Shared Reading - Are You Reading to Your Special Education Kids?

     There is a good body of research and literature that indicates the importance of shared reading with students/children.  One of the best resources for information is the Center for Literacy & Disabilities Studies at UNC- Chapel Hill (http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds).  
     There are some key points to remember about shared reading; including using it with beginning readers, thinking out loud while you read, not necessarily requiring students to answer questions during reading, and using it to build a love of books and different types of literature.     When I work with students with complex communication needs, I plan to read the same book for the week (5 days), with a different language based purpose each day.  Karen Erickson talks about building a love of books, as setting purposes like knowing when to turn the page, following the words on the page, pointing out a part the student likes or doesn’t like.  In addition to exposing kids to reading of a variety of fun books, I’m usually looking to build language skills like categorizing, describing, comparing, sequencing, retelling.

     Head over to kidzlearnlanguage blog to get the free shared reading handout.