Reading and Communicating in Many Ways: Supporting Library Visits with Special Education Reading Classes
Feature
Resuming regular library services this past school year meant that I also had the opportunity to restart bi-weekly class visits with one of our moderate/severe special education reading classes, which include students with autism and intellectual disabilities, including Down syndrome. Working with these students has reminded me how much I love these class visits and how I have missed them during our period of reduced in-person services due to the pandemic.
As with any collaboration, I am grateful for my partner, who, in this case, is an amazing special education teacher, Shayla Tropiano. Shayla is the one who initially approached me with the idea of bringing her classes to the library, and for years now she has consistently committed time every two weeks for their regular visits.
When something becomes such an integrated part of your regular practice, it can be easy to take it as a given, but restarting this collaboration has made me appreciate how valuable it is. Here are some highlights on various aspects of our collaboration that have developed over the years in collection development, browsing and communicating, and circulation and sharing.
In my work at a high school campus, the guidance I received from my principal regarding her expectations for collection development is that I select items that are "appropriate for our students' reading levels." However, while our school only serves grades 9-12, my work with the moderate/severe reading classes has expanded what this range looks like, not only in terms of reading levels, but also topics of interest.
When working with students who are learning English or who may have a learning disability like dyslexia, finding reading materials with different levels of language complexity is a priority; but in these cases, the subject matter and content itself is really no different from other same age peers.
With many of our students in mod/severe classes, however, I have found that the interests may overlap in some ways but are also unique and have required me to augment my collection with wholly new materials. When I was first building the collection, I started by gathering as much input from students as possible. With the help of teachers, I surveyed answers to the following prompts:
- Books I've Liked
- Favorite TV Shows
- Favorite Movies
- Favorite YouTube Channels
- Favorite Music or Musicians
- Favorite Animals
- My Hobbies or Interests
- Other Things I Like
I have found that students will often have very strong likes and these are critical ways to build connections. For instance, over the years, I have had students that loved characters like SpongeBob SquarePants and Thomas the Tank Engine, pop musicians like Justin Bieber and One Direction, or anything that moves, such as bikes, cars, trains, and planes. Enduringly, there are always students who love anything Disney-related, and animal books are also popular, although often with a focus on a particular type, like just cats or just horses.
Other types of books that have been popular include basic science books, such as ones about weather or astronomy, as well as interesting history books on topics like ancient Egypt or pirates. Students have enjoyed both "funny" books like joke books and "scary" books such as picture books related to Halloween. Another category that I did not think of until an adult aide suggested it is "tactile" books. These are usually board books that have various textures to feel or flaps to open. With some students, their book experience is about looking and feeling and turning pages, and these tactile books have been a good match.
Fortunately, I have managed to build a large portion of these collections frugally by asking for donations of children's books, which many families are often happily ready to pass along within a high school community. Books that would otherwise be collecting dust on bookshelves for many high school students take on a second life in our library.
While I always tell students that they are free to browse and check out any books from the wider collection, I have also developed a browsing system for students using themed baskets. I usually have about ten baskets available for students, regularly rotating out topics to keep the selection fresh and based on emergent interests. The baskets that I currently have available are as follows:
- Animals
- Disney
- History
- How-To
- Science & Nature
- Sports
- Stories
- Tactile
- Things That Go
- Video games and Superheroes
When the class visits first started, I kept thinking that I needed to do more, that I should be planning more activities for students. But, what I have learned is that many of the basic aspects of the library visit itself is where the learning is taking place. Throughout the year, students practice the social skills of entering the building, finding a seat, and communicating with staff members. They practice communicating about what they like and what they want to check out. They learn how to ask for help if they want to find something in particular or to ask to renew an item if they would like to keep it for longer.
In these classes, many students are assisted during visits by either the teacher, an adult aide, or a speech and language pathologist. I have learned a lot by observing and talking with these various specialists. For instance, Shayla taught me about augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), which is all about providing alternate options for people to communicate outside of oral speech. In practice, this can involve students using words and phrases that are printed out or using technology apps (e.g., Proloquo2Go or GoTalk NOW) with buttons for speaking.
AAC awareness month takes place in October, and so I have partnered with Shayla in the past to raise awareness on campus. I also helped create some custom posters and bookmarks with content that Shayla gathered from her students. I love that this allowed us to highlight advice directly from our school's students:
- Ask me questions! I want to talk to you, too!
- Talk to me about lots of different things!
- Take time for me to respond!
- Make sure my device is accessible to me.
Within the context of library visits, students practice communicating in their different ways when visiting me at the circulation desk. After locating a book that they would like to check out, they bring it to the counter, and greet and communicate with me when it is their turn. Some students are able to speak directly to me orally, while others use sign language or AAC.
While I do not offer self-checkout to my whole-school population for logistical reasons, this is something that I started and continue to do with these class visits. Inspired by a student who once asked if she could try using the scanner, it dawned on me that there was no reason why they couldn't all do so. Students enjoy this step and it also adds an element of job skills practice to their visits.
Our checkout routine goes as follows:
- Student greets me.
- Student uses the barcode scanner to scan in their "old book." Depending on their physical dexterity, some will do this completely on their own. In some cases, I assist by having them just hold the book or just hold the scanner while I help aim the barcode and scanner.
- Student then scans in their "new book" to check out.
- Student or I, depending again on their dexterity, transfer their name label from the old to new book. Rather than using our usual due date cards, we use name labels written on blue painter's tape, which is easy to remove and reuse without damaging the books. This helps the teacher keep track of which books belong to which students since books are kept in a bin in the classroom.
After checking out their books, students then read at tables in the library and talk or write about their books with their one-on-one adult. The teacher's main goal is for students to be able to share the title of the book that they are reading, to identify what type of book it is, and if possible, why they picked it. For students who are not able to orally talk about their books, they program book titles and categories into their iPad AAC program.
I have learned so much over the years from Shayla and her students, and I am so grateful to have had this collaborative experience. Just as a past slogan used for AAC awareness is "I'm worth the wait. Let me communicate," I wholeheartedly agree and always look forward to their visits.
- A brief video overview of our work together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mY8vfbGuww
- An example of communicating via AAC: https://twitter.com/WestHillsLIB/status/918611120860094464?s=20
- Custom awareness bookmarks: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z64fZqwarv4LXVlYC4SJ290zCwCK_q7u/view
- A student using AAC to share a book on volcanoes: https://twitter.com/WestHillsLIB/status/1437612013677469702?s=20
About the Author
MLA Citation
Sannwald, Suzanne Akemi. "Reading and Communicating in Many Ways: Supporting Library Visits with Special Education Reading Classes." School Library Connection, February 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Article/2273784.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Article/2273784?topicCenterId=2252405
Entry ID: 2273784