See Me, Hear Me, Touch Me, Read Me: Building a Foundation for Literacy and Learning with Adapted Books and Lit Kits (3 part eWorkshop)
With the right supports, all students can learn. Using the principles of Universal Design for Learning, it is possible to facilitate meaningful participation by altering access, content, and materials as well as providing communication supports and adapting ways to play and explore the world. Learning is more effective when information is presented in a variety of ways. The correlation between language development and literacy has been widely researched, acknowledged, and accepted. Positive language learning experiences result when all have access to adapted books. This series of webshops explores ways to adapt books, and create rich thematic units incorporating literacy and learning. For emergent literacy learners, an interactive literacy kit (Lit Kit) containing a book, an adapted version of the book, along with a combination of toys, games and activities that relate to the book can provide exposure to reading, writing, listening, communication opportunities, fine motor, math, and more. Lit Kits can provide a foundation for active participation and can be scaffolded to meet the needs of all learners. This eWorkshop will equip participants with tools and strategies via a digital resources for providing age-respectful language, literacy, and learning experiences including communication supports and strategies to adapt books and extend the literacy experience through related activities.
The first webshop, See me, Hear me, Touch me, Read me will provide you with an overview of the whys and hows of adapting books. You will find additional information on the subject in Part 2, Let’s Get Started Adapting Books, which focuses on free online resources for composing electronic versions or print-based book adaptations, and Part 3, Expanding Adapted Books into Book Kits which delves into ways of creating book kits that expand upon adapted books using a theme approach. You will find an introduction to adapted books and why you might create them contained in this presentation, and additional resources and examples, as well as in the other two sections.
This webshop was originally created by assistive technology specialists Judith Schoonover, an occupational therapist, and Sally Norton-Darr, a speech-language pathologist, based on the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" as well as a "space" theme. Our rich collection of literacy and thematic resources for parents and educators has grown over the years and changed based on availability of new technologies, and the experiences of the authors. Our strategies and styles have evolved, and we have gone from adapting single books, to creating kits, to theme specific kits, to establishing lending libraries and leading workshops. In this webshop, we have kept the best of the original webshop, but have also provided new information, resources, and examples of a range of adapted books with emphasis on free, inexpensive, and easily found websites and materials. The essential intent remains. Adapting books means everyone can have meaningful literacy experiences.
This webshop, created by assistive technology specialists Judith Schoonover, an occupational therapist, and Sally Norton-Darr, a speech-language pathologist, discusses free, inexpensive, and easily found websites and materials and how they might be used to create digital and hard copy adapted books to meet the needs of all learners. Methods to enhance, scaffold or replace print will be shared, as well as how to take advantage of features of PowerPoint you might not know you have. Take a look at new features offered by TarHeel Reader to customize the reading experience. See how easy it is to create your own teaching resources by combining text, images, audio, and video with BooK Creator. Explore a variety of methods to create meaningful tangible books.
This webshop, created by assistive technology specialists Judith Schoonover, an occupational therapist, and Sally Norton-Darr, a speech-language pathologist delves into ways of creating book kits that expand upon adapted books using a theme approach. Proactively considering learner diversity during the planning process will result in a range of accessible activities to support speaking, listening, reading and writing. File folders and flash cards and picture books, oh my! Resources and examples to get you started are provided throughout the presentation.