Comprehensive Literacy Instruction is essential in today's classrooms, including self-contained classrooms and cross-categorical resource rooms. In many cases, reading and writing instruction has fallen by the wayside for our most complex learners however the push toward implementing the Science of Reading in all classrooms emphasizes the need for a shift. ...

After all the talk about what students love during Valentine's Day activities, I always found a natural next step in my thematic units was to focus on feelings and emotions.  Check out some of my favorite Emotions activities: ELA Ideas I first introduce feelings vocabulary. We use a variety of visuals including photos, icons, and even emojis.  Next, we practice sorting emotions based on the vocabulary we've learned. These cut and paste worksheets are also included in my Feelings Thematic Unit .  Then, we read stories to discuss each emotion in context. I love The Way I Feel by Janan Cain because it covers so many robust feeling words. I use the communication board from my Feelings Thematic Unit for students to participate. Another favorite feelings story is When Sophie Gets Angry-- Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang. I love this story for introducing the concept of coping strategies to my students.  I love this story so much that I created an entire Picture Book Comm......

Last year I read a book that changed my entire outlook on teaching teaching to my students with significant disabilities and complex needs. Comprehensive Literacy for All: Teaching Students with Significant Disabilities to Read and Write by Karen Erickson Ph.D and David Koppenhaver Ph.D. is a MUST-READ for teachers in the self-contained classroom! It provides Science of Reading research specific to our students with significant disabilities and provides some practical guidance. ...

Can you believe it is already March? It shocks me every year! In our classroom, there has always been two big celebrations each March... Read Across America Day and St. Patrick's Day.  Our focus each year for Read Across America is Green Eggs and Ham. In my first year of teaching, this was a favorite of one of my students with limited communication. He just LOVED the book and had memorized each page. We all loved to have him read it to us because it was so wonderful to hear him say so much! So from that point on Green Eggs and Ham has always been a mainstay in my room. Over the years, I added more and more activities that we could do with the story so that we could address IEP goals and meet all the needs of my students including practicing vocabulary and building sentences using a communication board, velcro pieces, or our trusty classroom GoTalk! I also created lots of comprehension activities so that I had something that fit the needs of each student. We worked on wh-questions, ......