News You Can Use

Now is the perfect time start thinking about Summer Reading for your students to nurture reading for enjoyment, battle the summer slide, and establishing lifelong good habits. Yet, reading for enjoyment is often not first on the list of fun activities for our students who struggle with literacy. How do we, as educators, make sure our students have the opportunity to select reading as a choice?

You might already know the D.E.A.R. means Drop Everything and Read. But did you know that Beverly Cleary’s birthday is April 12 and a great way to celebrate her birthday is to D.E.A.R. on this day? Families are encouraged to spend 30 minutes reading on her birthday.

Do you know how Theodore Geisel got the name Dr. Seuss? While he was in college, he became the Editor-in-Chief of the school magazine. Due to some misbehavior, he was forced to resign. However, he kept writing for the magazine under the pen name “Seuss” and that’s how he got the name Dr. Seuss.

With winter and snow days upon us, celebrate International Book Giving Day by providing the book Granite to your early elementary school readers. Librarians can buy a copy of the book for the school library. Parents can get the book for their child. After obtaining the book, teacher can order an accessible version of the book from AIM-VA.

Anyone who's "read" a picture book can tell you that you don't need words to tell a story. Prereading toddlers and preschoolers can follow a story told in pictures, a parent or child can narrate the action, and the cozy, empowering experience can help kids develop positive associations with books.

We at AIM-VA know that many of the learning materials you use in your classroom are self-created. That is why we included the option to submit Curriculum-Based Materials to our Production site to have them made accessible. However, for those of you who would like to make your own materials accessible, the following video may prove helpful!

When I started teaching myself how to use VoiceOver, I often got very frustrated at how much of a challenge it seemed to be. There were moments where I fantasized about throwing my iPad out the window because I couldn’t figure it out, and I consider myself to be very tech-savvy. It wasn’t until I sat down and talked to some of my blind friends that I finally learned how to use it, and now I feel confident with using VoiceOver whenever I am having a bad vision day or find certain material hard to read. Today, I will be sharing how to use VoiceOver for Beginners, with limited technology skills required.

How exciting for our Virginia students that are headed back to school for a fun and successful 2018-19 school year. Students come to school with a variety of abilities. Educators are preparing learning environments to meet individual student needs. Meeting student’s individual needs can often be challenging. Consider these options when creating your accessible classroom.

The more relaxed schedule of summertime is the perfect time to nurture those habits of reading for enjoyment and establishing lifelong good habits. Summer reading helps win the battle of the summer slide which frequently affects students with print disabilities. Reading for enjoyment is often not first on the list of fun activities for our students who struggle with literacy. They choose the easy route to avoid reading. As educators, we realize there are many benefits to reading, but how do we make sure our students have the opportunity to make the choice to read?

William Shakespeare is a world renowned author of plays and poems that continue to influence readers today. It is believed that he was born on April 23rd. Many countries around the world use this day to celebrate and remember Mr. Shakespeare as one who continues to give to the literary world. He wrote stories of history, adventure, love, comedy, tragedy, and even fairytales. His use of language contains a variety of sentence structures, varied sentence lengths and use of metaphors; each, reading and writing features that our students learn and practice today in school.