I teach students with severe disabilities. I have some non-readers and we are working on literacy. I want to adapted my books. I have am feeling over-whelmed with the this project and do not know where to begin. I want to use boardmarker to create icons so that the stories are interactive. Does anyone eles adapt books? If so looking for ideas. Thanks Kristal
One activity I saw at a training I went to this summer was making colored copies of the book's pictures, laminating them, use velcro to stick them to the pages and then let the kids match the right picture to the page. I've also see picture symbols (boardmaker pics) used to help with hard words. It might look something like this... The boy :clap: clapped.
Here are 756 adapted books. http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/boardmaker/Results.asp You have to own Boardmaker to access the adapted books. It also says "you must own a copy of the book" in order to not infringe copyright. We use these all of the time for our students. They are great - there is quite a selection. We usually will just check out the book from the library and also print a version of the adapted book to use with some students.
Hi Kristal, I love adapting books. One story I recently adapted for my class is "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." I printed boardmaker pictures to go along with the story. The students have to identify the picture and velcro it on the page. Depending on your students abilities you can start with just one picture to represent the page (such as: a picture of a cookie when the text states: "If you give a mouse a cookie.") all the way to creating a sentence structure using three pictures (such as "give" "mouse" "cookie"). If you have a scanner in your classroom you can actually scan in the pictures on each page, cut them out, laminate and have the students velcro the actual matching pictures onto the book. Another way I adapt books is adding texture to the books so they have something to feel...for the book "The Very Busy Spider" I highlighted the spider web on each page using puff paint and added fake spiders. You can add texture to almost any book. Just go to your fabric store and look around...you can get scraps for cheap. Look around your house for cotton balls, paint, glitter, fingernail files, old washcloths, aluminum foil, sponges, etc.
Another thing I've done--I don't know how old your students are, but with older students trying to access age/grade level texts (I did Charlotte's Web, Stone Fox, Because of Winn Dixie, a Magic TreeHouse book, Chocolate Touch)--I read through the book, and select 2-4 main events in each chapter that can be represented by 1-2 boardmaker symbols. ex: Words in web, people visit. Then I make a supplemental "book", and each chapter of the text has it's own page with 2-4 events velcroed to the page. That way I can read the chapter aloud to the students, use the pictures to reinforce,then have them reconstruct the chapter by sequencing that chapter's events. Rebus books are also fabulous--look in the beginning reader's section of your local bookstore, there are a few different series where level 1 is rebus style; and not only is the text sprinkled with pictures: on the hill stood a [house picture] that is haunted: but it includes flashcards in the back that you can cut out and laminate for the students to match, find, identify, retell, etc.
