Introduction

Several of teachers from Regions 1 & 8 attended a summer institute in June 2011 with Karen Erickson and Dave Koppenhaver. Teachers received many ideas and resources including Patricia Cunningham's book The Teacher's Guide to theFour Blocks and Erickson and Koppenhaver's book Children with Disabilities:  Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way

After attending the week long institute, teachers began to implement some of the strategies they learned. They were also part of a book club studying, brainstorming and sharing ideas about how it's working in their classrooms.  Here are some of their thoughts over the course of the 2011-2012 school year.

Reflections from the institute

The following pages contain activities for the classroom generated by teachers participating in the Four Blocks book club.

1. Writing
2. Self-Selected Reading
3. Guided Reading
4. Working with Words
5. FAQs for the Four Blocks
6. Implementation of Four Blocks 

Literacy Units created by teachers

The Jacket I Wear In The Snow   pdf

The Jacket I Wear In The Snow  .docx

• created by Jackie Neidle, Chesterfield County Public Schools

Twilight Series  pbworks wiki

• created by Lisa Mann and Teresa Pena, Hopewell Public Schools 

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!  ppt.book to be used in conjunction with hard back book 

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!-Before/During and After Activities plus vocabulary and extended lessons created by the Literacy and AAC book club members

Leo the book of prepositions (shown by Melanie, free download from www.widget.com)

02 leo prepositions book.pdf

00 contents.pdf

01 prepositions story.pdf

04 leo missing words 2.pdf

03 missing words 1.pdf

Teacher recommended websites with tons of Four Blocks pre-made activities

NEW!  Caroline Musselwhite has a great series of short video clips about good literacy instruction. Check it out!

http://praacticalaac.org/video/literacy-for-all-a-series-of-videos-by-dr-caroline-musselwhite/ 

New! Check out David Koppenhaver's blog full of really cool resources for many content areas.

https://www.diigo.com/user/koppenhaverd

Cheryl Sigmon's website:  http://www.cherylsigmon.com/handouts.asp

Switch activities for the iPad http://www.helpkidzlearn.com/

Playing With Words 365- premade adapted books

Hubbards Cupboard- sight words; premade books with supports

Tarheel Reader- premade books that can be read on the computer or printed out.

Enchanted Learning-Books to Print has tons of topics and titles sure to meet any unit of study! 

Have Fun Teaching - an online resource with sight word songs and other fun ways to teach literacy.

Dr. Jean--a great resource for creating books from Dr. Jean’s songs to print out and include in your classroom library.

Make Take Teach Blog -Blog site that includes pre-printed cookie sheet mats for Working with Words activities.

Starfall and ABCYa –online educational games to enhance reading instruction.

Kiz Club - includes printable books, c-v-c readers and props for books found in the local library.

Reading a-z.com -an online resource with downloadable and printable materials to improve reading instruction.

Speaking of Speech- online resource for teachers and therapists to exchange educational materials and ideas.

ABC Teach -for educators and full of printable materials covering all content areas. Membership required for access to some materials.

Scribd –Printable c-v-c templates for stamping words.

Pinterest -Social media site that allows you to find and share educational ideas and organize your ideas on virtual bulletin boards.

Technology to support independent reading

Any Book Reader

Other resources

Scholastic book Hunger Games Tribute Guides- pictures and short stories about the background of the main story

• Stay tuned!

Unique Learning System  is a very comprehensive, digital and dynamic learning program that  contains montly units that can be downloaded.  Each unit has three levels of differentiated lessons.  The secondary level includes transition assessment information.  Lisa Mann at Hopewell High School reports that it's easy and fun to use and the students love it. 

Adapting Books A-Z - This document was revised by a teacher in Virginia and has links to many resources on the web that will help you to adapt books for your students.  It's nice to have everything in one place

What have you done differently as a result of the Literacy and AAC training?:

• Literacy is more comprehensive within the classroom
• Know and use more strategies to address challenging needs
• Guided Reading was easy because it was familiar
• Working with Words-hardest because it hard to figure out where to start--list of skills would be helpful.  Where to start and follow a sequence to know exactly what to teach? 
• Start with this first to build the Word Wall
• How do you teach Working with Words when students don't know ABCs?
• Sort letters by different fonts-two letter sorts and move to three letter sorts
• Bins with objects that match letter sounds-use the fastfood toys or miniature doll furniture. Hit the yard sales! Elementary school retirees or check eBay 
• Adding to the classroom library using premade books from the internet:  Joey's locker, Tarheel Reader