Literacy development is essential to future success. Improving literacy skills in your child can help them get ahead and can lead to success in math, science, history, career development, health and many other areas. For some students, literacy success might look different and may consist of more life-skills such as sign or number recognition. In other students, they may be preparing to enter college or the workforce and will need to read at an eighth grade level at least. Read on for some recommendations on improving literacy skills at all levels.

Life-skills literacy is defined as the ability to recognize and read important signs and numbers that will increase and promote safety or functional living. This includes reading a subway map, reading a picture recipe, recognizing bathroom signs, reading a grocery store price, recognizing important words and much more. Some resources for parents to use include:

For students who are just beginning their reading journey or are working on sound, letter or word recognition, reading with them is extremely beneficial. When reading with them, choose books that have 

 or words that can be easily decodable (sounded out). You can read part of the page and then point to a word or two for them to read. When they are able to read full sentences, you can read one page and they can read the next page.

When listening to your child read, periodically ask them these three questions:

Doing this will ensure that your child is not relying on you to tell them if they’ve made a mistake. By asking these questions when they have read the sentence correctly as well as when they have made a mistake will help them learn to self-correct. Self-correction is when a child is reading and realizes on their own that they’ve made a mistake, and they go back to reread the sentence in order to correct themselves.

Once your student is able to decode basic words (usually past a 3rd grade reading level) and has a firm grasp on their sight words, they start to transition from learning how to read to reading to learn information. At this point, comprehension of what they’re reading becomes the most important task. When this occurs, the best way to improve performance is to provide frequent and varied access to books. Having your own library at home is great, but it’s not necessary. The public library has an abundance of resources for you and your student to enjoy. Library cards are free and most libraries do not have a limit on the number of books you can check out at once. Additionally, larger libraries have online access where you can download ebooks right to your phone, tablet or kindle. This is a huge time saver, especially if you have an avid reader at home. Also remember, no one is too old to read with their family members! Kids of 

 ages enjoy being read aloud to and they also enjoy reading aloud to their family members. Encourage family reading nights where you all read together and then talk about what you’re reading.

 has a great comprehensive website of resources for parents!

Improving Reading at Home

This fall many of us are diving into virtual learning. While some schools are planning for in person instruction, I imagine that at some point virtual learning will be a need for all schools. Below I have included what I found to be the most important aspects of teaching virtually to our students that generally require the most hands-on instruction, including tools for teaching daily living skills. 

While I find these to be successful for my students, I fully understand that all of our students are different and I know that most of my students are more independent than many others in moderate to severe settings or on a modified curriculum in general. 

Parental involvement is the key to successful remote learning. For students with moderate to severe needs, parents tend to be more involved because, well, they have to be. Now every parent needs to be involved. Right now, parents are at home with their children and can be easier to reach, but that also means they are busier than ever. One of the best things we can do as teachers is to provide helpful and meaningful communication to families, including tips on the best ways to support their children during remote learning.

Just like our students, parents will need to be familiar with the technology platforms, forms of communication and the academic expectations of their children. Create screencasts so that parents and students can watch you explain the directions multiple times. Provide parents with the necessary information so they can log in and check weekly assignments, usernames and passwords, and any class messages.

Having parent video conferences to touch base and coordinate for certain life-skills activities is extremely beneficial. Check in with families for: scheduling the number and timing of Zoom calls and connections, the resources that students have at home, pros and cons of their virtual learning experiences in the spring, opportunities for parent or family support for life skills activities (ie: cooking in the kitchen, cleaning, going for walks or exercising). I did this using Zoom calls and one-on-one parent emails and phone calls. 

Strong communication and opportunities for involvement will be the key foundation for continuing to teach and support our students with the highest needs. The lift of teaching families how to get access to the materials makes the long-term access for students so much more effective. 

As moderate to severe special education teachers, we know the immense value and importance of visual supports. Visual supports are used in our everyday lives, from the new 6-feet distance markings in the parks and grocery stores to the picture directions for furniture building. Google Classroom, in my opinion, is not super user friendly for higher need students. Instead of using Classroom as a resource dump for students, creating a Google Site that is very intentionally outlined is a great way to create a strong visual that they can easily navigate through. My school uses G-Suite, so Google Sites is the easiest option for me, but there are others. 

 is a reviewed list of the options, if needed.

 that kids can see that reminds them of how and where school will take place, and why. Here are some other scenarios that I have included social story visuals for on the website: 

During our school day we spend a lot of time teaching life skills. With virtual learning, the weekly cafe, community based instruction field trips, volunteering, and so on are not possible.  Instead of dropping this teaching completely, take those wonderful Boardmaker visuals - or whichever style you use - and update the site daily (or every few days) with a new life skills visual for them to follow at home. Examples I have included on our Google Site are: 

One of the greatest ways to teach students (again, and again) is to use a video model. Many emails and posts are being shared about all the great virtual tours, rides, and museums to use with kids, but that does not mean students can access it independently. Using Zoom to record a meeting to share directions and have students follow along with your screen is 

 easy. There are several other ways to do this as well, including Google Meets, Quicktime, and likely several others that I am not yet aware of.  Using a site to share video modeling for life skills tasks is another way to create access for students to learning and practicing at home what teachers would normally support with at school. 

Keeping as many Schedules & Routines as Possible

Schedules and routines are an important part of a student’s day, especially when students have Autism or other learning disabilities that make their world more confusing and chaotic. Without the regular routine of going TO school, we try to make their school day at home as similar to their schedule at school. Here are a few things that I have kept consistent throughout virtual learning: 

An evidence-based practice that usually falls off my radar at school is 

. Students can have Adaptive PE and walking breaks, but daily exercise is not generally a part of our schedule at school. Take this time to dive into the plethora of online platforms and videos geared towards kids. I update my site with a daily one, but you know your kids best!

This year, given that we have a bit more planning and structure, I have also reached out to our administrators and staff to coordinate some 

peer-mediated instruction and intervention

. Many schools have ‘buddy’ programs for their high needs special day classes. With virtual learning those programs, and many general education push in classes, have fallen to the wayside. Peer intervention is an evidence-based practice, and giving our students these neurotypical peers as models and supports is something that can be continued in virtual classrooms -- it just takes logistical coordination. Plus, exposure and interaction with our kids with differences is great for the general education population, too! 

In my classroom, reverse mainstreaming will include general education students (no more than 3 at a time) joining our afternoon group activities that focus on social and life skills building: Zoom calls for cooking, games, show & tell, science experiments, virtual field trips, and more. 

Shifting ‘Coffee Carts’ and More to Virtual Opportunities

Brainstorming how my students can shift their life skills activity in their weekly cafe has been a creative task for me. Here are a few things I have come up with that might be good for your classroom setting: 

As distance/online/virtual learning continues during this weird, chaotic, at-home time, I am sure that we special education teachers will continue to rise to the occasion and use our creative minds to reach our students. We always do, no matter the obstacles; we are superheros in that way! 

If you have any other ideas, suggestions, or questions, please do not hesitate to comment below or reach out to us! It would be great to hear about all the amazing things happening. 

CollaboratED Blog

remote learning

Improving Reading at Home

Remote Learning Series - Teaching Moderate to Severe Special Education