAR during interactive and shared reading activities

Engaging YouTube videos and audio files

Today we will be exploring together…

3 of 19

Everyone can learn to Read and Write!
Presuming competence/potential with everything and everyone!
Attribute meaning/print has meaning
Modeling! Aided Language Stimulation
Modeling writing! Model, Model, Model! (Icons, letter/spelling, punctuation)
Providing access to words for reading and writing (Icons & Letters)
Providing meaningful and connected text
Accepting all communication attempts (celebrate, provide meaning, and teach)

Shared language …

4 of 19

The upper strands include:

Background knowledge

Vocabulary

Language structures

Verbal reasoning

Literacy knowledge

The lower strands include:

Phonological awareness

Decoding�

Alphabetic principle

Letter-sound correspondences

Sight recognition

Science of Reading (SoR) & Scarborough’s Reading Rope

5 of 19

Struggle with Comprehension and Vocabulary
What is Vocabulary?

Receptive language
taught in isolation

“Increase Vocabulary is required for Increased Comprehension to connected text”.pg 102
Increase Vocabulary we increase Schema
What is Schema?

Background knowledge
Experiences with books, places, people, activities all build our Schema
Schema brings connections to text = Comprehension

Chapter 7: Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Instruction

6 of 19

Motivation and Engagement

The HOW in building our Students Schema

Vocabulary
Connected Text
Anchor Activities

So that we can have active participation in...

Interactive Reading activities

CROWD in the CAR

Shared Reading Activities
Cloze Reading activities
STEAM activities

7 of 19

Tarheel Shared Reading Modules CROWD in the CAR

Follow the C.A.R.

Lead with a COMMENT

Stop and wait 5+ seconds

Ask a QUESTION

Stop and wait 5+ seconds

RESPOND by adding more

Put the CROWD in the CAR

Completion- leave a blank at the end of a sentence, students fill it in, typically used in books with repetitive phrases, rhyme
Recall- questions about what just happened
Open- Ended- questions that do not have a specific answer, “Tell me what’s happening in this picture.”
Wh-Questions- typically focus on pictures, “What does that man have?”
Distance- Questions that build a bridge between the book and personal experience, “There were farm animals in the book. What farm animals did you see at the farm?”

Jane Farrell, Handout on Emergent Literacy

8 of 19

Descriptive Teaching

Gail Van Tatenhove

Vocabulary Building

What is Descriptive Teaching?
AAC user use the words they have.
Icon location

Expanding Expression Tool (EET)

Vocabulary Building

What is the EET tool?
Visual Support for building vocabulary

When we started Shared reading and Interactive reading with CAR my AAC users just looked at me, I realized that they needed more. We were not there yet so we started building our background knowledge using these tools. Finding our words on our devices and modeling Modeling modeling.

Before we start with the fun stuff, just a few notes on what we have tools that we will be seeing that help us build our schema, background knowledge, vocabulary

EET

Multi sensory approach, visual supports that guides uses to increase Oral Expression

Written Expression

Vocabulary Comprehension

Defining & Describing

Making Associations

Stating Functions of Objects

Categorization

Similarities & Differences

Descriptive Teaching Techniques “Using a descriptive style, the teacher mentions and references the context-specific words, then teaches concepts behind the words using high frequency, re-usable, common words” (Van Tatenhove 2009)
Kate Ahern describes this nicely
http://teachinglearnerswithmultipleneeds.blogspot.com/2015/09/descriptive-teaching-model-dtm.html
the students answer in a single word with a very specific fringe word, "peninsula". This doesn't work well for our AAC users. So instead we can ask questions they can answer using the words that they have,

So let’s get into the fun part…The students engaged in meaningful activities with vocabulary building with connect text

9 of 19

Connected Text + The S (cience) in STEAM + Videos and AAC

Motivation & Schema

10 of 19

Need words to use words! Eye gaze & Text-to-Speech

Model, Model,

Model!

11 of 19

Anchor Activities + STEAM + EET = Connections Made

Video

12 of 19

Making Meaning

Describing Throne
Yes! Birthday, special like a throne!

13 of 19

Courage

14 of 19

15 of 19

Icon Sequence

Adding what the word sounds like

What does the word starts with.

Adding more with EET and descriptive teaching technique!

16 of 19

17 of 19

Model, Model, Model,

Even to a scarecrow!

18 of 19

Thank you!

19 of 19

Resources

Scarborough's Reading Rope and SoR or Reading

Center for Literacy and Disability Studies

The Expanding Expression Tool™

Kate Ahern Teaching learners with Multiple Needs- Descriptive Teaching

Readtopia™

Youtube™

Tarheel Readers Tarheel Shared Reade Tarheel game Play

Shared Reading: Putting the Crowd in the Car

Tareheel Shared Reader Modules

Unscreen Removes video backgrounds

Remove.bg Removes background from pictures