• Find Alphabet Books on Tar Heel Reader. A wealth of free accessible alphabet books can be found on Tar Heel Reader (www.tarheelreader.org). Among the thousands of easy- to-read books are hundreds of alphabet books that are ap- propriate for older learners (e.g., Fashion A-Z, Sports ABCs) as well as alphabet books related to the content areas (e.g., ABCs of African American History, Places A-Z). In the Tar Heel Reader Settings, the page color and text color can be changed to a black background with a choice of neon text colors. Another big bonus is that you can download your favorite Tarheel Reader books into PowerPoint. See image 7 below.
tremely effective way to link what students know to some- thing new.
Mini Example: Ale is making a PowerPoint personal alphabet book with his favorite people and things. The adults present choices of things they know he likes. Ale has Phase II CVI. He uses two single message devices to say “yes that one,” and “no, not that.” Only the target letter is highlighted to engage his vi- sion. Reading the words is not the goal. The PowerPoint anima- tion is highly controlled so that one item at a time moves onto the screen. Each page has a digital recording. The book is switch accessible so that he can control the speed through the book when he wants. He has the choice of looking and/or listening when he wants. Because he chose the pictures, they are things he is very familiar with; visual novelty is not so much of an is- sue. The images have been simplified using the “Remove Back- ground” feature in PowerPoint. See both Images 5 and 6 below.
Image 5: Ale loves farts!
Image 7: Tip of the Month: Alphabet Books December, 2014 www.aacintervention.com
• Present Books Auditorily Only. Books – including alphabet books – are a great option when a learner needs a ‘visual break.’ See Howery & Barros (2020), for further discussion of using visual breaks to re-charge a learners’ visual battery. • Present Books in Switch-Operated Format. Some learn- ers will not be able to physically turn pages in a paper book and may need to use a switch to turn pages in digital
Image 6: Ale’s favorite book is the Paperbag Princess
10
www.closingthegap.com/membership | August / September, 2020 Closing The Gap © 2020 Closing The Gap, Inc. All rights reserved.
BACK TO CONTENTS
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator