This blog is a collaborative effort between my wife Sara and me.  She does most of the writing.  I do all of the editing, formatting, illustrating (mostly clip art), layout, etc.  Since neither of us had ever blogged or had a website before, it has been a new and rewarding experience.

I am a Special Education Tech in a large Southern California school district where I have worked for several  years, usually assigned in general education classrooms working one-on-one with students on the autism spectrum.  My assignments have included one elementary, two middle, and two high schools and even the school to which  they remove students  for zero-tolerance violations.

I have a degree in journalism, a law degree, and am only a few hours short of being certified as a mild-moderate special education teacher.   So why am I working as a para-educator/classroom aide?

Because I like being able to focus on the students.  Only on the students.  Not grading 150 of yesterday’s five-paragraph essays, or preparing tomorrow’s lessons, and especially not tolerating all that frustrating, annoying administrative stuff that teachers are expected to deal with.  (As an hourly classified employee, I rarely even have to attend staff meetings!)

The role of para-educator

Helping the teachers, of course, is part of our job description but we are not there for the teacher’s benefit (to make copies, or grade homework, or mop the floor, though I’ve done all those things).  We are there only because one or more of the kids in that class has an IEP that says they need extra classroom support.

Don’t be shy about telling the teacher when and why you can’t do something they ask you to do if you truly feel  it intereferes with something one of your students needs from you.

So what is the role of the special education classroom aide in a general education classroom?

To help the child with an IEP become more independent.

When a child no longer needs me, I have succeeded.  When a child continues to depend on me for something other children do without assistance, I have failed.  I have asked in the past not to continue  with a particular student because I thought they had progressed as far as they needed to go with me.

Tip: I rarely sit next to “my” student.  Though I may be in a particular class only because Brandon, or Susie, or Juan is there, I do not want the other kids to know that unless it seems necessary that they know that.  I watch my student from a distance, take notes, move in with advice or assistance and move back out again.  Meanwhile, I’m helping other students all around the classroom.  No student in the classes where I am assigned feels any stigma because I step over and talk to or assist them.  Most of them couldn’t tell you why I’m there.

Children on the autism spectrum can be great to work with as an aide.

I worked with a sixth grader who was fascinated by Alfred Hitchcock (they often have intense interests) and wrote an essay about the filmmaker discussing several of his movies.  An eighth-grade student on the spectrum was a math whiz who read ahead in his algebra book for fun (and also composed on the piano).  A ninth-grader who rarely spoke required almost no help in completing earth science worksheets, finding answers from the textbook.

Yet all of these students, capable as they were in certain areas, had difficulty following even simple plots when reading fiction.  I don’t know that they had hyperlexia, but I would think it highly likely.  Often this particular reading deficit is not specifically identified.

What can you do to help a child who understands the vocabulary but still can’t follow the story?

Well, you can read Sara’s two posts on this blog about Autism and Hyperlexia.   And whether or not your teachers know about or focus on anaphoric cuing, you can use what you learn about it to help any student comprehend narratives, particularly fiction.

Simply put, anaphora are words that refer to other words.  Most of us know almost instinctively who “his” refers to when we read:

“Bob slung the backpack over his shoulder and followed Julio.”

A child with autism will often be unsure who is carrying the backpack.

So first, we have to identify the anaphora that may confuse a child.  These include more than just the obvious pronouns :

• I
• we
• us
• ours
• you
• yours
• he
• his
• she
• hers
• they
• theirs
• them
• it
• its

but also such words as:

• there
• then
• can
• do

When the child encounters these words in reading, we can ask (and teach them to ask themselves)

• Where is “there”?
• When was “then”?
• What is “it”?
• Who is “he”?
• Whose is “theirs”?
• “Can” what?
• “Do” what?

Reading connections that most of us make almost automatically the child with autism may need coaching and repeated practice to learn how to make accurately and regularly.

If you, the para-educator, can help a struggling reader learn this seemingly simple reading strategy, you may just open the door to a lifetime of reading enjoyment.  It is worth the effort.

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PS: I love this slogan “When children can not learn…It’s time to change the way we TEACH” They offer more than 40 products with this alone, and have dozens more autism-related designs.  We make not a dime off this endorsement, by the way.    http://shop.cafepress.com/design/17338377

Our Goal:  Providing help for struggling readers on the autism spectrum.

Related posts:

1. FAQs about anaphoric cuing and reading comprehension
2. Hearing the story in your head: The role of expressive reading
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?

A word to parents and teachers–

Ok, two words:  (1) don’t  (2) stop.

In the world of readers with autism, the worst conversation is the one that goes like this:

Parent:  John is really having a tough time with the reading homework.
Teacher:  Yes, he is far below grade level.
Parent:  He doesn’t really understand what he’s reading.
Teacher: Yes, that’s very common in kids with autism.  They don’t have high reading comprehension.

And then there’s a shrug, or a  change of subject, or just a long silence, the kind that sinks into the already heavy heart of a parent who loves her child with autism; another thing she’s going to have to accept about her child. 

Don’t.  Stop.  And I say that to both parent and teacher.

The scenario above could be the beginning  of a conversation about reading.  It should not ever…ever…ever be the entire conversation about reading. 

Don’t stop the discussion just because you have identified  a problem as being common among kids on the spectrum.  Don’t stop the discussion just because you aren’t sure what to do about the problem. 

Don’t stop.

There are two things that need to take place between parent and teacher at this point. The first is fact finding.  The second is investigating.  They might sound like the same things, but they are not.  I will explain.

(1) Fact finding

Parents and teachers must start collecting and sharing information about the reader with autism.    Relevant information includes:  what kinds of movies does the child seem to like?  T.V. shows?  Music?  Toys?  Stuffed animals?  Places to visit?  Types of humor?  Picture books?  Read-aloud books?  Fairy Tales?  Holidays?  Favorite subject in school?  What’s relevant is anything that interests the child.

Why is this important?    Because we need to know what is pleasurable for the reader, so that we can flood him or her with reading experiences that are pleasing.  This is not rocket science:  when you go to the library or bookstore, you are going to head for the sections and genres that interest you, not ones that bore you to sleep or frustrate you to tears.

It’s also important because if you aren’t already involved in a parent/teacher partnership to support the child, this is an excellent way to start.  And if you are, it’s kind of fun. 

Tip:   If there is a paraprofessional involved in the classroom, include that person in the fact-finding mission.  Richard will be posting entries about the role of classroom and one-on-one aides; suffice it to say, they have their own unique perspective on each child in the classroom, as well as the overall classroom system.  I rely on my classroom partner to keep an eye on the big picture – she often sees things I don’t.  I also count on her to develop her own relationships with each of our students, and she often provides me with terrific insights into situations that I’m trying to  understand.

If the reader with autism likes certain books or topics, consider purchasing a set for the classroom.  And when I say “consider purchasing,” I’m talking to the parent.  Right now, with budget cuts, teachers aren’t being given money to buy new classroom library books.  (You’d probably be shocked at how much most underpaid classroom teachers spend out of their own pockets for books and supplies.)

If we want new books, most of us these days have to buy them ourselves or rely on parents to donate them.  I’m sorry it has to be this way, but it is what it is.  Sometimes, your PTA will give a small grant to a teacher to expand the classroom library, and in that case, the teacher should apply.

 Make a special basket of books for the child in your classroom.  Include non-fiction and fiction, and any topic that you’ve identified as of particular interest to the reader.  If he’s obsessed with dinosaurs, find dino picture books, chapter books, stories, and non-fiction books.  If he likes quirky, goofy characters, amass a quantity of books at all levels that you think will make him smile. 

If she loves math and numbers, find books about numbers and math.  The Sir Cumference books by Cindy Neuschwander and Wayne Geehan are great (http://www.amazon.com/Sir-Cumference-First-Round-Table/dp/1570911525), as are counting books and poems. 

If he’s got bathroom humor, get Everyone Poops  by Taro Gomi (http://www.amazon.ca/Everyone-Poops-Taro-Gomi/dp/192913214X) and Captain Underpants and The Fart Book and make a special basket.

You need to nurture the parent/teacher partnership to continue to touch base about the child’s interests, likes and dislikes.  The more information you have about what a reader will pay attention to, the better.    The fact-finding must be an ongoing thing.

(2) Investigating

It is not enough to simply decide that a child doesn’t comprehend text.  It is never okay to stop with such a general piece of information.  While the fact-finding task in the parent/teacher partnership may be directed by the parent, this next step should be led by the teacher.  If your child’s teacher isn’t willing or able to lead, then it is the job of the parent to lead, or find someone who will.  Don’t let this become an adversarial situation; sometimes we teachers aren’t able to lead because we don’t have enough training or experience.  You can help by assisting in finding a mentor or asking a previous teacher to participate along with the current one.  (You can also contact me.  I’ll email with anyone who subscribes to this blog.)

What needs to be done now is to figure out exactly why the child doesn’t understand what she’s reading.  Identify what comprehension strategies the child isn’t using (and don’t be dismayed if the answer is that she’s not using any.  We just need to know where we are starting from.)  Identify the child’s independent reading level and investigate the fluency of her reading.  Reading fluency has a lot to do with comprehension, it turns out:  good readers “hear” the text in their heads, and if a child is stumbling and halting in reading, the voice isn’t very interesting to listen to. 

One focus at a time

Once you have a baseline of the child’s reading processes, parents and teachers should have another conversation.  Talk about what strategy or process should be tackled first.  If it’s fluency, then focus completely on that for awhile, using books that interest the child.  If it’s making personal connections, then direct the child’s at-home and at-school reading assignments in that direction.  Pick one thing.

Tip:  Reading fluency refers to the ability to read text with inflection and intonation, smoothly and without pauses other than those required by punctuation.  The way to improve reading fluency is to read the same text over and over, until there are no more stumbles and the inflection is appropriate.  Read Naturally (http://www.readnaturally.com/products/default.htm) is an excellent program for the development of reading fluency, and I use it in my classroom.   But you can do essentially the same thing with any text at the child’s level, and in the case of a child who is balking at reading, why not pick a text that really interests him or her?

Once you’ve picked your target strategy or reading behavior, you are ready to begin the job of supporting reading comprehension.   Your ongoing conversation is going to reach deep into the child’s learning experience. 

Don’t stop.

So here’s how the conversation should really go:

Parent:  John is really having a tough time with the reading homework.
Teacher: Yes, he is far below grade level.
Parent:  He doesn’t really understand what he’s reading.
Teacher: Yes, that’s very common in kids with autism.  They don’t have high reading comprehension.  Let’s talk about John’s interests.  What kinds of books does he read at home?
Parent:  I’ve been reading the Winnie the Pooh books to him since he was a baby.
Teacher: Really!  Who’s his favorite character?
Parent:  He likes Tigger.
Teacher:  Of course.  Tigger bounces!  What else is John into?  What are his favorite movies?
Parent:  Shrek.
Teacher: Great.  I have a couple of Shrek books I’ll set aside for him.  He can look at them during free reading time.  Does he watch other cartoons?
Parent:  Well, he never misses “Sponge Bob Square Pants.”
Teacher: I don’t have any Sponge Bob book...
Parent:  I can look at Barnes and Noble if you want.
Teacher:  Would you?  Great.  I’ll see if Scholastic has any.
Teacher:  I want to pull together a basket of books that we think will pique his interest and give him pleasure.  The last thing we want is for John to feel so frustrated with reading that he begins to hate it.
Parent:  Yeah, he’s already resenting it. 
Teacher: Let’s nip that in the bud, then.  And in the meantime, I will do some informal assessments and see if I can identify some specific comprehension strategies we can work with John on.  I can send instructions home with him for you to work on in the evenings, too.  Let’s get him over this hurdle.

Parents, don’t let yourself be over here.   When your child and the teacher are here. 

Your child’s education is a two-way street.

Related posts:

1. The child in the IEP: Can we really see him as described?
2. When a reader with autism needs to respond to literature…
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?

By Sara Finegan

Sam, a sixth-grader, didn’t like to read anything except picture books. His independent reading level was at the fourth grade for non-fiction (he loved science and nature text) and at the low third grade in fiction. The more I conferred with him about his reading, the more it became clear that Sam’s relationship with text was purely passive: whatever meaning came to him came to him, and he made no effort to interact with the text in any way.

Questioning for meaning

Good readers have a relationship with the written word. As we read, we perform a variety of tasks simultaneously, including making inferences, predictions, visualizing, and questioning for meaning.  All of these are forms of interactions between our minds and the text. Sam did none of these, and relied purely on words he recognized and the book’s illustrations to bring him any understanding of what the author wanted him to know.

We know that writers have a purpose, and that the purpose generally involves what it is that the author wants us as the reader to think about. Many readers with autism have no concept of why a writer writes, or that readers are supposed to be thinking at all when they read. When I asked Sam what he thought I did when I was reading, he said “look at the words.” I asked if he thought I did anything else. “Look at the pictures?” he said.  Anything else? “No?”

Right here is when I made a mistake that took several days to undo.  Do not, I repeat, do NOT repeat this at home:

“What do you think I think about when I’m reading?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I think about what the author is telling me.”

“The author isn’t talking,” said Sam, very reasonably and with a bit of concern that I might perhaps be delusional.

“Oh, but she is,” I said. “She is talking in writing. The words she’s writing are her way of talking to us as readers.”

This did not go over well with Sam.  Like all readers with autism, he is a concrete thinker and takes everything absolutely literally.  Since he could not hear or see the author, the idea that she might be talking to him freaked him out.  He began looking for the author and trying to hear her, and worrying that she might not be very nice, and doing all sorts of other mental gyrations that led to a great deal of anxiety on his part.

What to do?

I backtracked.  For several days, we read picture books and did not talk about reading or what authors do.  In the meantime, I racked my brains to figure out how to convey the idea to Sam that he should be doing something in his head while he read.

As usually happens, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. one weeknight with an idea.  It took awhile to sort my thinking out, mostly because my thoughts were careening between “damnit, I have to be up at 4:45 and WHY am I waking up at the crack of 2:30?” and “here’s the deal about relating to text.” Also, Boaz the Siamese cat heard me open my eyes (they are too psychic) and started making pitiful “we are all dying of starvation, please feed us” noises, which contributed nothing to the event.

But here’s what I ultimately came up with:  Sam did not need to understand that he had to interact with the text in order to make meaning of it.  Sam just needed to interact with the text.  And not only that, but he needed to be taught a strategy that would enable him to interact regularly with the text and make meaning from it.  A strategy, I decided at 3:25, that would enable him to have an internal dialogue with the text and also be able to summarize what he was reading.

I would like to tell you that during the next few days, I developed a strategy to teach Sam how to do all that, and that from then on, he was an interactive, thoughtful reader. Unfortunately, it took several years, during which time Sam moved on to other teachers, for me to find a really good way to accomplish the objectives I set.

Say What?

For several years, I was lucky enough to teach with a Speech Language Pathologist, Cindy Hale, who not only was interested in language as it relates to reading and writing, but wanted to work in the classroom with kids on comprehension tasks.  A couple of years ago, she introduced a reading activity that has colored the world of reading in my classroom.  I call it Say What? and it was based on the concept of Storytalk that we’d been using with Cindy to help us write personal narratives.  (I’ll write about Storytalk another time).

Question and summarize

We used Charlotte’s Web, but you can use any chapter book at any level with kids in this activity.  The idea is to teach kids to question as they read and then to pause and summarize what they’ve been reading.  We do it in writing to begin with, as a group, and please bear in mind that it takes a long, long period of interactive work, with a gradual release of responsibility from adult to student, before kids begin to be able to do the work independently.  Despite this, the work almost immediately begins to influence their reading, and they love it.

You will need a copy of the text for each student or a document camera with overhead so that everyone can see the text on a screen.  If you are working with a group, you will need an easel pad; if you are a parent working with your child, then either an easel pad or lined paper will work.

Draw a line down the center of your paper.  I like to use two colors of pen or marker, one for each side.  The title of the left column of the paper is “What we know.”  The title of the right column is “Questions we have.”

Here’s how it works:  You will read aloud, paragraph by paragraph, while the kids follow along. Pause every paragraph (if it’s a long paragraph, you can stop in the middle) to ask kids to contribute questions they have about what is going on.  Write the questions in the right column. Ask the kids to let everyone know if they think a question has been answered as you continue reading.

A tip about asking questions:

Concrete thinkers like readers with autism are going to have to learn how to ask deeper questions as opposed to ones which are easily answered in the text.  We do not want kids asking what color Fern’s hair was if it has nothing to do with why her father was carrying an axe to the barn.  We want kids to develop questions about what is going on that will help them to understand the plot and the characters.

This is easier said than done.  One of the best ways to support kids in asking meaningful questions is to emphasize the great questions that they ask and minimize the weaker ones.  Thus, Cindy and I would give a little shrug and a one or two word response if a student asked a trivial question.  When a student asked a deeper, meatier question, we’d stop, nod at the student, and say something like “Wow, now that is a great question.  I like the way you asked that!  Let’s write that one down.  Wow, that is a good one.”  Within a week or so, the questions uniformly became much better in our reading groups.

If a child needs help phrasing a question, either grammatically or because you think he or she is having trouble coming up with the right words, don’t hesitate to intervene and ask the question, then have the student repeat it correctly.

Even if you are teacher who does not normally encourage interruptions, you are going to want the kids to be raising their hands and shouting out when they hear/read an answer to one of the posted questions.  This is important.  We want the kids to experience what it’s like to not only ask questions as they read, but to recognize when a question is answered and celebrate it.  This type of active listening/ reading is crucial to developing an independent interaction with the text.  Don’t stifle it.

Every few paragraphs, or whenever there’s a natural pause or change in the plot (change of scene, end of dialogue, mood shift), stop and ask the kids to help you summarize what has happened so far.  You’re going to do this as an interactive writing task in the left column.  Give the kids sentence starters and have them do most of the summarizing.  Intervene if you need to to make sure that the summary goes in proper sequence of events.  Pause and ask the kids for good vocabulary words to use.  Try to use new words  you’ve read and defined in the text, and avoid passive verbs and vague or generic nouns.  Once you’ve finished a passage summary, it should be read out loud.

Tip: if you have any good artists in your group of readers, you can assign one of them at a time to draw some illustrations of what you’re reading.  I like to draw the kids illustration boxes (like in a comic strip) so that they can make small pictures of the entire series of events as we read.  Share out and display!

What I like about this reading activity is that it introduces kids to several concepts at once: asking questions of the text, identifying and using the answers, and summarizing. Because we are also using a chapter book and taking a long time to finish the entire story, we are introducing to the kids another important concept: connecting what we’ve read earlier to what we’re reading now. This is important.

Making connections

One of the things that readers with autism do not tend to do is to make links between what they read in the same text earlier in time with what they are reading in the present. Thus, if they read a bit yesterday of The Schoolmouse they will not connect the information gleaned to what they read tomorrow.  Separate events equals separate information, in their minds.  Furthermore, they often have difficulty connecting previously read sections of a book even if they just read them 5 minutes ago.  To a reader with autism, individual chapters of a book may not be perceived as being related to one another!

By working with kids on questioning and summarizing in a single text on a long-term basis, they learn very quickly that all parts of a novel are related. They see how we will pause to summarize and reflect when we pick up a book again after a break, and how we may stop at the end of a chapter before moving on in order to reflect on where the plot is going or what is happening to a favorite character.

We use the questioning/summarizing technique off and on in my classroom these days. We’ve used it in smaller texts, such as short stories, when we’ve read them slowly over a period of days, and in long, long texts, like Boy of Painted Cave, which took us weeks to complete.  In all cases, the kids’ comprehension of what was going on in the plot, and their ability to start thinking more deeply than the literal facts is invariably enhanced.  Give it a try!

Related posts:

1. Anaphoric cuing: Asking clarifying questions
2. Autism and hyperlexia, part 2: Helping Bobby read
3. Role of the classroom aide: To help the child toward independence

The autism spectrum is a vast and invisible entity and as I explore and write about the world of the reader with autism, you are probably wondering “well, just a damned minute here. Is she writing about someone like my kid, or does she teach the high-level kids who just have some social skills deficits?”

The answer is:   I don’t know.

We don’t have a piece of tape marking off the gradations of the autism spectrum, much less where each individual child would stand if we lined them all up along the edge.   I have a feeling that with the exception of the extremes on either end, placement on the spectrum is rather subjective.

Bobby was high functioning…

I stopped worrying about what level each of my readers with autism was on when I had an interesting conversation with Bobby’s mother Patty right about the time he finished his third year in my class and got ready to go off to middle school.  Patty and I had become friends during Bobby’s time in my class and you could not find a better partner to work with.   During this particular conversation I mentioned that Bobby was high-functioning and she said “well…”

Turns out, Bobby was anything but high-functioning when he came to me in the beginning of the fourth grade.   I didn’t know that, because he was the first kid with autism I’d ever had in my class, if you don’t count several with Asperger Syndrome I’d had in previous years. He was somewhere, according to Patty, in the mid-functioning area, leaning toward lower, though his compliance with rules and procedures was so high that we never had any major behavior issues.

In my naivete, I thought that since he wasn’t banging his head against the walls, he must be at a high level.

The point is that by the time Bobby left my class, he was pretty high-functioning.   True, he continued to have difficulty expressing himself and would freeze up when asked for answers to some problems, but here’s the big deal: he’s been out of my class for awhile now, and he’s been getting A’s and B’s in all general ed classes ever since.

I would like to attribute Bobby’s success to my brilliant and innovative teaching.   I would also like to be able to run a marathon next month, but the truth is, I can only do three miles at a time and even then, it’s ghastly towards the end.

Bobby, it appears, progressed along the spectrum due to several factors.  One of them was what I taught him, which was the subject of my masters thesis and will be a blog entry as soon as I get back from vacation, because I do not carry my thesis around with me when I’m out of town and I want to cut and paste copious quantities of it into my blog.

Kids “on the spectrum” are not static

I think, though, that Bobby’s amazing jump into inclusion-land was mostly due to his own personal growth and development as a person. Kids with autism are just like other kids, who aren’t able to do some things in the second grade that they can in the fourth, and I don’t know why some of us get the impression that they are static creatures. It might have taken Bobby three years instead of two to be able to write a personal narrative, but that was okay with me.

But Bobby’s growth was also due to very high standards held by me and his mom regarding his thinking and work. We never assumed he couldn’t do things, and if he seemed overwhelmed, we would just divide tasks and lessons into smaller chunks for him.

Bobby was held to the same standard as other kids

Patty and I realized early on that it was all a matter of how we customized the learning experience for him while at the same time holding him to the same standards as others in my class.   It was an interesting balancing act and we had to keep in touch regularly.

On the one hand, we had no expectations about Bobby’s capacity to learn and use new knowledge and skills, because we couldn’t read his mind or get much insight into how he processes information. I wasn’t able to compare him to anyone because he was unique. On the other hand, we expected him to do the same homework, the same math, and the same social studies work as everyone else.   Sometimes this meant that I gave him sentence-starters to get him going on a writing assignment, or he was allowed to draw a picture to show his understanding of a math problem rather than writing a complete sentence, but he did the same math as everyone else.

Now, I had those high expectations of his work because I was assuming that Bobby was a high-functioning learner with autism.   If someone had told me at the beginning that he wasn’t, I’d probably have lowered my sights.  And that would have been to his detriment.

Pay no attention to “level”

What I learned from Bobby was not to pay any attention whatsoever to what “level” any of my students with autism are on with regard to the spectrum when it comes to ability to learn and do work.   Each one is his or her own world of learning, and that’s the universe I want to live in.

So can the strategies I’ve developed work with lower-functioning readers with autism?  Sure.  Every strategy is created to be customized according to the individual students’ needs and strengths.

Tips:  If your child is non verbal or has expressive language deficits

So, if you’re using the “Who….did what?” strategy with a student who is pretty non-verbal, give the child a series of boxes on paper and ask him/her to draw a picture of each thing that a character does in a given passage. And if you have a child with expressive learning deficits that are more profound than the kids I’ve described, give him/her multiple choice options for inferences, predictions, or other activities.

And finally, don’t assume that because a reader with autism cannot perform some tasks right now, you shouldn’t keep teaching them or modeling them.  You should.  The more they observe a skill or piece of information in a variety of contexts, the more likely it is that the kids will internalize them and begin to use them.

Related posts:

1. Asperger Syndrome rolled into new Autism Spectrum Disorder
2. Don’t stop advocating for the child with autism!
3. Say what? Asking questions as one reads

One of the most frequent questions I get, from special education and general education teachers alike, is how to deal with the fact that their students with autism do not pay attention during story time.  Readers with autism are generally not good listeners and often will not only fail to attend to read-alouds, but may disrupt the experience of others when it is going on.

I like to think of myself as a dynamic and interesting teacher, one who can keep a child’s interest most of the time, even when the subject we are learning isn’t utterly fascinating.   At any rate, that’s what I aim for, and it usually happens that kids are engaged most of the time in my classroom.

I love read-alouds!

One of my favorite events of the day, is the read-aloud.  We read high-level books, often novels related to what we’re studying in history, to bring that world alive and show how dry facts aren’t just words in a textbook.  We also read funny stories, fantasy books, and fables.   I like to use accents and unique voices to represent characters, and incorporate a lot of drama into the reading.   My students are usually captivated.  Except the ones with autism.

It used to be really disconcerting to look up from a particularly scary rendition of a scene in a Goosebumps story to see my student Bobby looking off into space and laughing at shadows or dust motes floating in the air.   I became rather discouraged when my best Draco Malfoy imitation didn’t even seem to have any effect on him, nor did my ancient old-lady-Charlotte-the-dying-spider voice.   If I hadn’t understood him and how he perceives sound, I’d have given up all aspirations of becoming a reader for Books on Tape.

“Wah…wah…wah…”

Kids with autism do not tend to be auditory learners and most of them do not respond well to the read-aloud.   In fact, the majority of them drift off into their own worlds when I read aloud to the class.   I am reminded of the Charlie Brown television specials, where the teacher’s voice in class is unintelligible, consisting of droned “Wah…wah…wah….” I imagine that is how my students with autism hear me when I’m reading to them.

It doesn’t matter what tone of voice I use, what accent, or how loudly or softly I intone.  They aren’t really present for the reading.  Not very flattering to any teacher, of course, but even more important, it raises the question of how to support the students’ learning if they aren’t attending to the read-aloud.

What is the purpose of the read-aloud?

If you’re struggling with a reader with autism’s inability to listen to the text, stop for a moment and ask yourself why it’s important.   In evaluating how to handle this situation, it is important to consider the express purpose for the read aloud, and determine whether there are alternative ways to get the objectives met.   So, first consider whether:

• The read-aloud is used for the primary purpose of exposing kids to necessary and important text that is higher than their own reading level.

Kids who do not read at grade level often need grade-level texts read to them in order to be able to participate in literacy activities such as response to literature, literary discussions, and just accessing the classics.  If the objective is related to cultural literacy, then a child’s ability to attend to and learn from a read-aloud may be important.  I think we’d all like for every child to have read certain books by the time they finish elementary school:  Charlotte’s Web comes to mind, for example.  If the book is higher than the child’s independent reading level, then understanding the story read aloud could be an essential expectation. But…if your student doesn’t read the book, can you show the film in class? And if not, can it wait?

• The read-aloud is used to expose the kids to the pleasure of the written word.

Reading fluency is not always strong in the early and intermediate process. We need to help kids hear the text in order for them to develop expectations of text and enjoyment of the process. We do want our children to love reading and get pleasure from the written word. It’s good for kids to experience the flow and fluency of text – many of them will not develop the internal voice as readers unless they first hear it externally.

Whether they hear stories on tape or “live,” the fact is that a voice and an auditory experience is important. If the read-aloud is for the purpose of exposing kids to the pleasure of the written word, we may need to accept that for some kids, it’s not going to happen the way we’d like. Maybe your student with autism will enjoy hearing your voice even though  he or she isn’t retaining the words and ideas themselves.  Maybe your student will hear some of the words you are reading and will use his or her imagination to use those words in a different way. And maybe the student will never come to love the sound of the written word, or understand that words are arranged in a pattern that has melody and fluency. There are other things the child will learn that are equally, if not more important this year.

• The read-aloud is used in writing intruction to show kids how words, the rhythm of language, and rhymes can influence a text.
  

The use of read-aloud to support lessons in writing instruction is a best practice employed by most literacy teachers. We can tell kids how mood, and setting, and action are influenced and directed by the use of language and rhythm, but they need to hear it as well as hear about it. It gives them ideas and inspiration to try the techniques out on their own.

Now, if the way words sound is the entire point of the read aloud, there may be alternative ways to teach the lesson to a child with autism. Bobby may not be able to listen to and completely understand a story in which repeated words or rhymes convey a message or mood, but he can learn about and use rhymes in songs and nursery rhymes just as well. He didn’t learn anything when I read aloud When I Was Young and In The Mountains, but he was easily able to write a little story using a repeated introduction after we sang “Old McDonald” and “Do You Remember?”

• The read-aloud is used as a warm-up or cool-down exercise for kids as they prepare to transition to other tasks.

Many teachers have a read-aloud session immediately after recess or lunch to help kids settle down and get ready for active learning again. Reading aloud to kids to help support transitions or to give them a break from written work or intensive intellectual work is a tried and true strategy that many of us have been using for years. It is derived from the bedtime story, and how many of us don’t have memories of drowsing while our parents read us one last book before turning out the lights? This type of read-aloud not only calms the mind and body, but introduces the concept of reading for relaxation to a child.

• The read-aloud is used as a break from other academic tasks.

Research shows that the best learning is accomplished in cycles of input and output of information. Reading is an excellent respite of intake that can be used after an intensive output of intellectual effort. If reading is for relaxation and transitioning, then a child can gain equivalent results from drawing pictures, rocking, doing a puzzle, or some other pleasurable quiet activity.

While you are doing the reading aloud, your students who are weak in auditory processing can be engaging in separate activities—so long as they are able to do so independently and without disturbing others.  One of my students has always loved to draw dragons, and this is his invariable free choice activity.  When everyone moves to the rug for the read-aloud, he pulls out his sketchbook and begins to draw.  Sometimes his dragon pictures actually end up having something to do with what I’m reading aloud; sometimes they simply express whatever is going on in his own mind.

• The read-aloud is used to engage kids in bringing a period of history or a certain situation they’ve read about in other contexts to life.

Students studying the pioneer period love hearing the Little House books read to them; I remember how the colonial and revolutionary period came alive for me when I read Johnny Tremaine. I link genre studies to our history units; we read Aesop’s fables when we study Ancient Greece and a number of Native American legends when we study early America. We explore the mystery genre by reading The Golden Goblet and A Place in the Sun when we study Egypt, and similar novels based in Rome and Greece. We study the Coming of Age genre when we study early man by reading Maroo and the Winter Cave, Boy of Painted Cave, and Dar and the Spear Thrower.

Very few of these texts are able to be accessed by my students on their own; hearing them read, with accents and emphasis, drama and even passion, helps the kids visualize and synthesize information they’ve been learning from their social studies textbooks.  It is important that kids learn that history is a live and pulsating thing, no question about that.  The plethora of excellent books for children and young adults about historical people and events is terrific.  Kids who cannot read them on their own will miss out on some wonderful pieces and likely will not be able to truly envision the times and circumstances about which they have studied.

On the other hand, they can gain some insights from more visual resources, including some of the great pictorial books about historical eras, films, and doing arts and crafts projects.  Just because a child doesn’t truly hear the story of how Laura Ingalls’ father built a log cabin doesn’t mean that she or he can’t find out about them by building a replica; we can learn about candlemaking from reading a story about Laura and her mother, or we can dip them ourselves.

When the child’s attention is essential…

If you determine that the child’s attention to the read-aloud is essential, and that you want to support his or her participation in the experience, there are a few things you can do as a part of the routine.

Here is a list of some strategies that have worked with some of my students with autism.   In addition to these, I’ve had great success with several of my students with autism by using a read-aloud in conjunction with exercises related to questioning as we read.   This intervention is discussed in another blog entry.

…five possible solution tips

1. Give the student have a copy of the text to follow along with.  Having a visual aid is often helpful in keeping a child’s attention on the read-aloud.
2. Make finger puppets or paper puppets on a craft stick for the child to hold up when a given character is speaking or discussed.  The child will follow along as you read more easily if he or she is waiting to hear from or about a character.
3. Ask your students to provide the sound effects for a story.  If you are reading about a storm, set an auditory signal (“sound effects!” or “It sounded like….”) for them to begin making rain or thunder noises. A child with autism will try to pay attention for the opportunity to participate.
4. Ask your student with autism to draw a picture of what you are reading as she or he listens.
5. Rewrite passages from the text into a readers’ theater experience and assign your student with autism to one of the parts.   Let the kids practice and then perform for a small group.

No cookie cutter children!

Use these modifications sparingly.  If it’s really not important that the child be able to hear the read-aloud, don’t try to force it.  Save the interventions for times when it’s essential.  Readers with autism, by their very nature, do not fit into any cookie-cutter classroom view, and we need to pick and choose the times and methods of required conformance.

Related posts:

1. Hearing the story in your head: The role of expressive reading
2. Autism and hyperlexia, part 2: Helping Bobby read
3. Role of the classroom aide: To help the child toward independence