Chris' Early Grades-Language and Cognitive Difficulties Classroom:

Integrating Boardmaker and Kid Pix into an Emergent Literacy Program

Chris taught a class of 12 young primary school students. All had language processing delays and cognitive disabilities, and four had autistic tendencies. Chris emphasized literacy throughout the day, following the Balanced Early Literacy Program, which was a school-wide initiative. She frequently relied on several activities to build her students’ ability to learn, e.g., using "Brain Gym" exercises, learning through song, working on listening skills, and creating a respectful learning community. Chris decided to explore, with help from the STAR Tech team, how she could integrate assistive technologies into her literacy program.

At the start of the 2001-02 school year, Chris started her exploration by focusing on the needs of a nonverbal student, Christian. His parents reported that he spoke Spanish at home like the rest of the family. The paraprofessional reported that he had communicated in both English and Spanish the year before. However, this year he would not talk. Chris noted that Christian appeared to comprehend what was said to him in class, enthusiastically participated in classroom activities, communicated mostly through movement, had limited writing ability, and drew very well.

As a first step, Chris decided to make a communication wallet for Christian using Boardmaker, a software program by Mayer-Johnson that has numerous symbols for communication board/overlay creation. By pointing to the symbols contained within his wallet, Christian could communicate with his teacher and classmates.

With help from the STAR Tech staff as part of STAR Tech’s 1:1 Assistance, Chris learned how to create labels using the symbols contained in the Boardmaker library. In addition to creating the communication wallet, she followed the recommendations in the Balanced Early Literacy Program by placing symbols throughout the room next to the corresponding objects. Chris noted that the Boardmaker symbols not only helped her nonverbal student communicate better, but they also helped many of her students begin to make stronger word/symbol connections.

Gradually, Chris found other ways to integrate Boardmaker into her emergent literacy curriculum. She began using the Boardmaker symbols as visual enhancements for the writing prompts she gave to all of her students. For example, on the writing center wall Chris displayed the prompt, "Which would you want to be: A Bird or A Fish?" She used the symbols for bird and fish to help students understand the prompt better. She also used Boardmaker symbols to write out the recipe when the class made gingerbread men.

Wanting to go further, Chris asked our staff for help in creating symbols for objects and events that were not included in the Boardmaker library. We showed Chris how to scan images, save them to the hard drive, and open them in ClarisWorks. Once the images were opened in a ClarisWorks painting document, Chris added color to them and attached them to an appropriate word. She displayed these symbols around the room.

Building on these successes, Chris later requested help in learning to use PixWriter, a word processing program that uses graphics to give struggling and emergent writers visual and auditory support/feedback as they compose. As the words appear on the screen, a corresponding picture pops up above the word. It also speaks the words out loud. Teachers can also create "set-ups" for students by typing words on the keyboard. As the teacher types, an array of buttons with the words and symbols is created at the bottom of the screen. This allows students to create stories simply by selecting the buttons. Chris felt her students were ready to begin creating stories using this software. In fact, using PixWriter, one of her students wrote about Martin Luther King, Jr. and typed "I like Martin Luther King birthday." Up to this point, the student had only drawn pictures but never composed written text.

To continue exploring ways to use pictures to support student writing, Chris asked for help with using a digital camera. She took pictures of her students at the various learning centers throughout the day and imported the images into Microsoft Word. Then she worked with her students to write a story about their day. Chris compiled all of the stories into a book. The aide read the book aloud to the students during shared reading time. Over time, with each new technology tool, Chris became more aware of the value of using technology to help her students develop language fluency and skills.

Home · About STAR Tech · Leadership · Using Technology · Resources · Help