I shared last week how I am implementing the recommendations of Drs. Erickson and Koppnhaver’s book, Comprehensive Literacy for All, Teaching Students with Significant Disabilities to Read and Write. I structure our learning in five areas: alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness, shared reading, shared writing, independent reading, and independent writing. I try to connect these experiences to a piece of children’s literature, our book of the week, as much as possible. Here is a peek into some of the literacy moments we had this week based on the book, The Valentine Bears by Eve Bunting.

Shared Reading/Reading Comprehension:
We read the book each morning, and since Valentine’s Day was this week, we add it into our bedtime reading as well.

In the story, Mrs. Bear sets her alarm clock to wake up and celebrate Valentine’s Day with Mr. Bear. Back in the summer, she wrote poems and cards, collected bugs, and set aside a jar of honey for this special day. We wrote a list of how we were preparing for Valentine’s Day and then read the book paying attention to how Mrs. Bear prepared for Valentine’s Day.

Mrs. Bear comments that she would like Valentine’s Day to be in the summer. We made a list of holidays by seasons, using some pictures to help.

Alphabet Knowledge and Phonological Awareness:
We are in our fourth cycle of Enhanced Alphabet Knowledge Instruction. I like to change some of our activities and resources with each cycle. To add to our review of the letter sound in words, I am using the alphabet picture booklets for each letter that I printed last year from The Measured Mom. I am also using The Measured Mom’s Song and Rhyme books this cycle to find the letter in text and work on rhyming words.

Last fall, I organized many of my alphabet resources into individual letter bags. This makes the recommended pace of a letter a day much easier than keeping all my resources separate and individually alphabetized.

Shared Writing:
We enjoyed a variety of different shared writing projects this week. We wrote a Valentine poem, a predictable chart and book, the above mentioned lists, and an additional list about bears.

In The Valentine Bears, Mrs. Bear writes Valentine poems for Mr. Bear. She uses mimics the classic “Roses are red. Violets are blue…” I wrote Mrs. Bear’s poems out as Nathaniel watched. We talked about the structure.

(Thing) are (color.)
(Thing) are (color.)
(Thing) is (descriptive word.)
And so are you.

After doing this analysis for both of Mrs. Bear’s poems, I wrote a template. I explained to Nathaniel that we were going write a Valentine poem using the same form.  

Nathaniel has been working on describing things in his speech therapy. On Monday morning, he picked up a new occupational tool I found at the teacher’s store last weekend. He said, “big robot hand drill” using his AAC device and then tucked the new tool in his pocket. On Tuesday, when I asked him what thing he wanted to put on the first line of the poem, he ran to get the tool and said “robot hand drill” again and then “red.”

We recently wrote a predictable writing chart and book called “Seeing Blue Things.” We reviewed this book before for ideas of things that are blue. Scissors! I love that our literacy work in making the book became a resource for him this week. Nathaniel supplied pie all his own. Hooray for Nathaniel’s first poem!

Our second shared writing experience this week was our predictable writing chart. I wanted to include the sight words JUMP and YELLOW. “I can not jump on a yellow _____” didn’t seem very creative at first. We went on a hunt for yellow things around the house. After looking in two rooms and finding nothing yellow, Nathaniel gave up. I continued looking and gathered ten yellow things. We returned to the chart and he picked an item for each line. Taking pictures for our book is likely what will be remembered for this week’s predictable chart.

We write the chart on Mondays, and I was so busy finding those yellow things that I didn’t notice our last item - underwear - didn’t fit the sentence stem. “I can not jump on a yellow underwear?” Nope. Not going to work. I added “pair of.” But didn’t like having the extra words. I crossed those off. And the word '‘a.” That was when I realized I had spelled underwear wrong. I talked through all these edits with Nathaniel. I explained that when we write, we change things to make it better. One of the best ways to teach editing is model editing.

A third shared writing experience we had this week was list making. Above I mention the two lists we created in our shared reading. We worked on a third one. In January, as a connection to our book of the week, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, we read about bears for science. He made a list of foods that bears eat. We continued our study of bears this week and read about hibernation. We made a list of things that pertain to bears sleeping.

We’ve enjoyed so many good books about bears. Here are a few titles that were great for shared reading experiences:
A Den Is a Bed for a Bear by Becky Baines
Bear Counts by Karma Wilson
Where Oh Where Is Baby Bear? by Ashley Wolff

Independent Writing:
Mrs. Bear makes a large sign for that Mr. Bear will see as soon as he wakes up. We also made a sign. I wrote out the same message as Mrs. Bear, “It’s nice to share Valentine’s Day with someone you love.” Nathaniel wrote on his message on hearts and added them to the sign. Drs Ericsson and Koppnhaver’s mention that young children will often attribute different meaning each time they “read” their writing aloud. It is important for Rich and I to value what Nathaniel tells his writing says, even if that changes each time he reads it to us.

We continued writing our notes to each other. Nathaniel is consistently writing the word “LOVE” on his cards. I am super happy to see this. It is encouraging to know that his penmanship skills have improved to the point that he is attempting to write letters and words.

Individual Reading:
I could write a whole blog post on my frustration with finding quality beginning readers for Nathaniel. Perhaps another day. Two I can recommend this week are See Me Dig by Paul Meisel and I Like My Bike by AG Ferrari.