Emerging Reading & Writing Supports
for Students with Disabilities
Welcome Teachers & Parents of Emerging Readers!
The free books and resources shared on this site have been created for teachers & parents to use with emerging readers with significant disabilities of all ages. You are welcome to make copies of the books & resources and edit to meet the needs of your emerging readers.
So who are "emerging readers?"
When we talk about "emerging readers," we're not talking about readers who are a certain age or with a specific list of prerequisite skills that say "Ah, now you are ready to be a reader & writer!"
ANY child, ANY teen, ANY adult can be an "emergent reader." There are no requirement, no abilities a person must possess before they can enjoy reading! So if you are working with a child, a teen, or an adult who is not yet independently reading, we can assume they are an emergent reader.
When we think about emergent reading, we focus on these key concepts:
emergent readers don't have to have a prerequisite set of literacy skills to have access to reading materials.
to engage in literacy-rich environments, emergent readers must have consistent access to all forms of literacy (in other words, people with significant disabilities should have access to explore and use reading & writing materials that match their accessibility needs
emergent readers and writers need active and interactive engagement with the world and reading and writing materials
emergent readers and writers must have frequent, accessible, flexible, and varied opportunities to access print that is motivating to their interests (Erickson & Kopperhaver, 2020).
NOTE: You are welcome to make copies of these books and use in your classroom. You are also welcome to share these books with others. Please do not sell these books on other sites or post them on other sites without referencing back to this site.
Letter a Day Instructional Routine
To set up your own classroom or home routine, click on this link for the directions to each step in teaching alphabet awareness for your emerging reader(s). Below is a short video on how you can use the Letter a Day Instructional Routine.
Template Book
If you'd like to make your own book from scratch, you can use this template book. When you click on this link, it will prompt you to "make a copy" that you can download or save to your own Google Drive. Below, there are 3 short tutorial videos on how you can use this template.
Emergent Literacy Library- Exploring the Alphabet
Each alphabet book follows the steps in Erickson & Koppenhaver's "Explicit Alphabet Knowledge Instructional Routine" (p. 39).
Evidence-based Explicit Instruction Practice:
The resources below were developed based on evidence-based literacy practices found in Comprehensive Literacy for All, including the Embedded Alphabet Instructional Routine for emerging readers (Erickson & Koppenhaver, 2020).
Alphabet books in ABC order
📚Books can be viewed and downloaded in a Google Slides, PDF, and PPT format.
As you create your own books, I'd love to share them out on this site for other teachers and families to use, so if you would like to "pay it forward," please share your books with me at emergingreaderresources@gmail.com
Note: Please don't take these books and sell them on other sites, as they were created to support emerging readers and not as a money-making opportunity. The images within each of these books are from free images sites such as https://unsplash.com/ and https://pixabay.com/ and https://www.pexels.com/ and https://www.flickr.com/
NEW!
The alphabet books are uploaded to view on Book Creator! Click on this link to go to the Book Creator bookshelf for the traditional version and click on this link to view the CVI book library (under construction - books being added this spring).