Tools For Reading

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ynez Peterson on July 27, 2011 at 12:43pm

Tumble books is a great website for animated books.  I work with students with severe and profound motor impairments and/or intellectual disabilities.  If you set the books to manual with "sound on" the student can use a switch to advance the page.  The next button will flash when the animation and reading have stopped.  I like this feature for all students actually.  Having to activate the button to "turn the page" is more like a true book reading experience than the watching a movie experience you get with the auto mode.  It forces you to attend to the screen to know when to turn the page.

The school version has 5 question quizzes on many of the stories.  I have used these quizzes as documentation that my students have been oriented to the internet and interent safety.  The students who get 80% or better get to use their own email accounts.  All other students send emails from their teacher's account or send letters to family.   All of our students are supervised when on the internet.  As switch users they need help to access the internet.

 

You can look at my school's portal: http://guest.portaportal.com/reachprogram

I have a list of a variety of websites that provide animated books there. Some are free to access, others are fee-based. 

You can also look at my website: www.ynezpeterson.com

I did a presentation last year on adapting books for students with disabilities.  Check that out for different resources to help students improve reading.  I gear my info for teachers and their students who are switch users but these resources can help any child.  I did notice recently that some of the links are no longer working.  Sorry about that.

 

Back to tumble books, in my program we use this tool for independent reading as well as group reading activities (one student "reads" the book to the class).  This works well if the student is skilled at switch use and we will have this activity during personal care time.   Personal care time tends to keep the teaching staff occupied and we don't want our students just sitting doing nothing.  Book reading is a great activity for teaching switch use to the cognitively young.

Many of their stories can be attached to the themes we use in our curriuclum.  They have non-fiction books as well.  I am looking at the graphic novels they have just added, but those books seem long.  Many of my students do not have long attention spans and the Tumblebook library books are usually under 10 minutes.  You can get length of the story and reading level documentation on each book.  that's good for matching books to student age, etc.  During independent study time we let  the student pick any book at any reading level they (the student) choose.

 

In October, my students and I will be hosting a Reading Challenge.  Many of my students will be using animated story books as their reading material.  If you work with students and would like them to participate, please email me at reachreading@secep.net  All participants willl receive a certificate of participation after the challenge is over.

 

Hope this helps to give you some ideas on how to use animated story books.

Permalink Reply by Jessica Wargo on July 27, 2011 at 8:13pm

Thank you so much for the resources and information! It is funny that you mention switched because we recently got to experience them in my class and kind of play with them and see what they are all about. I would have never thought of connecting a switch with the tumble books. I can see where this would keep them engaged and feel more involved when being able to "flip the page". Thanks again!