In this instructional video, special education teacher Winnie White, with 27 years of experience, demonstrates a suite of strategies for teaching reading to nonverbal students using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices. She begins by framing the challenge of nonverbal literacy and references the book Comprehensive Literacy for All as a theoretical foundation. The video then showcases four distinct resources: 1. The Accessible Literacy for All app on an iPad, where a student (Sandy K.) identifies letters by sound in a four‑choice field. 2. A one‑on‑one guided reading session using a Scholastic picture book, where the teacher leverages the student’s AAC talker to locate core and fringe vocabulary, spell words, and identify pronouns. 3. The Autism Helper curriculum (Level 1) for reading comprehension, language, and math, with activities that involve reading words, circling correct shapes, and practicing sight‑words for colors. 4. The uFly curriculum, adapted for nonverbal learners, focusing on phonemic awareness, encoding/decoding, and using board tiles to construct words. Throughout, Winnie models explicit prompting, visual‑motor pointing, and the integration of multiple curricula to create a flexible, non‑one‑size‑fits‑all approach. She concludes by encouraging viewers to read an article on the nonverbal reading approach and to explore additional videos on AAC integration.
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Have you ever had to teach a nonverbal student how to read? Well, let's talk about that. My name is Winnie White, and I've been teaching reading for the past 27 years. I'm currently in a special education classroom where we're self-contained students, grades 1 through 3, and I do have nonverbal students. So this has been a new challenge for me. Over the past few years, I have learned a lot about nonverbal reading approach and and have also based a lot of what I do off of the book Comprehensive Literacy for All. So in today's video, you're going to see some of those strategies being used with a variety of resources. In the following clip, you're going to see one of my nonverbal students utilizing the app Accessible Literacy for All. It used to be a printed curriculum, but now you can only find it digitally. It's a one-time purchase that we put on her iPad. It is wonderful in the fact that it utilizes nonverbal reading approach. This— it has several different aspects to the app, but in this video you're going to see the student identifying letters by their sound in a field of 4. Start our session.
I am going to say a sound. Listen to the sound, then look at the letters and point to the letter that makes that sound. Mm. Mm.
That's right, Sandy K. Good job.
You're right. Mm. As in mop.
Excellent.
I am going to say a sound. Listen to the sound, then look at the letters and point to the letter that makes that sound.
Oh, that was fast, Sandy Kay! For my nonverbal students, I really like to do a one-on-one guided reading lesson, and in this you will see me utilizing her AAC device to help her find items, whether they are core words or fringe vocabulary. I'm also asking her to do some spelling and some reading, showing me if I know she knows a word and she sees that word, I want to make sure I give her the opportunity to read that word for me. I am just utilizing something very simple like a Scholastic reader that I have purchased off of Amazon. All right, let's look at the book Backyard Babies. Backyard Babies by Lisa Charlesworth. Okay, can you point to the words as I read out loud? I see babies in my backyard. I see a baby bird. It is cute. All right, let's stop right there. What is that word, Sandy K? You see that word? Go to the— uh-huh, good. Oh, you want to talk about this first? Okay, so you can go to animals. That's right, you know it. Bird. Birds. Nice. And stop. I want to look at the words. This word right here, do you see that word? Go to— can you tell me what that word is? Go to look and can you find it? See. Uh-huh. Now before we— uh-huh. Before we turn the page, I want to see if you can spell that word. Say see. Very good, Sandy K. I love how you spelled it so quickly. Uh-huh. Touch the words as I read. I see a baby squirrel. Go to the next line. I touch the words at the next line. It is cute. Now before we go to the next page, I want to look at this pronoun right here. We have two pronouns, I and it. Can you find those pronouns on your device? Where's that pronoun I? Oh, you want to tell me about this? Okay, go ahead, tell me about that. I think that is in the woods. So go to "com" and "woods" and see if you can find that. Squirrel. Okay, now let's go to the pronouns like we talked about. Do you see that pronoun "I"? Can you find "I" on your device? Oop. I. Uh-huh, and now let's look at this pronoun. It. Can you find it on your talker? It. It. Nice, Andy K. For the next few clips, you're going to see samples of the Autism Helper curriculum. I have access to that, all different levels. This is one of my nonverbal students who is actually working at Level 1, so you're going to see some reading comprehension Level 1, you're going to see language Level 1, and then you're going to also see math Level 1. I'm constantly looking for ways to incorporate reading across all curriculum. Syndicate, let's do a quick review. You know this word, B-I-G, it's pointing to this triangle. That word is what? Can you read that word? Can you read that word? Uh-huh. So come, go right back. What is that word? Big. Exactly. That is the word big. But now, look at the directions. It says circle the one that is, ah, it's the little word big, but if you keep reading all the way through the word, you're gonna see it go from big to bigger. Bigger. That's right, bigger. So which bananas are bigger? That's correct. All right, let's review our shapes. Let's read each word. We have circle, square, diamond, triangle, star, and rectangle. And as you can see right here in our directions, it says color the correct shape. So you have to read the word. What is that word? Circle. You're correct. And you're going to color the circle. Excellent, Sandy Kay, reading the word. Now let's read this word. What does this say? Star. So that means you're going to color the star. Excellent job, Sandy Kay. Sandy Kay, we're going to circle the word in each sentence. So do you know this word? You have used it before when you've asked a question. It is a preverb. So let's see if you can read that word. So let's go to our preverbs. What does this word say? Can you tell me? May. It does say the word may. So we're gonna look at the sentence and we're gonna circle the word in each sentence. So let's touch the words as I read. May. You may go to the party now. Can you circle the word may? Very good circling. Sandy Kay, these are your sight words for colors, and it has the word and the color beside of it. And what I'd like for you to do is to read each word for me, please. What does that say? Can you read that word? Okay. What does it say? Read the word. Blue. Oh, they both start with B-L. You're absolutely correct, but let's look through the whole word. Ready? Take your finger and let's Let's look through that whole word. Bull-ack. What does it say? Hello. Excuse me. Oh, you're excused. It's okay. So can you read the whole word? Bull-ack. What does it say? Go to colors. What does that say? Red. Black. Very good, black. Now look at this word, and we're going to look through the whole word, and the color is going to give us a clue also. So ready? Read the word. B-l-u. What does that word say? Go to colors. Blue. Very good. Let's keep reading all of them. These words do not have the color beside of it, so you have to just look at the word and read all the way through it. What color is that, Sandy Kay? Green. Excellent reading. Look at the whole word. What color is that? Orange. Nice. In the following video clip, you're going to see a sample of a uFly lesson. UFly is a manual that I purchased after watching a professional development video from AAC in the Cloud by Kate Ahern. She was talking about the importance of spending time with your nonverbal students, teaching them how to encode and how to decode, and how that uFly is a great curriculum in order to be able to do that. She also took the uFly slides and she adapted it for nonverbal students. And so that's what you're seeing in this video is me using that in my classroom. Some of my students are nonverbal and some are verbal. Which letter says b-b-b? B. Nice. All right, Porter, come on up. Which letter makes the h sound? H. Oh yeah, Sandy K, come on up. Which letter makes the /n/ sound? /n/ sound. Awesome. Now we are going to add a beginning sound Um, we're going to change the word 'at' to 'sat.' Sandy K, how do you make the word 'sat'? What's going to go at the beginning of the word 'sat'? What do you hear at the beginning of 'sat'? What sound do you hear, Sandy K? "Sat." Uh-huh. Use your board. Use your tiles. Use your tiles. "Sat." Very good. So what we want everybody to do is I want you to check your boards. What do you hear at the beginning of "sat"? It should be an "s." "Sat." As you can see, teaching reading to nonverbal students is not a one-size-fits-all. You can use multiple resources, multiple curriculums in order to incorporate that nonverbal reading approach. I encourage you to read the article linked below explaining what a nonverbal reading approach is because once I read that article, it started to make sense how to use the different materials in my classroom. Also, check out our other videos showing AAC in action and other tips and tricks for ways to integrate AAC into your classroom.
