Making Books Come to Life!


  Making Books Come to Life!

 

 

 

 

Early Literacy

 

 

Early literacy is helping young children to develop skills to actually read and write. Preschoolers experiences with books and language during the first five years of their life have an impact on their early reading success. You might be thinking how I can learn more about early literacy?  These resources can assist you with increasing your knowledge:

 

 

Beginning readers can be any age and represent all disability areas.  The Beginning Literacy Framework (TM) was developed by Karen Erickson, Caroline Musselwhite and Ruth Ziolkowski in partnership with Don Johnston Incorporated to assess emergent reading behaviors and outline steps to move beginning readers forward. 

 

 

There are many low to high tech ways to make books "come to life" for young children!  Enjoy the resources below to explore ways to engage your students in the literacy experience. 

 

"Research supports the idea that, given a choice, young children prefer multiple readings of their favorite stories than the "Book of the Day" approach" (King-DeBaun, 2008).

 

Creative Communicating   Visit Pati King DeBaun's website for supported reading strategies.

 

 

Scaffolding and Supported Reading

Are you supporting your students? King-DeBaun, 2004

 

Low Tech Ideas for Making Children's Literature More Engaging!

 

Select books that capture the interests of your students!

 

Creating Literature Based Communication Boards- Lori Tufte and Julie Maro describe a short simple series of steps for creating literature based communication boards for AAC users.  

 

More book ideas from Gayle's Preschool Rainbow including how to choose a good book http://www.preschoolrainbow.org/

 

Check out this powerpoint from the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at the University of North Carolina for more ways to engage children in the literacy experience and make adaptations to books.

Book-WritingAdaptations.pdf

 

Tactualizing books for students who are blind or who are deafblind  http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds/resources/tactual-book-kit-directions

 

Expand your supported reading activities with finger plays and other activities from Dr. Jean 

http://www.drjean.org/html/monthly_act/act_2008/01_Jan/pg03.html

Dr. Jean's You Tube videos--search google or click here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJZGoFWzPA8&feature=related

 

Visit The Book Chook for links to stories on You Tube.  You don't want to miss these videos to get your students interested in reading!

 

Copyright and Fair Use in the Classroom, on the Internet, and the World Wide Web--University of Maryland University College 

 

Accessible Book Collection subscription and information on Universal Design for Learning and Electronic Picture Books

 

 

Creating Digital Books

 

Making PowerPoint books is one of the easiest ways to create digital books.  The templates are easy to use!  Embellish your books with animations, transitions and voice! There are so many different ways to add pictures to your books such as finding pictures online, scanning the pages of your favorite picture book, and using your own digital images to put your students pictures and activities into the books. Children love to see themselves and familiar activities in books.  Be creative and involve your students in making their own books. Then, make sure the books are accessible by creating shortcuts to the book library on your desk top, and printing off the books and putting them in the book area. 

 

 

Tarheel Reader  This website is an on-line collection of free, easy-to-read and accessible books using a PowerPoint template.  Books already published on the site can be downloaded as PowerPoint files to your computer.  Then you can record narration if you want the files spoken without using the online site.  It's also simple to use this website to create your own books.  We are using this site today to make our books.  You won't believe what a valuable resource this is thanks to the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at the University of North Carolina. 

 

 

Other PowerPoint Resources

 

PowerPoint is an easy way to adapt books for your students and is a program that is available  to most teachers.  You can add sound files, narration and/or animation to PowerPoint.  Books that you create can also be printed and placed in page protectors in a notebook so the book can be read anywhere.

 

Here are  tutorials for adding sound, narration and animation to PowerPoint slide shows.  These tutorials are written for PowerPoint 2003. 

 

http://www.nald.ca/library/learning/howtokit/talking/talking.pdf  (great, easy to use tutorial)

 

ebook.ppt (simple to use book template)

 

Adding Sound to Powerpoint Slides.doc 

 

 

ppt tutorial.pdf 

 

For more information on creating PowerPoint activities, you can visit the iC4 website which has great tutorials and activities using PowerPoint.

 

TTAC online has a webshop on creating Power Point ebooks.  Search online training -> Assistive Technology.  "Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Adapt and Create eBooks"

 

 

Examples of Animated Power Point books and activities  (click here to explore some creative ways to use Power Point to make books and songs)

 

Free Photo Resources

 

Use precautions to avoid inappropriate content when searching the Internet around young children.   Also make sure you use the free resources on these websites.  Many websites also charge for some of their photos. 

 

Pics4Learning is a copyright-friendly image library for teachers and students. The Pics4Learning collection consists of thousands of images that have been donated by students, teachers, and amateur photographers. Unlike many Internet sites, permission has been granted for teachers and students to use all of the images donated to the Pics4Learning collection.

 

FreeFoto.com offers a wide selection of free photos that are updated often.

 

Bigfoto.com is a site for more free photos.  Photographers contribute to this site just to see their images online and share with others. 

 

Microsoft has a large selection of free clip art and photos.

 

Pic Search is another great site for free photos.

 

Pictures of butterflies and caterpillars--often a topic in children's literature

 

 

Other Resources and Links for Early Literacy

 

Browser Books  Read these books on-line.  Books are indexed according to reading level.  Student can click on word to hear the word read aloud.

 

Books to read online, visit  Storyplace  and Starfall

 

Online stories narrated by the Screen Actors' Guild (videos), not many yet at the preschool level, but check these out!  Bookpals  http://www.bookpals.net/storyline

 

Create stories using a Boardmaker storybook template, www.mayer-johnson.com

 

Let's Book It with Tech'Knowledge'y  This site features lots of creative ideas for making books that are especially appropriate for elementary ages. Check out the fan books, box books, flip books and others and personalize them with your own literature themes.

 

Visit Caroline Musselwhite's website for fresh ideas and evidence-based practices on literacy and AAC Intervention

 

 

Caroline also provides links to a number of digital books and digital book collections.  Check these out!!!  E-Books here! 

 

Motion Books Send 15 seconds of your favorite video clip and for a charge they will make it into a little flip book.  You could also do this yourself using a simple video clip and video editing software.  Cute idea!

 

Mighty Books  This site features books, music, cartoons, games, jokes and more

 

PBS Teachers contains downloadable books, videos and lessons plans for teachers of early childhood.

 

Enchanted Learning  games, printable books, nursery rhymes and more

 

Magic Keys offers online storybooks--some books have speech. 

 

Baltimore City Public Schools  offers a library of books made with Boardmaker TM  and Picture Communication Symbols. 

 

TAC It Up   Visit the TAC It Up wiki for other great literacy links!

 

 Be Creative and Have Fun with Books!!!                         

 

 

 

 Pictures on this wiki retrieved from www.picsearch.com