When we ordered our Save the Date magnets two years ago, the company made a mistake on our order and printed them on the wrong kind of magnet. I complained and they credited our account. I called to see if they wanted me to send them back, but they said not to worry about it. I had 300 Save the Date magnets that we weren't going to use...
I saved them. And saved them. They even survived from the move from TX to NJ! Well, I finally found a use for them. You probably know how important I think that literacy skills are, even for kids with significant disabilities. This year, we are using Reading A-Z for our language arts curriculum. It includes everything from high frequency words, to phonics, to the alphabet, to reading comprehension, sequencing, and cause and effect. There are leveled readers in which the kids progress through. They are all printed from the website and copied. The great thing about this is the kids can take the "readers" home with them and keep them at home to practice. So far, so good. We've progressed through the first list of the high frequency words and we are about to start level "aa" of the leveled readers (the first level).
Each reader has "content words" that you preview with the students before reading the book. This is ever-so-important for my guys, because we are ALWAYS looking to improve and increase language skills, both receptive and expressive. I decided that for each book, I would make flash cards of the content words. We can practice them before we read the book, so that they have an edge on knowing what certain things are in the book. This is also important because I have a classroom full of diverse learners. Two students just moved into the country last year and had never spoken English before. Add that to autism and you've got quite a road ahead of you.
I wanted to make the flash cards so that we could display them and refer back to them. Our whiteboard is magnetic. I thought it would be great to make magnetic flash cards so we can make sentences on the whiteboard, match them with other words on the whiteboard, write the words next to the flash cards, you get the picture.
That's where the Save the Date magnets come in. I cut them up into 12 pieces each. I hot glued a small piece to the back of each flash card. Voila! Magnetic flash cards, without having to buy anything!
Magnets, glue gun, flash cards
I made all 24 sets of flash cards for the next four weeks. My fingers are a little burned from the glue gun (never fails), but I'm sure it will be worth it.
We'll see how the reading goes. I am hoping the kids will progress through the program at the rate I am planning for. The level "aa" books are a Kindergarten level (DRA A-1, Reading Recovery 1). There are 24 stories and I hope to get through them in four weeks. I just ordered a Hooked on Phonics K level kit from eBay. We will be doing this at the same time, hoping that the phonetic approach to reading will set in with at least a few of the kids. Right now, they are using memorization and picture clues. I'll keep you posted on our progress. In four weeks, I am hoping we will move to level "A". They go in alphabetical order once you get to A. Level D is first grade. That would be a great goal to hit sometime after Christmas.
It surprises me how much literacy is ignored for students with severe disabilities. They are capable, it just takes creativity and patience.
For the list of high frequency words, these are the percentages of where we are with the boys right now:
(For list 1 of sight words from the start of the school year until now)
1- 79% to 100%
2- 67% to 91%
3- 46% to 77% (missed the first two weeks of school!)
4- 0% to 37% (still learning English, but making steady progress!)
Literacy is the key to independence in today's world. We can do it!
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