Visual Schedules

Do you use visual schedules in your classroom?
I must admit, when I first began teaching I found teaching visual schedules to my students a very daunting task. Then, my mentor demonstrated teaching one of my students how to use his picture schedule by making it into a game. Ever since then, I've been hooked! I have found that some students, especially those who demonstrate behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorders, truly benefit from having access to a personal visual schedule. Knowing what comes next seems to reduce anxiety in students, and helps communicate your expectations using visuals as opposed to strictly verbal prompts. Depending on the individual needs of particular students, I create picture, photo or object schedules for them to use. Some students do well with more detail and task analysis than others, so instead of simply having a SNACK symbol on their schedule, they might have a sink (for washing hands), lunchbox, and clean-up symbols. I have also seen task analysis pictures positioned perpendicularly to the vertical schedule.

Visit my Pinterest board for more ideas.

Right now the majority of the visual schedules used in my room are attached to a classroom divider board:

Left to right: object schedule, two picture (Boardmaker symbol) schedules, and photo schedule.

This year I had one student who became fixated on his visual schedule and insisted on moving the pictures around while constantly reciting all of activities in sequence. It became a real issue, so instead of a schedule which he could manipulate, I created one which ONLY teacher could carry and touch. However, in this case it was much more than a schedule, it also became a data and reinforcement system. It was meant to address this student's behavior needs, so each of the picture also has expectations listed next to it. If student does 3 out of 4 things which are expected during each activity, he gets a penny on his penny board. When he earns 5 pennies, he gets whatever he is working for which can be a preferred activity, small snack, or sticker. I have found that this system has worked like magic for this particular child! His behavior improved dramatically and while initially I needed to constantly remind him of the expectations and review them after each activity, after about a month and a half, he began to do what was expected on his own.

Writing Centers

Each session of preschool (AM and PM) in my district are two and a half hours long, which makes it difficult for literacy instruction to take place on daily basis. However, during one of the district literacy training sessions with Vicki Rothstein this year a Four Blocks Approach to literacy was discussed and, despite having heard of it in the past, I was suddenly inspired to create literacy centers in my classroom incorporating all of the "blocks".

My centers include: Reading to self or Quiet Reading, Writing Center, Read with Teacher (I often use adapted book or activities with students at this center), and Phonemic Awareness activities including beginning sounds games, rhyming, syllable counting practice, etc. (on the rug). I taught my students to check which center they are assigned to by looking at this visual board:

Student names are written on clothing pins and their photos are attached with Velcro. AM session student names are on one side of the pin and PM session names are on the other.

Writing Center has a miniature word wall, unit related writing prompts or ideas, step-by-step directions (some of my students absolutely adore these!), and a little drawer box with labeled writing supplies.

I got the idea of organizing the centers visually from Developing Literacy in Preschool (Tools for Teaching Literacy) by Lesley Mandel Morrow. 

Have you found good strategies to teach literacy to ECE students? Please share!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears Unit

February has been so much fun! We are focusing on Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. Our district requires that we collect AEPS data on all our students at least once per year and has recently adopted the AEPSi (online scoring and data system). So I try to incorporate some of the key skills from the test into my monthly units. Goldilocks unit seemed like the perfect way to practice sequencing and especially WH- questions with the kids. I have been using the WH- question book to help my students practice answering questions.http://youtu.be/aTWY5TZuBnI

 

I got the template from Boardmakershare.com, here is a video of a teacher using the book:

Here are a couple of other activities I created for this unit:

Tracing pages

Goldilocks and the Three Bears color book
(Parent volunteers underline color words using color pencils)
I try to make a couple of little sight word readers like this for every unit. Students learn various skills with the help of these including word-to-word correspondence, sight words, reading left to right, and many more. In addition, it helps students who are learning to communicate  practice using more words in every utterance.

WORD WALLS! I create one for every unit that I teach. Below is the small version of the Goldilocks unit word wall which is meant for the writing center. Word wall has many uses in my classroom. We usually go over the vocabulary words at the beginning of the unit and often go back to review. We also sort the words by beginning sounds and number of syllables.

My new blog

Hello everyone,

I am an Early Childhood Special Education teacher at a preschool in Issaquah, Washington. I have been teaching for two years now and I love my job! My mentor recently suggested that I start blogging in order to share and exchange ideas about teaching young children with special needs. I am looking forward to connecting with other professionals in my field! :-)