Introduce the vocabulary and concepts in a variety of activities over an extended period of time to provide practice and reinforcement needed for comprehension.

Choose stories relating to classroom themes, which generally last longer than one week and which allow for repetition of vocabulary across curriculum areas.

Relate the events of the story to experiences in the child's own life to facilitate comprehension.

Children with limited motor ability may have limited experiences and may need explicit teaching of concepts, and "bringing the world to them".

Repeated reading increases familiarity and fosters confidence.

Provide a copy of the story to take home to read with parents.

Facilitate comprehension and expression (responding to questions, commenting, etc.) for children who are unable to speak.

Embed symbols in the book that are laminated and are attached with velcro. They can be used for a variety of activities as well as aiding in the story reading.

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Download symbols for stories that can be used either with the hard copy book or with adapted books that you create:

Goodnight Moon (Boardmaker File Downloads)
GNMoonPulloffsym1
GNMoonPulloffsym2
GNMoonPulloffsym3
GNMoonPulloffsym4

Hungry Caterpillar (Boardmaker File Downloads)
HCpulloff1
HCpulloff2

Where's Spot? (Boardmaker File Downloads)
WheresSpotPulloffsym1
WheresSpotPulloffsym2
WheresSpotPulloffsym3

Choose stories with repeated lines.

Use a single message device to support the participation of children who cannot speak in reading the repeated line.

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Provide the child with ways to physically engage in part of the story telling to increase attention and motivation.

Provide props, either objects and/or 2D pictures that accompany the story or that become part of the story

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Download props for stories that can be used   either with the hard copy book or with adapted books that you create:

Brown Bear (Boardmaker File Downloads)
propsBrownBear1
propsBrownBear2
propsBrownBear3

Hungry Caterpillar (Boardmaker File Downloads)
HCProps1
HCProps2
HCProps3

Where's Spot? (Boardmaker File Download)
WheresSpotProps

Use books that decrease visual, physical, and linguistic demands.

• Few words per page
• Large bold print
• Uncluttered pictures

Attention can be drawn to various parts of the page by using simple technology. Draw attention to either the picture or the text of a repeated line by placing a membrane switch at the back of the book, under that part of the page.

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Choose books that have print embedded in the picture.

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Animation can draw attention to the graphics and facilitate comprehension. Highlighting of the text reinforces the storyline, draws attention to the text, and reinforces the top to bottom/left to right progression of text.

Authoring programs such as Classroom Suite provide simple animation tools. The graphics and/or text can be animated. Classroom Suite also provides highlighting of text as it is read using synthesized speech.

Download a sample story: FatPig (Classroom Suite File Download)

Encourage children to help turn pages, to help point out the words, etc.

Books may need to be adapted so that children who lack fine motor skill can turn pages independently.

Place pages on card stock to increase page thickness and facilitate page turning

Use page separators to facilitate page turning

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Use electronic story books for children who cannot turn pages of a hard copy book. Pages can be turned by using a mouse to click on buttons within a toolbar. Pages can be adapted so that a switch can be used to turn the page. The first page of "Fat Pig" is switch accessible.

Download sample electronic story: FatPig (Classroom Suite File Download)

Ensure that students have access to the story with all adaptations during independent reading so that they can mimic the reading behaviors modeled during read aloud.

Leave all of these materials in an accessible place so that children can choose to read during free time.

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