We started our 2019-2020 school year last week. It’s an odd schedule, but starting in July works for our family. In addition to some bigger calendar reasons to start school so early, there’s the weather and living with a trach. The heat and humidity outdoors prevented Nathaniel from being outside more than ten minutes at least one day last week. We might as well use these inside days for learning. l know one thing after a week of school. This year feels drastically different from our previous year.

Yesterday on the way to speech therapy, Nathaniel was telling me about ATVs.

He said, “ATV Nathaniel orange ride out that it go that”

I showed his speech therapist, and he came out of the session an hour later with the drawing shown in this photo. Amazing, huh? Look close. The rider even has a trach. Thank you R for making these connections with Nathaniel.

Today we started a predictable chart writing exercise to work on the syntax of how to say “I like (color) ATVs.” Of course I expected Nathaniel to say that he likes orange ATVs, but today he likes white ATVs.

I mentioned in my last blog post that I wanted to be honest about some changes I am making after hearing Drs. Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver’s teaching at the workshop: Comprehensive Literacy Instruction for Students with Significant Disabilities and Complex Communication Needs. Before I jump into another week, I do want to mention modifications that I am implementing immediately. If you have followed our journey and emulated any of my practices, I want to be up front about what we are going to do differently now.

I spent the last three days in Cleveland, Ohio at a intensive introductory course titled Comprehensive Literacy Instruction for Students with Significant Disabilities and Complex Communication Needs. It was twenty-four hours of lectures focused on teaching conventional literacy instruction.