One of my students has started to use writing as a primary means of communication. He is also working on using his voice, but his use of writing is developing much faster. We first noticed the potential of his literacy skills a few months ago watching him use the computer. He was copying words from favorite games from memory. We now have small whiteboards all around our school spaces so that he can make requests. Today he started to show his understanding in other ways by drawing pictures of animals and then labelling them. Until today he had shown us no particular understanding or interest in animals.
That is so cool! I have heard about nonverbal children being able to write/type but I have never seen it in my classroom. That is so interesting to me. Was the student a reader and how did you know that he was reading? And how did he learn to spell? I feel like so much of the preliteracy and early reading skills focus on a student being verbal. I am a bit stumped on how to access this in my nonverbal students.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Allison
Miss Allison's Class
We weren't quite sure that he was reading until he started writing for us. I think his writing was based on a visual memory of full words. After he started writing, we did a lot of letter recognition work with him. It was clear that he did not yet have a solid understanding of sound-letter correspondence or letter names. As we worked, he started to develop these letter skills. He was also a great artist and was able to copy quite complex drawings from memory from his favorite video games.
ReplyDeleteTowards the end of the year right before story time, he started to run away so I got his writing board out for him. I was very surprised by what he wrote "I want Captain Underpants please". So I left the rest of the class with the aides for a bit and the student and I went to the classroom next door to borrow a copy. For the rest of the year, he pulled out the Captain U book every time and I would read a chapter.