low tech AAC in the classroom

I am so excited about the AAC supports that we are starting in the pre-k classroom at my school! Our pre-k classroom is set up so that half of the students are children with disabilities and the other half is teacher's children that are typically developing. Several students in the classroom are just beginning to talk and others have been using PECs for requesting. 

I went to an AAC training at Region 13 that focused on implementing low tech boards into classrooms. I think it is a great way to model and facilitate language for kids with communication needs even if they are using a different AAC system or no system at all. I also think its a wonderful pre-cursor to moving to a more expensive device! It gives you lots of good data on how a child can use a low tech system before making the leap to a high tech system. I made huge poster size AAC boards to hang in the pre-k "circle time" area. The posters correlate with the low tech communication books I made a couple of weeks ago and described in this post low tech AAC folders. 

I have been leading a whole group lesson that incorporates a different core word each week. I use the Tobii Dynavox Compass resource books in these lessons. If you don't have these, download them! Go to this site and create a free login dynavox resources. Dynavox offers free lesson plans that target different core words. Each core word has 3-4 simple books that can be printed or downloaded as ibooks for incorporating core words into literacy and the classroom. 

How awesome is it that core word are also kindergarten site words. These lessons are great for all the children in the classroom. They create print awareness and increase knowledge of site words even before kindergarten! When I am teaching the group lesson, the students with disabilities each have a low tech AAC folder book of their own that correlates to the poster AAC boards. I pair those students with instructional aides who help facilitate the student touching the words we are discussing and cueing them to say the word if they are able. 

After reading the book and highlighting the core word. I call each student up individually and they have the opportunity to make a sentence with the core word or just point to the core word on the poster depending on their abilities. It's been so awesome and I have seen growth in ALL of our little learners after just a few weeks of implementing this into the classroom!

We also placed core word boards that match the boards in the communication books onto the work tables in the classroom. The kids have been so curious about them, pointing and asking about different pictures and words. It provides lots of opportunities for modeling from the teachers and instructional assistances to reinforce the core words while eating snack, making crafts, and playing games at the table. Love it! 

Finally, we put core word boards with related boards in some of the different centers. We put the food boards in the kitchen centers, describing board with some actions by the sand table, etc. I am hoping that our kids that are typically developing can learn to be great models while playing and pointing to the words/pictures for our children with disabilities. 

I can't wait to see how our kids grow using this new system! Ill keep you updated on how it goes :)