2008 MANY STORIES ONE VOICE ONLINE COLLECTION

The students of the Early Learning Program at the Niagara Peninsula Children’s Centre, Ages 3 -5, Canada

Click HERE to download the full story in Microsoft PowerPoint format.  

 

 

Background Information

We are the Early Learning Program at the Niagara Peninsula Children’s Centre School in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.  Our classroom is for children ages ___ to ___ with multiple needs. Teachers and Educational Assistants work with Therapists to provide holistic, natural teaching.  We run a morning and afternoon program. We use a total communication approach based on the kindergarten curriculum. We believe all children can and want to communicate. Many of our children are non-speaking and have (or are working torwards) an AAC system. Although some of children are speaking they all use graphics to support their learning and communication. Our moto at the NPCC school is to help, “children with special needs (be) at their best.”

 

The story

Although our children would not have the ability to produce a story completely independently we wanted to submit a story which was created by them, encompassing their individual strengths and abilities. Much of this story highlights emergant literacy  abilities  including phonological awareness, indentifying  alphabet letters by name, tracing letters, writing their name, exposure to print, participating in picture description, creating a text-to-self connection and exposure to the conventions of books/print.  We, of course, had to supplement the content to create a more readable story.