Inclusive+Reading+Stratagies

Heidi Slone 4/13/09 EDSP 579 Boosting Literacy Skills in Visual Learners Paula Kluth suggests several creative strategies to help students with and without special needs in accessing the content of a story. These projects are hands on and do it yourself. Many of them could even be created by the students who need to use them. Highlighted in this article were three types of visual supports that promote literacy in visual learners. Books in which pictures are as important as the words on a page are commonly used in early elementary classroom but they are also great tools for students in middle and high school. You can use visual aids such as maps, graphs, charts, and pictures. You could use these to supplement the text, as an introduction, or as part of the whole book. You can also make a companion book that runs heavily towards visual aids to use with some or all of the students in your class. A story kit is a collection of items that are meaningful to the story you are reading. These items should be physical and help the students remember or relate to things and characters in the story. If you were reading //Little Red Riding Hood//, you might put things like plastic food items, red fabric, a toy wolf, some eye glasses, and leaves into a basket. The students can use these items for discussion before and after reading the story. They could also come up with their own story kits. For students who struggle with writing drawing something that represents an idea, word, or phrase may be a viable approach to note taking. You could instruct your students to try and come up with a visual representation of things like vocabulary words or a series of pictures that represent the action in a story. It can be as simple as a doodle in the margin of more standard notes or graphs and charts to help illustrate the topic. Kluth, Paula. (2006), //Toward more inclusive classrooms and communities//. Retrieved on 4/13/2009, from: www.paulakluth.com
 * Picture Books **
 * Story Kits **
 * Visual Notes **
 * *The author pointed out that all of these strategies would work well in an inclusive classroom. **