Shared Reading - This is a “how to” for shared reading. Shared reading is about the interaction and meaning making that occurs when a child/student and adult look at or read a book together. Shared reading would benefit any emergent reader, regardless of their age, or current ability.

Tar Heel Reader - Tar Heel Reader is a web based collection of free, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a wide range of topics. Each book can be speech enabled and accessed using multiple interfaces.

Tar Heel Shared Reader is a variant of Tar Heel Reader that emphasizes shared reading. Core words are built into the program, you can specify which core words you are targeting while reading the book so that those appear in a strip below each page. Sample phrases and sentences to model using the target core words are also provided in the comments area, which can be customized to highlight the particular words your learners are focusing on.

Literacy for All  offers information, research-based instructional approaches, and effective instructional and learning strategies to better meet the literacy and communication needs of students with significant disabilities, including students with:

• moderate to severe cognitive disabilities

• complex communication needs

• multiple disabilities including deaf/blindness and/or physical access challenges

Alternative “pencils” were created for students who are unable to hold a traditional pencil or physically manipulate a standard keyboard. Alternative pencils can be used with writers of varying abilities and ages including students who are emerging writers and those who are able to write more conventionally.

Teaching Strategies and Accessible Technologies for Emergent Readers and Writers with Complex Communication Needs

Shared Reading

"The focus is on interaction and meaning making. Teachers read with the students not to students.

The goal is for the student to lead the interactions during shared reading."

Karen Erickson & David Koppenhaver

Project Core Online Module for Shared Reading

Independent Reading

"Self-selected reading is important for children with disabilities because it builds fluency and a love for reading.

During this time, teachers do not require children to read and respond, but rather set up environments where children want to read and respond."

Karen Erickson & David Koppenhaver

Project Core Online Module for Independent Reading

Shared Writing (Predictable Chart Writing)

"...early writing can be a challenging and frequently overlooked activity for students with significant disabilities including complex communication and physical needs. Beginning with emergent literacy development, writing plays a central role in supporting typical children's understandings about print."

Hanser, 2009

Project Core Online Module for Predictable Chart Writing

 Independent Writing

"All students must have access to the full alphabet to make progress in learning to read and write."

Caroline Musselwhite

"Students can start exploring and experimenting with alternate pencils BEFORE they know letter names or sounds, and well before they have control of the choice making required to choose specific letters..."

The Center for Literacy and Disability Students

Project Core Online Module for Independent Writing