Exercises
There are two sentence-building exercises for each animal theme. Each exercise is a one- hour lesson. This is approximately 18 hours of instruction.
It’s hard for children who have autism to generate their own conversation. The sentence- building exercises concentrate on building your students’ observation skills and corralling those observations into conversation. Not unlike the worksheet lessons, the conversation is transformed into written language. However, this time, the written language is plugged into a pair of graphic organizers and, ultimately, into actual sentences.
The goal of each sentence-building exercise is to build three sentences describing the animal in the picture and to illustrate those three sentences.
Schedule
The program covers one animal at a time. Here is a sample schedule:
The Cat
Monday – First variation of first reading comprehension worksheet
Tuesday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
Wednesday – Second variation of first reading comprehension worksheet
Thursday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
Friday – Third variation of first reading comprehension worksheet
Monday – Fourth variation of first reading comprehension worksheet
Tuesday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
Wednesday – First variation of sentence-building exercise
Thursday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
Friday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
Monday – First variation of second reading comprehension worksheet
Tuesday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
Wednesday – Second variation of second reading comprehension worksheet
Thursday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
Friday – Third variation of second reading comprehension worksheet
Monday – Fourth variation of second reading comprehension worksheet
Tuesday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
Wednesday – Second variation of sentence-building exercise
Thursday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
Friday – Supplemental activity (book, video, craft, etc.)
The Process
In this section, I will walk you through “The Cat” lessons so you can have a clearer idea of how the lessons will play out in your classroom. After all, children with autism aren’t the only ones who like to know what’s ahead of them!
The worksheets you will need for the lessons are provided at http://fhautism.com/arc.html. You can print out the customizable worksheets if you prefer to write in the color words yourself, or you can print out ready-to-go worksheets for each variation.
The animals have been chosen because of the variety of colors they come in. The cat, for instance, can logically be black, gray, brown, or orange. It’s also important that the cat and the table (or the two items that vary on the other worksheets) are two different colors, specifically, two highly contrasting colors. The more vivid the visual, the easier it will ultimately be for them to answer the questions. So for the first worksheet, the color combinations are:
Worksheet 1, Variation 1: brown cat, yellow table
Worksheet 1, Variation 2: orange cat, blue table
Worksheet 1, Variation 3: black cat, pink table
Worksheet 1, Variation 4: gray cat, red table
Let’s say you have seven kids in your class and you have distributed Worksheet 1,
Variation 1 to your students. Their desks should be clear of all writing utensils. Start by having a student volunteer to read the passage. If no one is able to read the passage, read it yourself, or have an aide read it aloud.
(An additional benefit to the lesson repetition—having the same sentence frame for several lessons—is that it allows children to memorize the simple sentences, ultimately enabling them to “read” them out loud to the class. So even though they’re not actually reading the passage, they feel as if they are and, subsequently, feel successful. The more positive associations they have with reading and words, the better.)
Once the passage has been read aloud, say to the class, “Now we want to color the picture that goes with the story. What two crayons should we take out of our box?”
Having the kids stop and focus on the colors like this, right from the beginning, will help them to answer the questions later on. Once someone answers “brown and yellow,” repeat the question and have another child answer. Some kids will still take out the wrong crayons, even if you repeat this question-and-answer round three or four times. Just be patient and get the information out there verbally, as often as you can. Once you do, help them physically take out the two correct crayons and a pencil. Check around the room and make sure that’s all they have on their desks—their worksheet, their pencil, and (with this particular variation) their brown and yellow crayons.
Once they’ve successfully taken out the brown and yellow crayons, have them return the box of crayons to their pencil box or supply area, wherever the crayons are kept. You could even assign an aide to hang on to the boxes once the two correct crayons have been removed. Even something as simple as leaving a box of crayons out on the desk is distracting in an autism classroom. Children who have autism, through no fault of their own, can be so easily tempted that leaving the crayon box out can lead to disruptions. Trust me. I’ve seen it.
Have them pick up their pencils and write their name and the date first. You should write the date on the board. If there are students who don’t know how to write their name, this is a good time to have them practice (daily) just the first letter or couple of letters of their first name. Baby steps.
Once the name and date are completed, remind them that they’re going to be coloring the cat brown and the table yellow. Tell them that they will be starting with the cat. Say, “If we’re starting with the cat, what color do we need?”
When the color brown is established, make sure that everyone has his or her brown crayon in hand and ready to go. Let them begin coloring ONLY the cat. Have aides dispersed around the room as best you can and be watchful. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched the cat, the table, and the pizza all be colored brown in the blink of an eye. (This is another good reason for those back-up copies!) I’ve also tried to make the illustrations as simple as possible, with enough surface area for the students to color and, therefore, focus on the color they’re using.
Check the room; make sure that all the cats have been colored brown. Repeat the words “brown cat” as often as possible. “Oh, that’s a
