As a result of the COVID school closures, Joey’s school district sent home summer learning packets for every student. Every kindergartener in the whole district received the same packet of kindergarten practice work to keep their skills fresh over the summer. While I watched my own daughter do this packet one morning I realized that it would not be hard for Joey to work on this same packet – as long as someone was there to physically adapt it for him.
Measuring Reading Comprehension
Ever since Joey started kindergarten I’ve struggled with the idea of how to assess his reading ability. Although I can encourage him to use his device to match the words on the page, thi
s is laborious and time consuming for him. It certainly does not promote reading fluency or the phonemic process needed to decode unfamiliar words. But, if Joey isn’t read aloud, how do we know he’s reading?
When we read leveled books I try to take turns reading words with Joey. As we read I’ll point under each word and talk about how my voice or the word on the device matches the word on the page. I’ll pause at words Joey can quickly read on his device, or at words that I want Joey to learn to read on his device so that he has an opportunity to read the word as we go. I have each word from the sentence laminated on a piece of paper with velcro so that Joey can build the sentence himself when given the words. This requires him to attend to the different letters in each word and put them in sequential order – holding each word in his head as we place it in a meaningful spot in a sentence.
Exploring Chapter Books
After spending four months with my own rising first grader I feel even more acutely aware of what rising first graders are into – and need to remember to bring age appropriate materials to Joey. My daughter loves the Princess in Black and the Mercy Watson books – both are series of simple chapter books with bright pictures on each page. They are the perfect bridge to reading chapter books – supporting the young listener (or reader) with entertaining and action-filled pages along with the illustrations.
So, in my quest of always offering Joey age-appropriate materials, I brought a Mercy Watson book to his house.
The Day You Begin: Another great book for all types of diversity
In my virtual Friday read aloud group that Joey participates in I read the book “The Day You Begin” by Jacqueline Woodson. It’s a beautiful book – in both the poetry of the words as well as the pictures. As an adult, I’d read it to myself when it arrived from Amazon and thought “This is perfect.” Of course, reading it silently to your adult self in your head is very different than reading it aloud to a group of energetic kindergarten and first graders on a hot June afternoon. Sometimes beauty gets lost in those moments.
And yet – Joey surprised me. He appeared attentive and alert throughout the story. Of course, it is always hard to tell over zoom, but over the last few months I’ve become more adept at reading the body language of bored children through the computer screen.
Don’t forget to include all your learners in your important read-alouds
One of my favorite books to encourage children to discuss discrimination and racism is The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson. Although I cannot meet with Joey in person yet, I found myself re-reading it with a view from how I would integrate it into my AAC work with Joey. It’s important for us to remember to share the same books and messages that we are reading and discussing with our typically developing students. The inability to engage in an oral conversation around an important topic does not mean we should shy away from it. Instead, we need to look into other ways to engage with all students.
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