ONLINE LITERACY CLASS

Hello! Welcome to our Online Literacy Pod! My name is Allison W., and I am a Speech Language Pathologist. For the past 19 years my passion has been working with young children to enhance language and literacy skills. I look forward to working with your child! It would be greatly appreciated if you could complete the attached screener with your child and return it to me at your earliest convenience. This will ensure a developmentally appropriate placement in a learning pod, as well as help guide initial lessons to ensure that your children are getting the most out of these sessions! Please answer accurately and don’t worry if they cannot do all of these skills at this time! Thank you for your time!

SUPPLIES AND EQUIPMENT

Students will be required to have a laptop computer with the Zoom application downloaded.

SESSION INFORMATION

These sessions will run 1 to 2 times per week. The sessions will last 60 minutes. They will be held through the Zoom platform and parents will receive an email invitation to each session.

CURRICULUM

These sessions are designed to be fun and engaging for your child and help them develop a love of reading! Sessions will have a heavy focus on phonics and phonemic awareness skills, two factors that are a strong predictor of future reading success. Lessons will incorporate music, videos, interactive games, and a variety of green screen activities to create a fun environment to work on literacy skills.

Some of these skills include:

• Letter identification
• Letter/sound correspondence (i.e., B say /b/)
• Rhyming
• Syllable identification and compound words
• Onset fluency (beginning sound identification)
• Understanding print concepts
• Blending of sounds to form words
• Segmenting sounds (separating sounds in words)
• And more!

Guidelines For Virtual Instruction

• Communication: schedule an appointment via email to discuss your child’s progress with his/her teacher.
• Recording instructional sessions without permission is prohibited.
• Everyone who might appear on camera needs to be dressed and behaving appropriately – check what your camera can pick up behind your child.
• Teach your child how to mute and unmute. Then, remember that when the mic is on, the class will hear everything anyone says within its range. (**Initial sessions will incorporate lessons on learning how to mute/unmute**)
• Check your child’s audio daily.  Check that he/she can hear and that when he/she is asked to unmute by the teacher, the teacher and class can hear him/her.
• While “in class”, students should leave their camera on so their teacher can see the student.

Looking for an online literacy coach? Contact Us!

Our Coach Allison

Allison is a NYS licensedspeech-language pathologist. She earned her B.S. and M.S. in Speech Language Pathology from The State University of New York College at Fredonia. Allison holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). She has 19  years teaching/therapeutic experience in school and naturalistic settings. Allison has gained this experience through her positions in various agencies providing Early Intervention services, as well as in a variety of special education preschool programs including the Rainbow School for Child Development, Milestone School for Child Development, and as a Clinical Supervisor of Speech Services with AHRC New York City, working with students ages 3-21, supervising clinicians, and training staff and families on a range of communication topics.

She is highly skilled at working with a variety of language, and articulation delays, phonological disorders, social/pragmatic deficits, auditory processing disorders, dyslexia and literacy enrichment, fluency, and oral-motor difficulties. Due to the recent pandemic, Allison has become skilled in treating these disorders and delays via telehealth. She has developed exciting lessons and literacy programs which are delivered virtually to individuals or small groups and utilize a variety of green screen activities, interactive games, and stories.  She uses these skills to develop and enhance language and communication and literacy skills.  Over her years as a clinician and supervisor, she developed a passion for working with individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders and providing them with the language, social skills, and supports necessary to become independent adults. This has led her to become passionate about the funding, programming, and implementation of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems, such as the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), in which she has been formally trained, static and dynamic display devices and American Sign Language (ASL). She is also a Certified Sequential Oral Sensory Feeding provider and has developed a love for treating feeding disorders, through this methodology. Allison prides herself on her ability to effectively collaborate with families, teachers, and other professionals in related fields to encourage effective communication across all environments. She believes that a combination of evidence-based practice, parent/caregiver involvement, and fun is the key to communication success.