Invariably, when Jack used our classroom library, he headed to my extensive selection of non-fiction books.  Bin after bin of books about animals, habitats, insects, birds, weather, space and other topics of interest were the focus of Jack’s interest.  If I guided him in the opposite direction, toward the leveled fiction books, he’d zoom right back to non-fiction like a magnet to a pole.

Jack had very specific interests, and they were: reptiles, reptiles, and reptiles.  He could, and often did, recite lists of facts about snakes, lizards and turtles like some automated encyclopedia.  It was an intense and mesmerizing experience listening to him talk, and it left one feeling quite bowled over by information. 

Clearly, Jack could read and understand what the text was saying. Equally clearly, however, he wasn’t quite as skilled in what he did with the information as he initially appeared.

For one thing, Jack had no concept of relative importance of the myriad of facts he read. 

When Jack read about the bearded dragon, he didn’t identify which were the really key facts and which were interesting details.  All of the facts he read were both important and interesting.    There was no distinction in Jack’s mind and oral retelling between “the bearded dragon’s natural habitat is the dry, rocky desert areas of Australia” and “they can sometimes be found perched on fence posts in inhabitated areas.”  Both are absolutely fascinating, and therefore must be…important.

For about a day, I worked with Jack on “what’s really important and what’s less important?.”  Besides giving me a big fat headache, it made Jack very confused.  “More” and “less” are tough concepts, especially when it comes to importance.

Then I tried, for about half an hour in a guided reading lesson, the concepts of “things we need to know” vs. “fun facts to know and tell”.  As you can imagine, that went over like a sequined jumpsuit in a tuxedo department.  Jack thought all of the facts were fun to know and tell, and could not grasp that actually, to most people, some things fall into the category of trivia whereas others are quite obviously essential.

One of the side benefits  of teaching readers with autism is that I am constantly being made aware of my own prejudices and biases, how often I push my own opinions into the box labeled “fact,” and how really instinctive it is for me to try to impose my world view on others.  Every time I work with a child on the spectrum I am brought face to face with the unnerving reminder to not get stuck in my own head, and am much the better for it!

It was pretty clear to me by the time my second session with Jack ended that the traditional ways of teaching about main idea and supporting evidence were not going to work and that once again I had to wrap my head around finding a new approach.

This is where I should write about how that very evening, while meditating before a peaceful fire with a glass of wine, I was struck by inspiration.  In reality, it was more like six weeks later, while sorting socks and listening to Barry Manilow singing “Trying to Get the Feeling,” I stubbed my toe on something sharp under the bed, which turned out to be the corner of my copy of The Art of Teaching Reading, by Lucy Calkins. 

I dragged it out, intending to throw it against the wall, when I noticed a post-it marking one of the pages.  Apparently, one night months before, I’d been reading and decided that something on page 323 was important enough to mark before discarding the book on the floor, where it gradually got shoved all the way to my husband’s side of the bed.

Page 323 was all about reading centers, and what I found significant enough to warrant discarding all of the socks for 10 minutes was the table in the middle, which listed different ways to organize centers.  Specifically, the text read “we may organize centers around a kind of book….around a genre of text…around an umbrella topic…a reading goal….”

Of course.  Umbrellas.  That’s what Jack needed!  A visual.  The umbrella statement is the main idea, and underneath it are the supporting details.  I  had completely forgotten about this method of showing kids how paragraphs are organized. 

The next morning, I got together with Jack at a table, and showed him a graphic organizer with umbrellas.  “We’re going to write the big idea inside the umbrella,” I told him, “and all of the details about that big idea under it.”

Jack looked at the pictures of umbrellas and the spaces I’d marked to fill in.  There was no expression on his face.

Undaunted, I got us started.  We had a book about geckos and I asked him to open it to the first page.   After Jack read it, I asked him to think about what was the umbrella idea.  Jack looked at the picture of the umbrella on his graphic organizer.  He was silent.  Nothing.

After a few prompts, he pointed to a sentence about the origin of the name “Gecko”. 

“Hmmmm,” I said.  “How did you decide that this is the big idea?”

He shrugged.  All of a sudden, my very vocal Jack was not talking at all.  He was shutting down quickly.  I had no idea why or what to do about this, so I let him go back to independent reading and moved to another guided reading group.

It was later that day, during P.E., that Jack finally let me see what had confused and troubled him. 

“Umbrellas don’t have anything under them, except a person,” he said.

“Yes, that’s true,” I answered.

“They keep rain off.  They  keep things from being there.”

Well, duh.  Of course this approach wasn’t going to make any sense to Jack.  The visual of an umbrella as the overarching idea was absolutely wrong.  To a concrete thinker like Jack, umbrellas exist to create an empty space where rain should be.  They are protection from things, not holders of them.

I regrouped. 

I really needed more time to piece through exactly what we need to know about a paragraph.  And in doing some more thinking, I realized that before we even think about a main idea sentence/phrase, we identify the topic. 

What Jack needed, before he could articulate a main idea, was to identify the topic of a paragraph and the facts related to it.   How to help him get to that was easier than working the concept of main idea.

What I came up with, eventually, was the concept of a plate and food.  This seemed to work best for Jack, who was almost entirely a visual learner, and whose favorite time of day was lunch.  I got the idea because I noticed that when he unpacked the lunch his mom sent him, he started by pulling out a paper plate.  He then unwrapped each item:  veggies, sandwich, cookies … and put them on the plate in clockwise order starting at the top. 

The next time I met with Jack, I had a set of 5 paper plates.  I put the first one in front of Jack and told him we would not be using it to eat with, but that it would help us work on understanding how the paragraphs in the book about geckos were organized. 

At the end of half an hour, Jack had a handle on it.  Each paragraph was a plate, and the  plate had a name.

 The first plate was called “Where They Live,” and on the top of the plate he’d taken crayons and drawn  circles, each one with a different location caption.

The second plate was called “What They Eat” and included crude pictures of a worm, a roach, and a cricket. 

Now Jack knew that each paragraph is a plate/topic, and that each topic has a lot of facts connected to it.

For the next several weeks, Jack worked on naming the plate/topic and food/facts in different paragraphs he was reading, and we would talk about how he decided what to name the plates and what “food” he put on them.  Gradually, he began to talk more and more about the organization of facts and, although he wasn’t yet thinking in terms of broad vs. specific, he was  getting closer.

Related posts:

1. Non-fiction matters, Part I

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. When a reader with autism needs to respond to literature…
2. Hearing the story in your head: The role of expressive reading
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 2: Helping Bobby read