PCI Enviromental Print Program

We have begun using the new PCI Environmental Print Program in our classroom.  (We would have started soon but I made attaching all the Velcro and punching out the signs a vocational skills project!)

I am not sure when I have ever seen a curriculum program better meet the needs of my diverse students with significant special needs!

The program, which retails for $599.95, is an adapted and age appropriate English Language Arts Curriculum that uses stories about environmental print to teach both the signs and reading/listening comprehension.  The symbol set used is SymbolStix which is wonderful since we also use News-2-You, Unique Learning, Tobii Communicator and an ALT-Chat in our classroom and all of those use SymbolStix. 

The program includes:

• 160 scripted lessons (and the scripts are detailed but not overwhelming and perfect for having paraprofessionals take over a lesson)
• 16 Units each have a story book on two different levels detail
• 48 large signs (I mean LARGE)
• sequence cards and a retelling mat for each story
• activity sheets pre-printed and on a CD in PDF format
• home follow up activities
• 16 interactive map posters
• 16 unit assessments that assess the current and previous units
• teacher's guide
• cardboard storage box

There are a lot of great materials in that box.  A fellow special needs teacher and I opened it up and it was like Christmas morning.  First of all this is the most differentiated program I have ever seen.  All lesson instructions give two way to answer, speech or symbols.  There is a yes/no/maybe response board for students who need it and the option to have students point to separate symbols or those in the chapter book. The symbol cards and response boards large and colorful and I haven't needed to enlarge them for my low vision students.  (If you are keeping track so far students with vision and speech difficulties have been accommodated.) Every story is offered on two different levels.  (Check off differentiation for developmental issues.)

My favorite thing about the program is how it integrates life skills with standards based academics.  The stories are about safety and environmental print is taught and at the same time English Langauge Art standards are addressed through teaching about things like plot, characters and details in a very accessible way.

In fact, as of right now, I only have two complaints and they are so minor that I hesitate to mention them.  Really, you are going to laugh, my complaints are that the velcro doesn't follow the "Soft Stays" rules (always put the soft or loop side of the velcro on the thing which stays put like the communication board, the wall chart, the adapted book and the hard or hook side of the velcro on the thing that moves like the picture symbols or star for the star chart) and the symbols on some of the interactive map posters aren't in the same order as the character met them in the story.  I told you that you would laugh, I mean that's pretty petty!

If I were going to look for improvements I would like to see ways to integrate assistive technology more and my dream of dream would be that there would be communication boards for SymbolStix using communication devices (the Tobii, the ALT-Chat, the AMDi products).  It would be so awesome to just download boards for my students devices.  (Of course that is a dream of mine for Unique Curriculum too.)

It would also be nice if PCI's next endeavor was a math curriculum with all the same features as the Environmental Print Program. Then maybe a level two of the Environmental Print Program?

If you want to find out more you can check out the slide from the CEC presentation or  this video.

Weekly Reader Ablenet Edition

Recently I had an opportunity to sample Weekly Reader Ablenet Edition. Like News-2-You it is an adapted newsletter, however, unlike News-2-You it supports inclusion in that it goes along with the standard Weekly Reader that is mailed out 32 times a year to classrooms all over the country for the past 100+ years. This way students are doing the same topics with differentiationin instruction. Here is a sample.

Also like News-2-You you go online to download most of the content, however you do receive the regular, unadapted Weekly Readers in the mail each week (and an e-mail telling you when the adapted content is available).

The content of Ablenet Edition Weekly Reader is differentiated on three levels:

1. The first level is very basic, for learners somewhere between cause and effect and emerging conceptual/linguistic knowledge. It has full literacy symbol report and the selections on the page are large and uncluttered.
2. The second level is for students with some concept knowledge and working on beginning emerging literacy.
3. The third level is for learners who need a high interest-low readability text (about mid first to late second grade level).

In addition you recieve a teacher's guide with lessons for sensory, literacy and "day-fillers" (okay they need a better name than "day-fillers", especially since the activities are not busy work and areapproproiate thematic activities - perhaps they could be renamed "thematic activities"). Themeatic activities include lessons for community based instruction, recipes, games, interviews, surveys, web links and more. If you want to view the themes for each weekly reader you can download them from Weekly Reader. It would be possible knowing the Weekly Reader themes ahead of time to plan your curriculum with the Weekly Reader topics as a base.

It appears as if the Weekly Reader Edition 2 (second grade) and the Weekly Reader Senior Edition are available from Ablenet, however most of the themes of the are the same across all of the elementary levels (K-3) so you should be able to use the Weekly Reader Edition 2 from Ablenet with any of the Weekly Reader elementary editions for inclusion. Use the link above to check the Edition 2 themes against other additions to be sure. The elementary edition comes our 32 times a year and the senior addition comes out 25 times a year.

Both News-2-You and Weekly Reader Ablenet Edition offer support for assistive technology and AAC. Ablenet comes with guidelines for using technology such as a Big Mac, a Step-by-Step, All Turn it Spinner, iTalk2, Power Link and a Super Talker with the Weekly Reader content. (I wish I had all of those things, just last week on of the teacher I mentor asked to borrow my All Turn It Spinner and i had to tell her that not only do I not have one, I have never had one. I don't have a Super Talker in the room either.) These guidlines are super for teachers new in the intensive field and have no idea what a switch is or what to do with it. The advantage that News-2-You has is the Classroom Suite Activties that can be downloaded for each newsletter. Here's hoping that Ablnet adds Clicker 5 or Boardmaker Plus, or even Classroom Suite support to their offerings.

Like News-2-You, Weekly Reader Ablnet Edition aligns to state standards and allows you to easily match standards to activties and take data for Alternative Assessment purposed. With so many similarities the major difference between Weekly Reader and News-2-You is the normalization and inclusion factor. I read Weekly Reader in elementary school, my elementary aged family members read Weekly Reader, Weekly Reader has been a staple in American schools for years and now our students can take part too. (Note: there has been some online banter on listservs that Weekly Reader is not available outside the USA, including in Canada. I would call and check before ordering outside of the USA.)

A word about the symbol support. Ablenet uses JupiterImages and News-2-You uses Symbol Stix. The free newspaper (UK based) ELive from Symbol World uses Widget Symbols. As far as I know there is not an adapted newsletter using Mayer-Johnson Picture Communication Symbols. On my wishlist is for someone, maybe Ablenet, to produce an adapted newspaper with Mayer-Johnson Picture Communication Symbols and Boardmaker Plus content.