Comprehensive Literacy for All: Teaching Students with Significant Disabilities to Read and Write

Literacy improves lives - and with the right instruction and supports, all students can learn to read and write. That's the core belief behind this teacher-friendly handbook - Comprehensive Literacy for All - your practical guide to providing comprehensive, high-quality literacy instruction to students with significant disabilities. Drawing on decades of classroom experience, the authors present their own innovative model for teaching students with a wide range of significant disabilities to read and write print in grades preK–12 and beyond. Foundational teaching principles blend with concrete strategies, step-by-step guidance, and specific activities, making this book a complete blueprint for helping students acquire critical literacy skills they'll use inside and outside the classroom.

An essential resource for educators, speech-language pathologist, and parents - and an ideal text for courses that cover literacy and significant disabilities - this book will help you ensure that all students have the reading and writing skills they need to unlock new opportunities and reach their potential.

Readers will:

• Discover 10 success factors for helping students with significant disabilities become literate
• Teach emergent readers and writers skillfully, with evidence-based strategies for shared and independent reading, early writing instruction, and alphabetic and phonological awareness
• Help students acquire conventional literacy skills, with adaptable strategies for teaching reading comprehension, vocabulary, writing, decoding, and spelling
• Organise and deliver comprehensive literacy instruction in a variety of settings, both inside and outside of school
• Use assistive technology effectively to support reading, writing, and communication
• Engage and motivate students and make literacy instruction meaningful to their everyday lives

Practical materials include: Sample teaching scenarios and dialogues, how-to strategies, and downloadable resources, including sample lessons, a quick-guide to key literacy terms, lesson sequences, and flowcharts to guide instruction.

Table of Contents

About the Downloads

About the Authors

Foreword —David E. Yoder

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Section I Core Understandings

1. All Children Can Learn to Read and Write: A Theoretical Rationale
2. Establishing the Environment for Successful Literacy Learning

Section II Building a Foundation

3. Alphabet Knowledge and Phonological Awareness
4. Emergent Reading
5. Emergent Writing
• Section III Learning to Read and Write
6. Comprehensive Literacy Instruction: A Research-Based Framework
7. Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Instruction
8. Self-Directed Reading: Supporting Motivation and Fluency
9. Writing
10. Decoding, Word Identification, and Spelling
• Section IV Implementation
11. Using Assistive Technology Effectively to Support Literacy
12. Organizing and Delivering Effective Instruction

References

Index