In this instructional video, Jen, a K‑1‑2 self‑contained special education teacher and blogger for The Autism Helper, demonstrates a practical, low‑prep strategy for integrating Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) modeling into a read‑aloud session. She outlines her classroom AAC ecosystem—primarily TouchChat WordPower 60 devices, a large core‑language poster, and extra AAC tablets for modeling—while noting free resources such as virtual backgrounds from TouchChat. Jen walks through the step‑by‑step preparation: selecting a book rich in target core words (she uses "It's My Turn" by David Belford & Elaine Field), identifying and marking those words (e.g., "my turn," "play"), and arranging students with their devices on the carpet. During reading, she models the identified words on her AAC or the poster, respects student autonomy by using a separate device unless permission is given, and incorporates additional core‑language buttons for advanced learners. She also offers low‑tech alternatives (static core‑language boards) for settings without AAC devices. Throughout, Jen emphasizes collaboration with a speech‑language pathologist, clarifies her non‑SLP role, and highlights the strategy’s scalability to general‑education classrooms, its minimal time demand, and its impact on student engagement, language, and literacy. She invites viewers to ask questions, share experiences, and explore further AAC strategies.
Chapters
If you have AAC users in your classroom, this video is for you. I am Jen. I am one of the bloggers here at The Autism Helper, and I run a K-1-2 self-contained special education classroom, and 90% of my students use AAC or alternative methods of communication. And AAC modeling and support is so important in the classroom, and so I want to show you how I turn a simple read aloud into an interactive modeling session, and it really gets the students participating and paying attention. So first things first, I most of my students use TouchChat. Not all of them, but most of them. And so I have a classroom AAC that has TouchChat WordPower 60 on it, and I also have a big giant poster. When I am sitting and I am doing a read aloud, I position myself right in front of this poster so I can easily point and follow along. Our Satillo rep was kind enough to give us this poster, and actually he gave us 3. So I have one in the sensory room, I have one here, and our speech path has one in her therapy room as well. But don't worry if you don't have access to a rep. They actually offer free virtual backgrounds. This can just be downloaded from TouchChat's website. It is fantastic. It's not interactive. If I push the button, it won't actually say the word. So for example, if I point to feel, it doesn't actually do anything, but it gives me a great opportunity to be able to model and use that core language board in my classroom. Plus, it's free, and I love a good free option. Speaking of free, our rep also gave us these. These are fantastic. When my staff model AAC, we try not to touch the student's device unless we have their permission. I have one student who does not want me to touch her device at all. She doesn't want us to show anything. That is her voice, and it is only for her to use, and I frankly love that. So we keep one of these or that extra AAC close by so we can model on that AAC and then she follows along. In full disclosure, I'm not a speech path. I just am a special ed teacher and my kids have pretty intense language needs. And so I've met with my speech path about how I can best support them in my classroom. And this is one of the strategies she suggested and it's worked beautifully. First things first, pick your read aloud. I chose It's My Turn by David Belford and Elaine Field. I love this book because it's teaching all about taking turns, and there's a lot of core language in it, and that's what I look for in a good read aloud. Plus, we are working on my turn. It is a 2-hit command on the AAC, so if I come up here and I see my, if I touch it, my, on that same button, once I touch it, it's going to go to turn, "Turn." So students hit that 2 times to indicate that they want to turn, and so we've been practicing this. "My turn. My turn." So now they can follow along and say "my turn" in the book. Another great core language word, "play," and "play" is going to be in this book quite a bit. If this is your first time doing this, your students don't really have a lot of opportunities with AAC, or you are just starting, pick one word to model, just one. Because my students have been practicing this and it's almost the middle of October, we're gonna work on my turn and we're gonna work on play. So I'm gonna go through the book and anytime I see it says my turn or play, I'm going to underline or star it just so that gives me an indicator that I need to be looking at the AAC and remember to touch that button as I'm reading. So it's just a visual cue for me, and it's also a visual cue for the student that that is one of their words. So you can see I found "play" and I underlined that. Here we go. Your turn. Getting close. Oh, look at this, my turn right here. And I'm just gonna keep going through and oh, look, my turn. And as I go through this, I'm gonna do this for the whole book. And as simple as that, I'm prepped and ready for my read aloud. Next thing, I'll have my students come and sit down on the carpet with their device. I will grab the book, We will start talking about the buttons that we're gonna hit, and we're gonna practice touching "my turn," and we're gonna read the title of the story, "My Turn," and we're gonna talk about how we take turns when we want to play. We're gonna practice pushing the play button, and then I'm gonna read the story. Every time I've got something underlined, I'm gonna model it on my AAC or on the board behind me. Let me show you what it looks like when I read the story aloud. I'm gonna read the story on the carpet and have the AAC right in front so you don't miss a beat. Also, because I've got some advanced students, I'm gonna be using up and down and your turn in addition to my turn in this read aloud. So don't be surprised if I hit extra buttons. It's my turn. My turn. "It's My Turn" by David Belford and Elaine Field. Oscar and Tilly found a playground. "Shall we play on the slide?" asked Oscar. "I'll go first," said Tilly. "I'll go now," said Oscar. "Not yet," said Tilly. "It's not your turn." "Wow! That looks like fun," said Oscar. Is it my turn now? Not yet, said Tilly. Tilly went round and round on the merry-go-round. Is it my turn yet? asked Oscar. No, said Tilly. I haven't finished. Tilly went round and round and round and round. I feel dizzy, said Tilly. Hee hee! cried Oscar. It's my turn now. You're too dizzy. This is fun! Woohoo! I feel better now, said Tilly. Can I slide after you? No, said Oscar. It's not your turn. Can I go on the swing after you? asked Tilly. No, it's still my turn! Get off, Tilly! shouted Oscar. It's my turn on the seesaw. The seesaw doesn't work, said Tilly. But when Oscar jumped on the other end, Tilly went up. Up. In the air. Then Tilly came down. Down. And Oscar went up. Up. Woohoo! And then Oscar and Tilly played together all afternoon. There you go. So low prep, so easy. It's just adding a little something that you're probably doing anyway to your read aloud, and even if you don't have access to an AAC and you want to support language in your classroom, use a core language board. Give your students core language boards. Let 'em point to the core language on just a stagnant board. There is nothing wrong with that. It is a low-tech and very low-cost option, especially because these can be expensive and not everyone has them. But it's important that we give our students the ability to have rich language and rich literacy opportunities, and what I love about this activity is that it combines the two. I have really done a deep dive this year about how I can better support AAC users in my classroom, and this is just one of the strategies that I'm using this year, but it has been a huge success. What I love about it is it takes very little energy from me to be able to prep it and to implement it, and that is a win for everybody, especially special ed teachers, because we are so busy. Also, what I love about this is that you could literally train a gen ed teacher to do this in a heartbeat. This does not take a lot of time, it does not take a lot of strategy, but they could easily be modeling this in their classrooms as well, which would be really cool for our kids to be able to push in for read aloud in a general education classroom and have literacy supported in a way that their communication was as well, which, gosh, the combination of all that, it just makes my heart happy. Again, I'm not an SLP, I'm just a self-contained autism teacher, who loves supporting language and literacy in my classroom, and the combination of the two, well, it doesn't get any better than that. So if you've got any questions or you want to see more ways that I am implementing AAC strategies and support within my classroom, let me know. Other than that, let me know if you try this and how it goes in your classroom. I cannot wait to hear from you.
