Autism and Reading Comprehension. Joseph Porter
Variation 4 (Lesson 34)
Sentence-Building Exercise 1 (Lesson 35)
Worksheet 8
Variation 1 (Lesson 36)
Variation 2 (Lesson 37)
Variation 3 (Lesson 38)
Variation 4 (Lesson 39)
Sentence-Building Exercise 2 (Lesson 40)
Level 5: The Monkey
Worksheet 9
Variation 1 (Lesson 41)
Variation 2 (Lesson 42)
Variation 3 (Lesson 43)
Variation 4 (Lesson 44)
Sentence-Building Exercise 1 (Lesson 45)
Worksheet 10
Variation 1 (Lesson 46)
Variation 2 (Lesson 47)
Variation 3 (Lesson 48)
Variation 4 (Lesson 49)
Sentence-Building Exercise 2 (Lesson 50)
Level 6: The Dog
Worksheet 11
Variation 1 (Lesson 51)
Variation 2 (Lesson 52)
Variation 3 (Lesson 53)
Variation 4 (Lesson 54)
Sentence-Building Exercise 1 (Lesson 55)
Worksheet 12
Variation 1 (Lesson 56)
Variation 2 (Lesson 57)
Variation 3 (Lesson 58)
Variation 4 (Lesson 59)
Sentence-Building Exercise 2 (Lesson 60)
Level 7: The Horse
Worksheet 13
Variation 1 (Lesson 61)
Variation 2 (Lesson 62)
Variation 3 (Lesson 63)
Variation 4 (Lesson 64)
Sentence-Building Exercise 1 (Lesson 65)
Worksheet 14
Variation 1 (Lesson 66)
Variation 2 (Lesson 67)
Variation 3 (Lesson 68)
Variation 4 (Lesson 69)
Sentence-Building Exercise 2 (Lesson 70)
Level 8: The Birds
Worksheet 15
Variation 1 (Lesson 71)
Variation 2 (Lesson 72)
Variation 3 (Lesson 73)
Variation 4 (Lesson 74)
Sentence-Building Exercise 1 (Lesson 75)
Worksheet 16
Variation 1 (Lesson 76)
Variation 2 (Lesson 77)
Variation 3 (Lesson 78)
Variation 4 (Lesson 79)
Sentence-Building Exercise 2 (Lesson 80)
Level 9: The Lizard
Worksheet 17
Variation 1 (Lesson 81)
Variation 2 (Lesson 82)
Variation 3 (Lesson 83)
Variation 4 (Lesson 84)
Sentence-Building Exercise 1 (Lesson 85)
Worksheet 18
Variation 1 (Lesson 86)
Variation 2 (Lesson 87)
Variation 3 (Lesson 88)
Variation 4 (Lesson 89)
Sentence-Building Exercise 2 (Lesson 90)
Supplemental Resources and Activities
Read-Aloud Books
Data-Collection Sheets
References
Index
When it comes to being a new teacher, there’s probably nothing more frightening and overwhelming than facing a room full of children with autism, all under the age of ten.
Trust me. I lived it.
During those first few weeks, I would have given my right hand—the one I squeezed my stress ball with—in exchange for any kind of accessible, teacher-friendly material. Every book I picked up was either an overwhelming, science-journal-type of tome or a book full of therapy-style exercises designed exclusively for one-on-one instruction. These resources are valuable in their own way, but when you’re a new teacher faced with the daunting task of managing and teaching a classroom of autistic students, you have precious little time or energy to process complicated, science-based articles or plan one-on-one lessons.
I think that teachers in autism classrooms should receive as much easy-to-process, no nonsense help as possible. I created my own material, honing and fine-tuning it as I came to understand my students and their highly specific needs. This program, which includes worksheets and scripted lessons, was effective with my students, so I thought I’d share it with other teachers.
However, this is not to say that this is a one-size-fits-all curriculum. You should be aware that lower-functioning kids may have trouble with the more conceptual aspects of these lessons, such as “wh” questions, prepositional phrases, directional words, adjectives, feeling words, and prompts that require subjective thinking (e.g., “Tell me about the cat.”). Many may also lack the organizational skills to copy from the board and transfer words from one paper to another. That’s okay. Take it one step at a time, and structure the lessons as needed to foster success for your students.
I hope this manual helps you and your students not only to manage but also to learn and grow in productive, fun ways.
THE UNDERLYINC PRINCIPLES OF THE PROGRAM
Autism and Reading Comprehension revolves around what I believe are the two most important elements in teaching individuals with autism to read: whole-group instruction and reading comprehension.
It seems to me that almost every book on teaching children with autism focuses on one- on-one instruction. For a new teacher, in my opinion, it’s just not practical. You can plan whole-group instruction more easily than you can plan individual lessons. I believe one- on-one instruction isolates autistic children from their classmates and the rest of the school population. This seems to be the opposite of what we, as teachers, should be providing them. Whole-group instruction allows children to interact with their classmates and practice socially appropriate