[Descriptive Transcript: Video opens with a title cover slide with text and images. Text: “2022 Collaborative Experience Conference November 3,4, & 5. For parents and professionals serving students who are deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing. The MN gov logo is on bottom left An image with a magnifying glass resting on the chalkboard tray next to a pile of colored pencils. Text on bottom right: “Supporting the whole child reboot”.]
[Video transitions to a zoom style set up with three video windows in a row.. From left to right: Susan Outlaw, Executive Director, Metro Deaf School; Dr. Susan Bruce, Professor of Special Education, Boston College; and the sign language interpreter. Text of names and title briefly appear on each person’s window before disappearing. Susan Signs while the interpreter voices.]
>> Susan Outlaw: Hi there, good morning. It's my pleasure this morning to introduce Dr. Susan Bruce. I am Dr. Susan Outlaw, and I'm the director of Metro Deaf School in the Twin Cities. I had the opportunity to -- it's a wonderful opportunity that Dr. Bruce is here today to talk to us about individualized and personalized literacy lessons using story boxes, experience books and authentic choice-making opportunities. It's a very interesting topic for us today. Dr. Bruce is a professor are special education at Boston College. She has over 35 years working with blind, deafblind and Deaf students with disabilities. I know all of us in the field see that population growing and we're trying our best to provide services to that group. Thank you, Dr. Bruce, for being here today.
[Susan Bruce voices while the interpreter signs. Susan Outlaw’s window closes and a slideshow appears in its place. Slide: “Creating and Implementing Story Boxes, Experience Books and Authentic Choice: Making Opportunities''. Decorative border of blocks in shades of brown, tans, and blue fill up the top half of the slide.]
>> Susan Bruce: Thank you so much for the lovely introduction. Welcome, everyone, to our session on creating and implementing story boxes, experience books, and I'll also be speaking with you about authentic choice making today. I see we had just a little bit of a problem with freezing, so I'll try to catch that. Let me.
[New Slide: “What is literacy?” Bullet list of text:
Traditional literacy refers to being able to read and write
Traditional literacy is achieved after one develops language (is linguistic), although receptive experiences with literacy begin early
Literacy lessons are an important context for communication to occur
Need expanded view of literacy that engages the prelinguistic learner and that builds communication and language through interactions with literacy.]
>> Susan Bruce: I’ll go ahead and advance the slide. So let's begin by thinking about what literacy is. So traditional literacy has audiology referred to the ability to read and write, and of course that would include writing in about Braille, and now we think about writing with technology. But it's referring to individuals who have achieved language. However, receptive experiences with literacy begin at birth, very early on in our lives. Literacy lessons are a very important context not only to build literacy skills, but upon which we can build communication skills across a lifetime. So in the field of deafblindness and DWD, Deaf with disability, we say that we need an expanded view of literacy that includes the pre-linguistic learner and that builds communication and language through the interactions we share over literacy materials. And some caught -- call, excuse me, this stage of development emergent literacy, a stage before you reach traditional literacy.
[New slide: “Classic Emergent Literacy Lessons”. Bulleted text below:
Daily schedule and calendar system
Read alouds
Shared reading
Story Boxes*
Experience Stories/Books*
Interactive Journals
Authentic choice making*
*Lessons addressed in this presentation (Bruce & Borders, 2015).
>> Susan Bruce: So when I teach at the University or when I give presentations I also -- I have often referred to something called classic emergent literacy lessons or sometimes I just say classic literacy lessons. So these are literacy lessons that I think every teacher should know how to implement with excellence. And they include the daily schedule and calendar system, it is not a transition tool alone, it is a literacy lesson when done correctly. Read alouds, which means the adult or more experienced reader is reading to someone with less experience as a reader. Shared reading, which is a form of interactive reading, story boxes, which we'll talk about today -- () -- experience stories, called experience books, interactive journals, and authentic choice making. And we'll be talking about experience books and authentic choice making today, which I differentiate from participating in a choice making routine.
[New slide: Goals of Emergent Literacy Lessons”. Bulleted text below:
Building relationships over literacy
Building shared attention and positive affect
Expanding communication skills, including key vocabulary, learning
representations, sequencing, turn-taking skills
Building literacy skills, including main idea, sequencing
Providing reading and writing experiences to prelinguistic learners
Building book handling skills
Providing active roles for the child (think self-determination).]
>> Susan Bruce: So what are -- what are our goals when we think about emergent literacy lessons? We want to build relationships over literacy. We want to share attention in very positive ways. We want the learner to have a positive experience in our interaction and to feel good about the experience we share with literacy materials. We need an expanded view of literacy and also we will work on expanding the learners' communication skills, including key vocabulary, their mastery of representations, and let me pause here, I'm using that word instead of symbol because some representations are iconic, which means that they very much resemble what they represent. And many of our learners who are prelinguistic are also presymbolic. We will be looking at working on sequencing skills and turn-taking skills. We will build more traditional literacy skills like the main idea. Perhaps we'll give a pre-linguistic learner two options for what the main idea is and we have already taught them a yes and no response, perhaps it's a gesture, a head nod, a headshake, perhaps it's a sign but they're not yet linking signs together, but that's one way we could address the main idea. We could address sequencing through the daily schedule as well as many other literacy lessons. We will provide reading and writing experiences to pre-linguistic learners, and for those of us in blindness and deafblindness, that could mean that we're going to write with objects. Maybe we will write with drawings. So we will think of reading and we will think of writing in broader ways. We will also build book handling skills. Which are very easily learned for people with sufficient vision, but need to be deliberately taught to children who are blind or visually impaired. We will provide active roles for the child. We want them to be excited about the literacy and we want to respect their identity and support them to build self-determination.
[New slide: “Literary Rich Environments 1”. Bulleted text below:
Home and school environments that are rich in a variety of literacy materials that can be accessed through different modalities
Think hearing, vision, motor skills, assistive technologies
Create opportunities for child to share literacy materials with more knowledgeable others, including other children
Create literacy centers or locations that are known to the child and that the child can access independently, if.]
>> Susan Bruce: You'll see me turning my head because I have to click another computer to move the slides, and that's why I'm doing that. So let's talk about literacy-rich environments. Oftentimes we think about materials, and indeed, a literacy-rich environment will be loaded with interesting literacy materials. We can think about the child's hearing, vision, motor skills, and the assistive technologies that may be needed to engage with the literacy materials. We will create opportunities for the child to share these materials with more knowledgeable others, which could be adults or children. We will create literacy centers or locations across environments such as home and classroom that are well known to the child and that the child can access independently. I'll show you an example of a storage area for experience books in a later slide.
[New slide: “Literary Rich Environments 2”. Bulleted list below:
Literacy rich environments provide a variety of literacy activities (teaching children about applications of literacy skills)
Evidence-based practice: Provide a literacy rich environment with hands on experiences to conceptually ground the literacy experiences.
(Ferrell, et al., 2014; Luckner, et al., 2016; McKenzie.]
>> Susan Bruce: Literacy-rich environments do more than just provide a wide array of materials, they provide a range of literacy activities that teach children about literacy skills. Providing a literacy-rich environment has been identified as an evidence-based practice at least in the field of deafblindness, and I'm sure in the other fields of interest to this audience. Experiences.
[New slide: Importance of Experiences”. Bulleted list below:
Experiences ground communication and literacy
Need to be mindful of reduction in observational learning and incidental learning due to deafness/hard of hearing, visual impairment/blindness or motor challenges
Experiences ground concept development and the acquisition of meaningful vocabulary.]
>> Susan Bruce: Experiences ground communication and language. And deafness, being hard of hearing, and blindness all impact your range of experiences and the nature of your experiences, and we must be mindful of that when we're working on literacy activities with children. So we want to think specifically about two ideas, observational learning and incidental learning. Sometimes people use those synonymously, but they actually are not precisely synonymous. Observational learning -- I see we're freezing a little bit -- let me pause. Observational learning is what you do through your sense of hearing, through your sense of vision, your distance senses. So you're just watching, you're listening and you're learning through vision and hearing. Incidental learning is learning that you -- that takes place when you're not having any specific intention to learn something. So you see, observational learning can be very intentional, you -- () () present a sign that you're going to then imitate. So you're observing and it's very deliberate. Incidental learning is kind of like learning that happens almost accidentally, you pick something up, or like maybe if you're a hearing person you overheard something, maybe even something you weren't supposed to hear, and you learn something from it. But you didn't enter that space or that context planning to learn something. So it was incidental. Experiences then ground concept development. And I should also say that socioeconomic status impacts the type of incidental learning, the type of experiences that you might have also. So it's not a disability-only concept to attend to. So when we're being culturally affirming in our practice, we would also concern ourselves with race and economics and think about the impact on experience then. So experiences ground concept investment which help us to understand literacy events.
[New slide: “Individualized and Personalized Literacy 1”. Bulleted list below:
Individualizing Literacy Lessons
Provide all of the modifications to the curriculum
Provide all accommodations required to engage in the lesson, including any assistive technologies
Included in the IEP.]
>> Susan Bruce: Excuse me. (Coughing). Two other concepts, individualized literacy and personalized literacy. Again, sometimes in the sensory areas we use these synonymously, and I really -- I've been on a mission since 2015 to get us to stop doing that. And that's largely driven by doing some reading in the early childhood field and seeing that all along they've been using personalized literacy and the field of Deaf blindness has been be using. So think about access then. The things that are recorded in an IEP that you need to provide for the child to be accessing and engaging in the curriculum.
[New slide: “Individualized and Personalized Literacy 2”. Bulleted list below:
Personalizing Literacy Lessons
Personalized literacy stems from early childhood literature
Literacy lessons about the child or adult’s life
LIVED EXPERIENCES
Critical to individuals with multiple disabilities due to reduced observational and incidental learning
Builds memories
Experience undergirds meaning-making
Personalized literacy is a culturally sustaining practice
(Bruce, et al., 2016; Bruce & Borders, 2021).]
>> Susan Bruce: Personalized means it's about the child's life. Their lived experiences. And again, this comes from the early childhood field. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this concept. When we personalize something for pre-linguistic learners especially, but also early linguistic learners, we help them to build memory. So often what we do is we share an experience, we co-construct a story box or an experience book, we read it with the child over and over again, and then we have shared memory over that experience. So we'll be talking a little bit more about that later. But this experience then helps them with memory building, it helps them with meaning-making during the literacy activity. And recently, when I thought about our lack of evidence for culturally sustaining or affirming pedagogies in the sensory areas, it occurred to me that when we engage in personalized experiences -- excuse me -- personalized sit is I about an individual's experience that is indeed a culturally sustaining practice that we can claim in our So think about lived experiences and how to represent those experiences in literacy.
[New slide: “Personalized Literacy and Cultural Sustaining Practice”. Bulleted text below: “Culturally sustaining literacy instruction is an asset-based approach that affirms multiple languages, literacies, and communication forms as strengths, not deficits” (Coleman, et al., 2022, p. 5.)
Literacy about the child’s lived experiences can honor the family’s culture and heritage
A story box or experience book about a celebration.]
>> Susan Bruce: And here's a slide on culturally sustaining practice or pedagogy. It is an asset-based approach that affirms multiple languages, literacies, and communication forms as strengths, not deficits. So literacy that honors the child's lived experiences can honor the family's culture and heritage and values. And while we can represent celebrations, we can just represent a daily tradition that is shared in that culture, it doesn't always have to be about a special holiday or celebration. So another key concept to keep in mind, first we had experience, as grounding literacy, the next one is saliency.
[New slide: “Key Concepts to Keep in Mind”. Bulleted text below:
Importance of experience to ground literacy
Saliency-selecting representations for what the individual
What was most important to them?
What drew an emotional reaction?
What held the individual’s attention?
How did the learner define the experience?.]
>> Susan Bruce: And this applies to the literacy lessons I'll talk with you about today. So saliency means that when we're sharing an experience, we really watch the child, we really pay attention to what they are excited about? What are their emotions? And it could be positive or negative. Because these more -- these stronger emotions actually help us to build memory. So we look for these things and then when we select something to include in a story box or experience book, we are honoring the child's point of view. So when we think about saliency, we are thinking from the child's perspective, and we are honoring that perspective in the literacy materials. So story boxes. This is the first of the lessons I'll talk with you about today. We're going to do three of them.
[New slide: “Story Boxes 1”. Bulleted text below:
Collection of objects used with either a commercially produced book -or-
Collection of objects used to retell a shared experience
Birthday party, trip to the park
Can be a frequent experience
Best if objects are collected with child.
Importance of saliency-what objects best represent what
is salient-most important/memorable to the child-watch]
>> Susan Bruce: So story boxes are a collection of objects, they could be things you collected after you watched for what interested the child and what excited them in a shared experience. Or they may be paired instead with the commercially-produced book. So these collections -- this collection then of objects can be used to retell a shared experience, like a birthday party, a trip to the park. It could also be something that you do every day. It could be like something like making a smoothie that you do every week. It doesn't have to be an exceptional experience that you do maybe once a year. It could be something that's more a regular part of the child's schedule. This is best if the objects that you collect for the story box are collected with the child. So we're honoring the child's voice and we're thinking about saliency. What objects best represent what is important or memorable to the child. So we'll watch where they spend their time. What are they looking at if they're visual? What are they listening to? What are they showing us an interest in through their body movements? What are they touching -- we're freezing a little bit -- and when they're touching, what are they spending the most time tactually exploring? Where is their interest?
[New slide: “Story Boxes 2”. Bulleted list below:
Selected objects are substitutions for illustrations
The objects support engagement
Story boxes support comprehension of the book.
Story boxes can support oral retelling of an experience
VARIATION: Storyboard-placing objects in sequence on a display board
(Bruce, et al., 2008; Cushman, 2016).]
>> Susan Bruce: We will select these objects basically as substitutions for illustrations if the child does not have sufficient vision to see enlarged illustrations. You may instead of using objects, you may create experience books using pictures and drawings. But story boxes are often used with objects, that's really their purpose. And often children who are sighted will understand the meaning of objects before they understand the meaning of pictures. So it works for children with a variety of characteristics. So these objects then support engagement. And story boxes support comprehension of a book when you're pairing it with a book. Story boxes can support oral storytelling about an experience that you may have shared with the child or perhaps they shared with someone else, maybe even in another environment, and a variation of a story box is a storyboard, which is a left to right sequence of objects, although it could certainly be pictures, if the child is ready for that, that are placed in the sequence that matches the story or the sequence of the actual experience that you shared in the past.
[New slide: “Story Box with Commercially Produced Book”. (ID on next slide.)
>> Susan Bruce: So this is a picture of a story box with a commercially-produced book. The hungry -- very hungry caterpillar. My description says this photo displays materials associated with the book, the hungry caterpillar. The photo features the book, a stuffed caterpillar, and fruits that the caterpillar eats in the story.
[New slide: “Story Box Photo Description 1”. This photo displays materials associated with the book, The Hungry Caterpillar. The photo features the book, a stuffed caterpillar, and fruits that the caterpillar eats in the story.]
>> Susan Bruce: I do want to give a reminder about not using miniatures with children who are blind or deafblind, because the representational power of a miniature is often coming through the colors used on the miniature, and so it will not be as clear to someone who can't see that color, and also miniatures like models are cognitively quite demanding for us. You'd be surprised how late young children learn to understand the use of a model or a miniature to represent something. So we always say to avoid them with children who are blind or deafblind, in case you're new to that population.
[New slide: “Book Cover for Story Box Book”. (ID on next slide.)
>> Susan Bruce: And here we have a book could have been for () -- pairing a story box of objects with a book. And this particular picture came from a research study I did in the teacher had quite a collection of story boxes.
[New slide: “Story Box Photo Description 2”. The photo is of the cover page from the book, Under My Hood I Have a Hat. The cover page has been removed from the book and mounted on a black background page. The photo shows a young child dressed in a red hooded coat with a yellow scarf. The child is smiling. The page has been laminated. Looseleaf rings are used to attach it to subsequent pages of the book.]
>> Susan Bruce: So the description is, the photo is the cover page from the book under my hood I have a hat. The cover page has been removed from the book and mounted on a black background page. The photo shows a young child dress in a red hooded coat with a yellow scarf. The child is smiling. And the page has been laminated. Loose-leaf rings are used to attach it to the subsequent pages of the book. So the reason this book was constructed, it was actually deconstructed and reconstructed, we can say, is because they were considering the child's vision and the color of the print against the background, the amount of information in the book as it originally appeared, and the reason it's on -- they're using rings is because they want it to lie very, very flat so that they can more easily sign about the book with this child who is deafblind or other children and they want to be able to encourage the child to turn pages, therefore mount being actual book page on a surface will give you a little more density and make it easier for a young child or anyone who doesn't have a lot of experience with book handling yet to turn the pages without damaging the book or without accidentally grabbing several pages at a time.
[New slide: “Pages - Adding tactile features”. (ID on next slide.)
>> Susan Bruce: And here's another page from the same book, where they're adding tactile features.
[New slide: “Story Box Photo Description 3”. This photo displays a page from the book, Under My Hood I Have a Hat. It is of a young child in a red cape with a bow. This page has been detached and then mounted on a black background. Textural elements have been added, including a felt red cape and a ribbon that is tied into a bow to represent the scarf.]
>> Susan Bruce: I'll read the description. This photo displays a page from the book under my hood I have a hat. It is of a young child in a red cape with a bow. This page has been detached and mounted on black background. Textual elements have been added including a felt red cape and a ribbon that is tied into a bow to represent the scarf. And of course the child can then feel that element. And this particular teacher had objects such as some of the materials involved in the storybook, so she might have the child practice tying a scarf on their own body as well.
[New slide: “Pages- separating text and pictures”. (ID on next slide.)
>> Susan Bruce: Here is another page that would be opposite a picture page, just to show you what a text page looked like. So they're separating text and pictures in this reconstructed book.
[New slide: “Story Box Photo Description 4”. This photo is of a page that was teacher created for the Under My Hood I Have a Hat book. The text has been word processed in white ink and mounted on a black strip that has been attached to a black page. The page is laminated.]
>> Susan Bruce: And the description is, this photo is of a page that was teacher created for the under my hood I have a hat book. The text has been word processed in white ink and mounted on a back strip that has been attached to a black page. And the page is laminated. And of course that's for durability. Now, the drawback of lamination is it creates glare. So this child has quite a lot -- quite a bit of functional vision, although she is legally blind, and so the laminate is less of a distracter for her, but for some children lamination can pose real problems with glare and interfere with their use of vision.
[New slide: “Storing Story Boxes”. (ID on next slide).
>> Susan Bruce: So the same teacher that developed that beautiful book or reconstructed book stored each of the stories -- books that she created in a blue bin, and in that blue bin were also the objects then that corresponded to the story, and then she had a line drawing and print to represent the name of the story.
[New slide: Storing Photo description.” This photo features a wooden storage system with four shelves. Each shelf holds bins that include objects that correspond to books. Each bin is labeled with the name of the story in print and a corresponding line drawing. A red bin is used as the finished or all done bin. A slant board is on the top shelf.]
>> Susan Bruce: And the description is the photo features a wooden storage system with four shelves. Each shelf holds bins that include objects that correspond to books. Each bin is labeled with the name of the story in print and a corresponding line drawing. A red bin is used as the finished or all done bin. A slant board is on top the top shelf. So the slant board is used then to create optimal viewing for this child, and the idea of always using red for things that are associated with stop and finish makes it easier for children to understand. So this particular teacher used a larger red bin for placing objects in when they were handling things in other lessons. So children associated red with all done.
[New slide: “Implementing Story Box Without Book”. Bulleted list below:
Call up the memory: “Remember X?” (the name of the story box-which you can have in print, braille, or picture on the box)
Allow time for learner to pull out objects
Consider sequencing them, using language like, “first”…
Discuss what child liked and didn’t like-remember the power of emotion to memory
You may integrate movement-reenactments
Support child to put objects in “all done; finished bin”
You might support other types of literacy-such as drawing about the experience.]
>> Susan Bruce: So when we implement a story box without a book, first we'll call up the memory. Remember whatever it might be, remember going to the park -- () (frozen Zoom screen). -- park, for example. We allow time for the learner to pull out the objects from the bin. We consider whether the child might be ready for some sequencing and some language like first and then or first and next or first, second, third. We can talk about things that are emotional, which the child will love. And when I say talk, I also mean sign, of course. Any form of communication. We can communicate then about what the child liked and did not like. Put something things that the child didn't like in the story box is a good thing. They'll remember those things. You may integrate movement and re-enact some things you did during the experience. Did you know our earliest intentional communication are motor reenactments, which means we re-enact or reproduce a motor act from an experience we shared with someone else. It's a very powerful idea, for those very early intentional communicators. We will also help the child to use the all done or finished bin, and I like to choose all done or finished according to the term the family prefers.
[New slide: “Implementing Story Box with Book” Bulleted list below:
Introduce the title of the book while showing book to learner
Provide ample time for child to explore the related objects before reading-naming/signing object
Read book and possibly offer opportunities to handle objects and relate object to book, but consider the impact of breaking up story
Have child place objects and book in ”all done/finished
bin”-possibly naming objects again.
Other ideas?.]
>> Susan Bruce: You can also support drawing with the child to build on experiences. So thinking about implementing story boxes with a book, we would introduce the title of the book while showing the book to the learner, we would provide time for the child to explore the objects, we would then read the book and here's where you have to make a decision. I have seen it done both ways quite well. Some people stop as they read the book and connect to each of the objects in the book. Others like to read the book and then maybe read it a second time, stopping to handle the objects. So it's tricky when we're incorporating it that we don't interfere with the flow of the book, right, so that this child sees the connection of one idea to another. So you have to make a decision about that. And probably the motor skills of the child would play a role in that. So how much time will it take to handle the object. So those are instructional decisions based on your expertise of a specific child. And again, we'll use the all done bin.
[New slide: Resource: Paths to Literacy”. (ID on next slide.)
>> Susan Bruce: This next slide is about the paths to literacy website. So it's a resource.
[New slide: “Paths to Literacy Photo Description”. This photo features the Paths to Literacy website. It includes an image of a girl sitting with an adult in front of a tangible schedule.]
>> Susan Bruce: And the description is this photo features the paths to literacy website. It includes an image of a girl sitting with an adult in front of the tangible schedule. Which is a schedule usually with objects.
[New slide: “Roles of Team Members”. Bulleted list below:
General educator
Informing others about the curriculum and materials (to represent in story boxes); integrate story boxes into shared reading
Special educator, therapists, and parents
Create and share readings of book and story box
Make duplicates of some story boxes-to share across settings.]
>> Susan Bruce: So when we think about our roles as team members, the general educator needs to keep everyone informed about the curriculum and the materials they are using. The special educator, therapist, and parents can create and share readings of these books and pair them with the story boxes. And maybe the school could make some duplicates of story boxes so the child could have one at home and one at school for a given book.
[New slide: “Experience Books 1”. Bulleted text below:
Individualized and personalized (about the child’s lived experiences)
Best if created with the child
May use objects, preferably collected with the child during the experience (ex: candle from birthday cake)
Think SALIENCY-what is most important, what stands out about this experience-from the child’s perspective.
Watch child’s affective responses. What they touch and engage with.]
>> Susan Bruce: All right, let's move on to the second lesson, experience books. Remember then that these are both individualized, so, for example, you would want the print to be large enough or perhaps you would want to be using objects, but we like to also pair the use of print so that adults will say something similar. So even if the child does not see the print, we often put the print there just to help to have consistency across adults. It's personalized because it is about something the child actually experienced. These are best if they are created with the child. And ideally, if they're created with someone who had the experience with the child. So a shared experience. Hopefully you will have collected objects to represent the experience while you're having the actual experience. So at a birthday party, if if the child showed interest in candles, even if the child tried to touch a lit candle, that could be memorable, and then a simple candle from the birthday cake at the end of the party makes a wonderful representation to -- () -- so we're going to remember the concept of saliency, what is most important; what stands out about this experience from the child's perspective, not our own. And if we're a hearing-sighted person, we really need to not let our distance senses dominate our point of view and be a student of the child, object the learner. It may be an adult, and pick from their perspective. It's so important. What we see and what we hear may not be important at all to the child. The main point to us may not be the main point to the child. So watch the child and watch their emotion, watch what they touch, watch what they engage with for the longest period of time.
[New slide: “Experience Books 2”. Bulleted text below:
Think about key vocabulary to feature in experience book
Label in print or braille-to support adults to say the same things when reading the book with the child
Can use pictures and line drawings
These personalized books will trigger memories.
Sharing in environments other than where the experience occurred will support distancing.]
>> Susan Bruce: We will think about key vocabulary to feature in the experience book. And again, we'll label in print and we may also for some children be labeling in Braille. Even if they don't yet know a single Braille letter, if they may be a Braille reader in the future, they need receptive opportunities and you can help them make a connection between the Braille on the page and the object on the page. We can use pictures and line drawings for children with sufficient vision. These experience books will trigger memories and help build memory. Sharing in environments other than the environment where the experience occurred will help them to build something called distancing. So in order to become linguistic, to have language, it is not enough to just understand abstract representations which we call symbols. You must also have achieved distancing, which means you can share about something that happened in a different environment with different people, in another environment with other people, and at a different time. So it's differences in time and space and people. And you must be able to bridge those in order to become linguistic. It's really a function of cognition that underlies language and flexible thought.
[New slide: “Experience Books 3”. Bulleted text below:
Child increasingly assumes more responsibility for writing and reading
Store them where the child may locate them (for independent reading time), although you may save some for shared reading only
(Bruce, et al., 2008).]
>> Susan Bruce: The child when you're sharing experience books will increasingly assume more responsibility for the writing and the reading. And you can store them in a place like you saw with the books I showed you a minute ago in the photo, you can store them where the child can find them. I just recently concluded a longitudinal study on a boy I studied at four years, eight years, and then at 21 years, and his mother said he still enjoys going back and looking at some of those early stories. It's a curiosity like ‘what did I enjoy when I was little’ kind of thing. So kind of like we enjoy looking at pictures of ourselves, perhaps, in a photo album, these experience books can share a similar function.
[New slide: “Sample Pages from Experience Books”. ID on next slide.]
>> Susan Bruce: These are sample pages from an experience book, I pulled this off of the internet.
[New slide: “Experience Book Description”. The left page incudes two cellophane bags that can be unzipped to handle the contents. One bag is filled with popcorn kernels. The other is filled with popped popcorn.]
>> Susan Bruce: So the left page includes two cellophane bags that can be unzipped to handle the contents, which is nice, but make sure the contents are safe. One bag is filled with popcorn kernels can could be distinctly unsafe for some children. And the other is filled with popcorn that's already been popped.
[New slide: “Sample Page from Experience Book 2”. ID on next slide.]
>> Susan Bruce: This is a sample page for an experience book from one of my research studies. It's a page about a walk that the teacher took with the child.
[New slide: “Description of Book 2, Sample Page 1”. This page displays text with a small rock glued to the page.]
>> Susan Bruce: So there's a small rock glued to the page with some text.
[New slide: “Another Sample Page from Experience Book 2”. ID on next slide.]
>> Susan Bruce: And then we have another sample page from the same book, the text says "we walked some more and saw trees."
[New slide: “Description o f Book 2, Sample Page 2”. This page include hand written text and a small branch with leaves attached.]
>> Susan Bruce: And the description reads, this page includes handwritten text and a small branch with leaves attached. So the child and teacher gathered what interested her on the walk, came back together, glued it to the page, agreed on text, this child was able to contribute to the selection of text for her books, because she is literate, but still enjoyed experience books very much.
[New slide: “Birthday Book Page”. ID on next slide.]
>> Susan Bruce: Here is a different page called the birthday book page, and the text.
[New slide: “Description of Birthday Book Page”. This page includes one sentence of text. Under this appears a birthday candle mounted on black background, which has been attached to the page.]
>> Susan Bruce: It reads "I celebrate my birthday." And the description of the birthday book says this page includes one sentence of text. Under this appears a binge day candle mounted on black background which has been attached to the page. So this is all very durable for the child. And of course that candle representation is only a good one if that specific child showed interest in that.
[New slide: “Covid Experience Book”. ID on next slide.]
>> Susan Bruce: This next picture was taken from the internet, an experience book somebody wrote about COVID. I bet a lot of teachers wrote experience books about COVID. And the description reads,
[New slide: “Covid Experience Book Description”. The left page is a photo of a student wearing a face mask. The right page is a mask affixed to the page.]
>> Susan Bruce: the left page is a photo of a student wearing a face mask. The right page is a mask affixed to the page. So the idea with these experience books that have objects is that you could handle the object again, right? And you do want to watch about the quality of construction and any interference that the glue might present,
[New slide: “See Resources at Paths to Literacy”. ID on next slide.]
>> Susan Bruce: because it may feel like it's kind of part of the object, if you're not careful with the glue and I know that's tricky when you're constructing with a child that might be squirmy and causing you to have some mishappens with the glue, so you have to make good judgments about that. This is another resource for you on this slide from the paths to literacy. It's called the tactile experience book.
[New slide: “Book Description”. A photo of the cover of the Tactile Experience Book appears.]
>> Susan Bruce: So it's literally a photo of the cover of that book.
[New slide: “Implementing Experience Books”. Bulleted text below:
Use in context of shared reading-taking turns reading in whatever way the learner expressively communicates
Consider pre-teaching and reviewing vocabulary in the book
Take your time-the learner needs to look and touch the representations on the page and think about the content
Read the labels/narrative on the page-these ensure that adults will say/sign the same things. Give opportunities for child to do same.
Teach book handling skills-being careful with books, turning pages, putting them away appropriately
>> Susan Bruce: So then thinking about experience books, we use them in the context of shared reading where we're taking turns with the child, reading in whatever way this learner can express communication. We will consider pre-teaching and reteaching or reviewing vocabulary in the book. And naming objects, perhaps, in the book. We will take -- we're freezing -- we will take our time. The learner needs to look and touch the representations on the page and think about the content. Let's remember for blind learners and some deafblind learners as well that when they're experiencing an object tactually, they are cognitively constructing a whole, W-H-O-L-E, from the parts that they touch. So that's another reason to give them some time to make sense of this. It's much more cognitively demanding than how we learn through vision, which is whole to parts. We will read the labels and narrative on the page and give opportunities for the child to do the same. We will teach book handling skills like being careful with books, turning pages, putting them away appropriately.
[New slide: “Roles of Team Members in Implementing”. Bulleted text below:
General educator or paraeducator
Sharing key events from inclusive setting (for a page or an entire experience book)
Attending to key vocabulary
Special educator, therapists, and parents
Co-creating pages or experience book with child/adult
Shared reading across contexts.]
>> Susan Bruce: So when we think about team members, the general educator or the para or intervener might share key events from the inclusive setting that could become a book or a page in a book. They can suggest key vocabulary that will be repeated over time in the classroom. And then the special educator, therapist and parents can create pages or books and engage in shared reading. And of course the general educator could also do that if she had the time to do so.
[New slide: “Components of Self- Determination”. Bulleted text below:
Self-awareness
Self-regulation
Problem solving
Goal setting & attainment
Choice-making*
Decision-making
Self-efficacy
Self-advocacy (Wood, Fowler, Uphold & Test, 2005).]
>> Susan Bruce: All right. So thinking then about our next -- our third lesson on literacy, which most people don't consider literacy, but I decide in my old age I'm going to call it a literacy lesson. So I want to introduce self-determination. So the components of self-determination are self-awareness, self-regulation, problem solving, goal setting and attainment, choice-making, which we're going talk about today, decision making, self-efficacy, and self-advocacy. And, yes, we can work on most of those with pre-linguistic learners.
[New slide: “Parent Ratings of Self-Determination Components”. Bulleted text below:
Parents rated these three areas as being of highest importance:
Self-awareness; knowledge of self
Choice-making
Problem solving
(Carter et al., 2013).]
>> Susan Bruce: Parents in a study by Carter et al. said that most important to them was that their child work on self-awareness, including knowledge of self, choice-making, and problem-solving. Those were the components of self-determination they particularly valued for their children.
[New slide: “Why is choice-making a literacy lesson?” Bulleted list below:
Involves representations, including symbols
Involves listening
Involves sequencing of options
Communication undergirds choice-making
Choice-making may also be embedded when co-constructing daily schedules/calendar systems, story boxes, or experience books.]
>> Susan Bruce: So choice making as a literacy lesson then. It involves representations, I'm justifying the way I call it -- () -- so it involves representations, which may include symbols, it involves listening if you have hearing, it involves sequencing of options, it involves communication and building communication because communication undergirds choice making. It can also be embedded into lessons or activities like daily schedules, setting up the daily schedule together and offering a choice. It can be embedded in story boxes, experience books are really just about anywhere in the day. But make sure that what you're offering as options are interesting to the child.
[New slide: “Choice-Making Vocabulary”. Bulleted list below:
Options: What we offer as possibilities
Representation: The icons or symbols we use to represent the options
We might use the actual objects if it is a choice of objects
Selection OR Indicating Response: How the child will make the selection of the preferred option (take, touch, point, look at…).]
>> Susan Bruce: So getting to that word then, some vocabulary. Options are the -- () -- things we offer as the possibilities. Sometimes we call them choices but they're actually options. We're freezing. So the options are what we offer as possibilities. The representations would be the icons object the symbols we use to represent those options. And we might use an actual object if it's a choice of objects, like holding up two objects. The selection or indicating response is how the child will let us know what they prefer. And that might be obvious like reaching and grabbing, it could be pointing, it could be leaning forward toward. I even saw a child make a selection of a food choice he surprised us a lot he leaned forward and he licked it, not ideal, but it was pretty clear communication.
[New slide: “Authentic Choice-Making” Bulleted list below:
Background knowledge & understanding the meaning of options-Ground in experiences
Knowing the representations for the options
This is not the time to teach the meaning of a representation
Offering options at different levels of preference Indicating or selection response that is efficient for individual (Shevin & Klein, 2004).]
>> Susan Bruce: So I like to differentiate between participating in a choice-making routine and really authentic choice-making. We do not fool parents all when we say your child selected such and such. Parents know whether they're child is actually making meaningful choices or not. So what do you need to know to make an authentic choice or selection? You need the background knowledge of the options. You need to know what they are, and that's grounded in experience. You need to know the representations for the objects. This is not the time to teach the meaning of a representation. For example, you don't want to hold up a line drawing that you're not certain the child understands because then it's not truly an option. We want to offer options at different levels of preference. Make sure something is preferred in that particular time, because we can overdo our use of preferred representations too or experiences. The indicating or selection response must be efficient for the child.
[New slide: “Authentic Choice-Making cont.” Bulleted list below:
Taking care with number of options presented and for how long and where in visual field
Be consistent with receptive vocabulary
Child “gets” what is selected, possible new opportunity if error
Note: Systematic preference assessment can be helpful to planning the options to be presented in choice-making routines.
Note: Children with more extensive support needs may change their preferences more frequently and their preferences may be context dependent.]
>> Susan Bruce: We have to take care with the number of options that we present and we want to present them for an appropriate length of time. So we want to think about visual latency for the child. We want to be consistent with the vocabulary we use. And when the child makes a selection, they get what they selected, let's not rescue them immediately if we think it's an error. Let's also not leak clues, like if it's a selection of two things, let's not wiggle the one we think they want, let's be even then in how we present the options. And then if we engage in stat mat -- systematic preference assessment we can then move forward into re-ensemble force or testing as well. So children with more expensive support needs you might be interested and surprised to hear, even though we have examples of things they might have loved for 15, 20 years if they're adult, overall they actually are prone to changing their preferences more frequently and also being or context dependent. And I've seen that with my own daughter. Someone kept telling me her favorite restaurant -- oh, I better not name it on film -- but it was a particular restaurant that she would never go to with me. And over time I understood then, okay, her favorite thing with this person is this, because the other person kind of likes that. And she's very relational. But with me, she chose the more expensive restaurant, I didn't particularly want to go there, but she knew she could get me to do it, and she knew that I would break the crab legs and it was hilarious watching how hard I would work to please her, right? So we're relational and that can drive anyone's choices. We all do this.
[New slide: “Choice-Making and Team Decisions”. Bulleted text below:
Size of array-one at a time, pairs
If pairs-side by side or top and bottom
Consider where to present in learner’s visual field
Consider adult vocabulary
Duration-How long will you present the option(s)?
Pause-How long should you pause between presenting options?
Not leaking clues-watching adult body language
The learner gets what they select. If it seems to be incorrectly selected, pause a bit, and then reoffer choice-making opportunity.]
>> Susan Bruce: All right. So choice making and team decisions. You have to decide will you offer the options one at a time, in pairs, how will you do it. Well, the pairs paired options be side to side or top and bottom? Where do you present the options in the child's visual field? Ask your teacher of the blind and visually impaired for advice. Choose your vocabulary carefully and be consistent. Decide how long you should present it, again, we're going to think about vision and cognitive processing. You must develop a consistent pause length of time between options. And don't leak the cues or the clues. And, again, they get what they select.
[New slide: “References 1” with a list of references, followed by three more slides of reference lists.]
>> Susan Bruce: And the next slides are then the references for the presentation. One or two have links, I believe. I think there's four pages of references. So I think the remained dear of our time could be spent -- remainder of our time could be spent on questions, if there are any. I'm going get a sip.
[Slideshow closes, and Susan Outlaw’s window pops up.]
>> Susan Outlaw: Yes, that was some wonderful information. Wow.
>> Susan Bruce: Thank you.
>> Susan Outlaw: There have been already people asking about more information on where they can download this, where they can get the PowerPoint. We do have one question that said you advocate for the experience books, and you mentioned Braille. Do you also support the black and white drawings of signs? For example, the borders -- so the board makers, it's the software that is used.
>> Voice: Syracuse Syracuse yeah, all right –
>> Susan Outlaw: Do you support things like that, cutting out those pictures and putting it along with the object in the experience book?
>> Susan Bruce: The answer is this relates to individualization or individualizing. So we use whatever is appropriate for the child. So just like the Braille could be paired with the object and for a long time maybe the child understands the object and that calls up the memory, but the child doesn't yet read print or doesn't yet read Braille depending on what their needs are, the same could be true with a line drawing through like a board maker program. But line drawings are more abstract and require a different cognitive effort to determine their meaning than a picture or a photograph, although photographs and pictures may be more cluttered and be more visually demanding. So you have to consider each child and do what's appropriate for them. So I have nothing against line drawings. One of the negative examples I use is that oftentimes people attempt -- we're freezing -- give it a second or two. My problem with line drawings would be the same as the problem with print or Braille. If you only use those and did not pair them with an understandable form to the child, or mode to the child, then the child really wouldn't be making a choice, right? And people do that a lot. They hold up two line drawings and then when you ask them they can't reassure you that the child really has an understanding of either one. What I'm saying is that's not a choice then. It's not authentic choice making. It's pretty -- it's kind of disrespectful, actually, to be honest about it. But the same thing would happen if I held up two print words and the child didn't understand them, so it's nothing specific to line drawings. So it's selecting what is comprehensible to the child. I'll tell you, I greatly believe that you can pair a more cognitively simplistic form or mode of communication like an object with something that's more complex, and you can fade out the more simple over time. And what you'll see, and I've captured it on film and could even send you to an example of that, you'll see the child touch the one and touch the other. So they get in the beginning there's some kind of something shared there. And maybe it's because they hear the same word, if they have sufficient hearing, but they make -- or because of the sign that was used, whatever the reason is, so they get an association, sometimes for years, before they can read that Braille alone, right? So it's up to the individual child and your expertise as the parent or educator to pair these correctly. Just make sure there's something that the child already understands on the page.
>> Susan Outlaw: Yes, absolutely. I think that's a perfect example. We do have another person who asks: What are the best topics to pick for experience books? And how do you decide what to pick?
>> Susan Bruce: It's a great question because you don't want to overdo it. I taught this to one team and the next thing I knew they were doing experience books about just about everything. That's too much. It's too much. So pick things that were exciting or emotional for the child. One time I was on a camping experience and something who is deafblind, a learner, he had a habit of taking off his shoes and he threw it down a latrine, and it was one of those nasty ones without a flush feature for those of you that remember rest areas, and it was probably the only time in his life that he couldn't get back something he threw, right? And then we were stupid teachers, you know, empty-headed and all of that, because he had a fair number of signs, but he didn't like that we couldn't go down there and get it back, and that wasn't going to happen. So, you know, you consider something like that, do you want to include that in a book and then risk the student being angry? But how could you not? Because probably a camping experience where something like that happened, that's the most memorable thing to the child. So we honor the child by representing what's memorable to them. Another example I gave is I thought I carefully planned a set of activities for a young child that came do my home and one of the things she did was at that time I had some little decorative soap and she took a bite out of the soap, I guarantee you, she will never forget Susan's house and the soap. And I never put out little soaps after that, and the fragrance drew her in and she took a taste, natural, right? So, yeah, mom and I had to put that in a book, because that was salient, it was more important to her. So watch what they attend to and watch their emotion. And it can be something you do every day in the child loves it. If it's making cookies and they love it, do a book on that. If it's a celebration, you can do that. The only thing that's a little dangerous is that if it only happens once in a blue moon, that could be disappointing if you're sharing a book about it and it can't happen again, you know, so you have to know your own kid, your own learner and choose accordingly.
>> Susan Outlaw: Another educator asked, are there any grants or any funding or support available to help make deafblind materials or to order some premade deafblind materials?
>> Susan Bruce: Okay. So for any child that's visually impaired, blind, or deafblind, if they qualify they should be on the national registry, which makes them eligible for quota funds to the American printing house for the blind, and I think you'll find some materials that will help you, but other than that, I'm not aware of grants. But these can be very, very low cost. The field of deafblindness also has state deafblind projects, so you could also contact them and ask to – them if they're having any workshops on preparing these where materials might be provided or you might make such a request. Some states offer like a family weekend and wouldn't that be a great opportunity to have some wonderful experiences and then create an experience book.
>> Susan Outlaw: And then I think this is going to be our last question, so lots of people commented that you were talking about video. And they would love to see some of the videos that you were talking about. How would they be able to access those?
>> Susan Bruce: Okay. So I have a lot in my collection because I'm an active researcher. But an easy thing to refer you to would be the national center on deafblindness, and if you look up -- and I have permission to use his name, Colby, he's the learner I did the longitudinal study on, his mother gave us permission to put some videos that were used in research and that appeared originally in an online journal that no longer exists on the NCDB website. So you can see him at four years and eight years, and then I just studied him again at 21 years. And then we have other videos that I ruse when I consult with various districts and so forth. Some I can share and some I can't share. But that would be a good place to start with.
>> Susan Outlaw: Wonderful. And really everyone is raving in the comments about your presentation. So thank you, thank you so much for all of this and there's so many children in the state of Minnesota and elsewhere in the U.S. that really benefit from this information.
>> Susan Bruce: Well, thank you, it's my first time doing something for Minnesota, so I'm pretty happy about that. My home state is Michigan, not too far away.
>> Susan Outlaw: Yes. Just next door. You're very close.
[Susan Bruce’s window closes while Susan Outlaw’s window shifts to the right side while a slideshow reappears with a QR code on right and text on left: “Individualizing and Personalizing Story Boxes, Experience Books, and Authentic Choice-Making Opportunities. Evaluation link (link underneath). Presenters: Dr. Susan Bruce.”]
>> Susan Outlaw:I know some people would like the CEUs, so we do have that up on the screen now. And we also have the link typed in the chat box. So that is made available to you as well. If there are any questions please remember to put them into the chat. I will continue to monitor that. Thank you all so much and have a good day.
[All windows are replaced by a slide with a photo of an apple next to a magnifying glass and colored pencils on top left corner, and another photo of a pile of stacked books on bottom next to the mn.gov logo. Text on top right corner: “2022 Collaborative Experience Conference November 3-5, Thank you for joining!.” Text on bottom right: “Supporting the whole child, reboot.”]
[Video ends.]
