Daily 5 Book Study

I've heard so much about Daily 5 over the past couple of years, that I finally bought the book.  I'm excited to follow the Daily 5 Book Study.  

This year I have had the wonderful opportunity to be part of a provincial pilot project - "Literacy for All". We had our final meeting on Friday.  At the meeting, it was announced that they have received additional funding to continue the project for 1 more year!  I super excited!  I feel like I am a much better teacher because of this project.  This year we used the resources "Meville to Weville" and "Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way".  These are fabulous resources and I think every special education teacher should have a copy of "Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way".  It's an AMAZING resource!!  It gives you ideas of how to adapt literacy instruction for my kiddos!!!  For the second year of the pilot project, we will be using "Daily 5" and "Cafe".  As a group of teachers we will be adapting and evaluating this resource for special education classrooms in our province!!!  I'm super excited!!!  The book study (listed above) came at the perfect time!!!  

First Blog Post Ever!!!

Welcome to my first blog post ever!  I thought I would start of my blog by introducing myself and my hopes for this blog!


My name is Kelsey.  I am married to a wonderful man named Brad.  We have a dog "child" named Morgan.

I am a special education teacher and I'm finishing my 5th year of teaching (only 22 more days until summer vacation!).  I am currently teaching in a self-contained special education classroom.  Actually all of my teaching experience has come from self-contained classrooms!  I love teaching with technology!!!  I am in the middle of my Masters in Special Education and my research is in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Assistive Technology (AT).  My hopes for this blog is to share my ideas for teaching children with significant needs through technology.

This year I have had the honour and privilege to be part of a "Literacy for All" pilot project.  Please visit our wiki!  This project has introduced me to 2 great resources.  First is "MeVille to Weville".  This resource was designed for students with significant challenges.  MeVille to WeVille provides these students with a balance literacy program.  It is based on the idea that all children can learning.  My favourite part of this resource is the "action dictionary".  This dictionary provides AT modifications.  MeVille to WeVille is broken into 3 units - "Me", "Family" and "School".  It provides students opportunities for lots of repetition!!!  I have been using it consistently for 4 - 30 minutes blocks a week and we are just starting the second unit!!!

The second resource is "Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way" by Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver.  This book is an adapted version of Pat Cunnigham's literacy program "4 Blocks of Literacy".  It provides ways to adapted the four blocks of literacy (Working with Words, Guided Reading, Self-Selected Reading, Writing) using both low and high tech. AT.  

I hope to share resources and files I have created for the 4 Blocks of Literacy over the next little bit!!