In this YouTube talk, elementary self‑contained classroom teacher Winnie shares practical, back‑to‑school strategies for supporting students who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). She begins by demonstrating how she mirrors her personal AAC device onto a classroom touchscreen, making the device visible and interactive for the whole class. Winnie then explains her use of read‑alouds—particularly Caldecott Honor books—to model core vocabulary, punctuation, and conversational turns, while simultaneously using her AAC device to model selected words. She introduces a vocabulary notebook derived from the Autism Helpers back‑to‑school set, detailing how she tracks and teaches school‑related vocabulary across four categories: school supplies, school verbs, school places, and school staff. For each category she aligns the words with LAMP Words for Life boards and shows how students connect the visual boards to their own AAC devices, progressing from picture matching to independent word selection. Winnie also highlights a 12‑Month Core Calendar from Creative Speech Therapy and the free NuVoice Pass software (PRC‑Saltillo) as tools for daily language modeling, allowing teachers to display icons and phrase prompts such as “I feel happy” or “Who are you?” throughout August. Throughout the presentation she emphasizes modeling, repetition, and student choice, encouraging teachers, SLPs, and caregivers to adopt these accessible, low‑tech and free resources to foster communication and belonging for AAC users in the new school year.
Chapters
Let's. Let's. Talk. Talk. It's. It's. Back. Back. To. To. School. School. Time. Time. It's back to school time. Hi, my name is Winnie and I am a teacher in an elementary self-contained classroom and I want to talk to you a little bit about back-to-school time. It is coming in just a couple weeks for me and for you. Some of you may have already started back depending on if you're year-round or if you come back in August, and some may even come back in September. But I want to talk to you about a few things that I like to do with my AAC users. First of all, I do have my own device. I do like to mirror it onto my screen. It's pretty simple. You literally just pull it down and you hit the mirror button and it connects right there on the board. Love that. So the whole group can see it whether they are AAC users or not. Easy way to make AAC very accessible to everyone in the classroom. My screen is also touchscreen, so I could have students come and interact with it as well. Read-alouds. Absolutely love read-alouds. Read-alouds about going back to school, about friendship, about belonging, because that's what I want my classroom to feel like a place where they belong. These are two older books. This one's called Yo! Yes! Love it because it's a Caldecott Honor book. I like a lot of Caldecott winners. And it has exclamation point, it has a question mark. I like that because it's a good way to talk about punctuation for those students who are used to it. It is also good because the words are very easy, very simple. So I can bring my AAC device and I can read at the same time as model. So I like to read either on the board using a digital book or in my hand and having the AAC device right in my lap. But yo, yes. I wouldn't model the word yo, but I would definitely model the word yes. And remember, yes. You don't have to model everything that you read. I'm gonna go quickly through it. These two boys, it looks like this one's a little shy. They're both a little shy, so it's perfect for back-to-school time. Yo, yes. Yes. Hey, who. Oh, I love that word who. That's in my question section, and it's usually talking about a person. Who? He's like, who are you talking to? He can't believe it, somebody's talking to him. You. You. Me. Me. These are two pronouns, they're right over here in my yellow section. You. Me. Yes. Yes. You. You. Oh, so see how that works? I'm not necessarily going to model every single thing, but I do want to model some words that hopefully the students themselves can use. I'm going to give you another little example with Play With Me. This is another Caldecott Honor Book. It's by Marie Hall Ets. It's an older book. But it has fantastic core words in it. The sun was up. And there was dew on the grass. And I went to the meadow. To play. Play. So a lot of this is just motor planning for me. I've done this so much I can pretty much touch the words Upside Down, just because in every read aloud I do, I am modeling 1 or 2 words and maybe even phrases, asking questions and encouraging my other AAC users to follow along and see if they can, if they can say the words as well. Another back-to-school activity I like to do is to have a vocabulary notebook that I keep track of each student. I haven't filled it out yet, but this is just my data sheet. I got this from the Autism Helpers back-to- school vocabulary set. I like to put each board with the words that go with it. So you can see, this is my school supply words. I feel like this is probably going to be the easiest page, so it will be one of the first ones that I do with them. I will have students matching if they can. If they are at level 1 and they just need to match the words, I would have them match the pictures and then we would talk about the words. Some students may be at a higher level and actually able to read the words. So I have the words here as well that they would go "pen" and find the word "pen" and match it. For AAC users, I'm also interested in them being able to connect the word boards to their AAC devices. So for the word "pen" or "tape" or "notebook," they're not just matching crayons, they're also going to see if they can go to their AAC device and find it, which of course I would have to model. Most, a lot of these school supply words for LAMP Words for Life are inside of the color section. And as you can see, here are the word crayon. This is the word I would teach them. This is crayons. So I would take the word crayon and just add an S. Crayons. Which means more than one crayon. This is actually my favorite one. It is school verbs. And the reason I like this so much is because these are actually core words. So I'm going to have them work on matching the pictures, and then I'm also going to make sure they know how to use those same verbs in their device. For example, the word color. So if we go to the word color, it's right there. The word look. Look. The word play. Play. Those are all these words right here in the School Verbs board, and I want them to know them as well. On their device. The next level for me, I believe, is finding school place words. This to me is a bit challenging and difficult, so it's great for them to have this type of skill to where we actually just talk about the different places. We find them on their AAC devices, like for example the word bathroom. I definitely want them to know the word bathroom. I would say live bathroom. Bathroom. And so that way they are able to tell me where they would like to go or where they need to go. Another level of words would be— well, this one to me is very hard. It's the school staff. But I love that idea of teaching the school staff to my students because I think that is so important because these are people that they see every day. And as you see. It includes the principal, the custodian, the occupational therapist, the speech therapist. These are people that they see each week. In my student's device, I actually have a folder under Follow that has the names of the students— I mean, the names of the teachers and staff that they may see, whether it's on this hall or in the computer lab or a custodian. I think that's important for them to be able to say and to greet. So I had just gotten this back to school, um, from the Autism Helper shop, and I was so excited to see this class vocabulary. I had never considered doing this before this year, so I'm excited to add this to my students' vocabulary practice. And you can see it's the different classes in LAMP Words for Life. You can find that under the word new. You would find language arts, science, math. So I'm excited to be able to help my students connect the different class vocabulary subjects that we do to actually their device as well. I have one more tip to share with you today. Back in 2022, I purchased a 12 Months of Core Calendar from Creative Speech Therapy in Teachers Pay Teachers, and I have really enjoyed this resource. I went in to and downloaded the software NuVoice Pass software. It's from PRC-Sotillo. It's free use for teachers and use for parents and SLPs to be able to model language onto their computers. Also, it is really awesome because you can download the icons. And so that's why I wanted to show you that is you can download this for free. It's called NuVoice Pass software. And as you can see, it will come right up on your computer. I'm— it doesn't have a voice, you have to use the voice yourself. I'm reading. So that just kind of gives you an idea of what it looks like. But the reason I like this so much is because it will allow you to download icons. So I'm going to show you August phrases and just show you how it looks in the morning when I'm doing my calendar, I may just do 1 or 2 phrases. For example, this morning I told the students, "I feel happy because when I came into school this morning, it was only 80 degrees and there was a light breeze and I was so excited. I feel happy." And I would also take my device and I would share, "I feel happy," I feel. I feel happy. Happy. I feel happy. And then another example might would be, I feel tired. If you come in at the beginning of the school year and you're not used to getting up that early, you may have to tell your teacher or your friends. You might have to say, I "Feel" and go to sleep and look for that word tired. "Tired." "I feel tired." These are just practical phrases for students to use throughout the month of August. Oh, I love this one. "Who are you?" And that is a great question as you're trying to learn the names of your friends. If we go to our question words, we can find that word who. It's usually talking about a person. Who are you? You. And then we can even add a question mark to that. You. Who are you? Who are you? These are just a few ideas of ways to use AAC in your classroom. I hope you have a good year. Year. Have a good year. There are lots of AAC tips right here in the Autism Helper YouTube channel.
