Do You Do This? Read Aloud Strategies You Can Use with Your AAC Users

The “word gap” is real. You’ve heard this before if you read this blog regularly.  In fact, here is a link to my post on the 30 million word gap.

The fact is that children who are not read to come to school with far less vocabulary knowledge than kids who are. And children with fewer words in their vocabularies understand far less of what they read than their peers.

Our AAC users are particularly vulnerable.  Far too often parents and teachers alike underestimate their nonverbal child’s interest in or attention to books.  And yet books are the perfect way to boost an AAC user’s vocabulary.

BUT - and I’ll bet you know what I’m going to say - they need a robust AAC system with lots of room for a growing vocabulary.

So, you’ve settled your AAC user down with a pile of good books, all based on his interests.  You’ve had him choose one to start with, and off you go.

Vocabulary needs explicit instruction.  Illustrations and context are wonderful for comprehension, but children often need explicit structured instruction for word meanings.

So, when you come across a new word, stop and offer a child-friendly definition, using the context and pictures from the story.  Talk about the word and its meaning. See if you can relate it to something familiar. Provide other examples. And try to use the word in other contexts, as well.

And don’t forget to find the word in the AAC system.  Where is it? What kind of word is it? Where does it belong and what does it relate to? Talk about its features as you determine whether it belongs with the describing words or the action words or….

We need to give our AAC users the opportunity to love books and to learn from them. We need to provide them every opportunity to learn what their peers are learning and say what their peers are saying.  Books are one way in.  Read. And….keep on talking.

You might also be interested in my post about teaching vocabulary in themes.