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This infographic calls out five accessibility features ALL learners should know.

1) Closed Captions
2) Speech
3) Safari Reader
4) Dictation
5) Quick Type and 3rd Party Keyboards

Bonus Tips

Struggling to see the screen? – make sure to check out the Vision section in the Accessibility Settings. You can Zoom in to magnify what is shown on the screen,  Invert Colors to enable a high contrast mode, make the text larger with Dynamic Text, and much more.

See the full article for more details and links.

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5 Accessibility Features Every Learner Should Know

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On the occasion of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) this week (May 19th), I created this post to highlight some of the iOS accessibility features that can benefit a wide range of diverse l…

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With the literacy challenges every state in the US faces today, it is important to look at Reading Interventions. This assistive technology provides a more accessible approach for individuals with a learning disability. This video highlights tools that can build learner confidence focusing on their strengths and close gaps working around their challenges.

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Assistive Technology for Kids with Learning Disabilities: An Overview

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If your child has a learning disability, he or she may benefit from assistive technology tools that play to their strengths and work around their challenges.

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My Top 5 Accessibility Apps to Increase Accessibility for the Blind, Low Vision, and Visually Impaired! 

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These apps are incredible! you must look at the short video to see how Carrie and her husband (both who are blind) utilize technology such as "Be my eyes" and others to live a fully engaged life and help others to do the same!

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Co: Writer Use this portable keyboarding device to support transcription legibility and editing. Editing is supported with spell check and word fluency with a t

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Use this web-based word processor to support writing planning and organization, transcription legibility and editing and revising. Planning is supported with outline templates containing content and procedure prompts or an outlining tool. Drafts can be auto-created from the outline. Editing and revising is supported with a spell check tool and a text-to-speech option. Being web-based, this program can be accessed from any computer having Internet access. Options for electronic peer review and feedback of written work are provided.

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Generalized Anxiety Disorder - Convert any digital text (online or files) into spoken text with a variety of voices and save as a WAV file. Supports students' engagement with text and boosts listening and reading comprehension.

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MAINSLOT88 - #1 Best Gaming Online Site in Southeast Asia

Mainslot88 merupakan situs terbaik yang pernah ada sebab kamu dapat bermain permainan resmi lisensi international dengan permainan serta provider yang sangat lengkap pastinya. Adapula bonus-bonus yang bisa kamu rasakan ketika bergabung di situs gaming online terbaik ini mulai dari bonus mingguan sampai dengan bonus bulanan seperti bonus point reward tentunya point yang dapat kamu tukarkan dengan credit. Ini merupakan suatu keuntungan bagi kamu yang ingin mencari situs slt online terbaik & terpercaya di indonesia dengan Lebih dari 10 tahun pengalaman dibidang machine games online merupakan pilihan para slotter terbaik tentu nya merupakan suatu kebanggaan bagi kami untuk melayani anda & yang pastinya selalu memberikan yang terbaik untuk semua member.

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Mainslot88 : Situs Games Online Terbaik Hari Ini

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Mau bermain situs gaming online gampang menang di Indonesia? Yuk daftar di mainslot88 untuk bermain situs games online gampang menang nya! Terbukti Mudah Menang!

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Dyspraxia - Students with dyspraxia struggle with movements but will often need physical breaks to self regulate, just like all kids! This youtube channel offers a ton of video brain breaks, while some are physical, many are more mental based. Check it out!

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Jack’s music is research-based and teacher-approved to focus on helping children learn important state, national, and early childhood standards. All of Jack’s songs and videos engage children with not only great educational content, but with cool beats kids love and fun movements.

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Dyspraxia - All students benefit from monitoring their own progress to see how they are improving and holding themselves accountable. These free forms can be printed and written on, or saved online and typed into. They would work great from traditional learners as well as kids with dyspraxia.

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These free progress monitoring forms are designed to help educators record and track data on individual students. This includes data for IEP goals and objectives and students receiving intervention supports. Materials can easily be put together on a clipboard or in a binder for each individual student so that the teacher or paraprofessional can easily monitor, review, and take data on students quickly and efficiently.

How to Use
First, you will decide which version and page size you prefer to use for data collection. Next, you will use the progress monitoring sheets to write in goals and objectives.

After setting up your goals and objectives to monitor, print these pages. Clip them to a clip board or place in a binder for easy access throughout the day. Special educators, speech language pathologists, interventionists, tutors, other support professionals, or paraprofessionals can easily access the progress monitoring forms throughout the day to write down data at a moment's notice.

{ Watch a quick video } of me explaining how you can use progress monitoring forms with ease in your classroom!

Try Editable Progress Monitoring Forms
{ Progress Monitoring Editable Forms }
This resource includes four different versions of editable progress monitoring pages, including color, black/white, printable PDF, and completely editable. With this resource, educators can simply copy and paste their goals and objectives into the document! Educators can then choose to print the progress monitoring sheets or continue to take data with the document itself. This resource is ideal for special educators, counselors, social workers, interventionists, and anyone seeking ways to improve their data collection.

Click on the ★ above to follow my store!

If you have questions or problems please contact me through Product Q & A and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

Disclaimer: These resources and materials are for supplementary support/education purposes and not intended as a replacement for counseling, education, or other necessary supports. Educators, parents, counselors, and others who utilize these materials are encouraged to seek out additional support, as needed.

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These free progress monitoring forms are designed to help educators record and track data on individual students. This includes data for IEP goals and objectives and students receiving intervention supports. Materials can easily be put together on a clipboard or in a binder for each individual stude...

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Dyspraxia - Students with dyspraxia struggle with holding objects like a pencil or pen. These students would benefit from this speech to text google extension as opposed to typing or writing the old fashioned way!

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An easy to use speech synthesis and recognition tool for your browser!

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Because students with Usher Syndrome can vary greatly in their sensory loss, using a method specific to their needs is critical. Students should have an active voice in how they are able to complete their work in class. Utilizing computers can be the easiest way for these students to express themselves based on their individual needs.

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An intervener is important with working with students who are deafblind. This ensures that the students are able to have access to the classroom environment and any discussions that are occurring.

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Create tactile graphics or resources for the students to access materials.

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Dyslexia - Kurzweil
This program was designed specifically for students with dyslexia. It offers many tools to support learning and studying for students of all ages. This would encourage students to engage in independent work and homework.

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Drive Meaningful Progress

Customizable tools in Kurzweil 3000 align with research-based learning strategies and provide support throughout the learning process. As a result, students are able to independently grasp and articulate concepts more effectively.

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text reader reading adaptive accessibility

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Assistive Learning Technologies & Literacy Software from Kurzweil Education

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Customizable tools in Kurzweil 3000 align with research-based learning strategies and provide support throughout the learning process. As a result, students are able to independently grasp and articulate concepts more effectively.

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Dyslexia - Mind Mapping
Students with dyslexia can benefit from the use of mind mapping to express their writing plan. Students do not need to write or read as many words when creating this type of plan.

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MindMeister: Online Mind Mapping and Brainstorming

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Create, share and collaboratively work on mind maps with MindMeister, the leading online mind mapping software. Includes apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.

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Dyslexia - Livescribe Pen
This pen offers students many learning benefits. The pen records images of the writing as it is happening. It will also record audio to pair along with the notes taken at that time. When loaded to the computer, the student can listen to and read over the notes.

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This tool captures writing and records audio.

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ODD - Padlet is a great way to lay out multiple assignment types for students. Instead of assigning a written paper, give them choices that meet the criteria. Using an analysis of a major point in history as an example, you can allow students to choose between writing a paper, creating a skit, building a diorama, creating a video, etc. This allows a student with ODD to choose their preferred method of demonstrating knowledge. They can reference back to the Padlet for criteria, suggestions, and other information.

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ODD - Lessons and homework grading can be performed through Screencastify so students with ODD can stop, start, and re-watch the video.  This allows the student to walk away and calm down without missing anything. Screencasting allows the teacher to mix visual aids with voice.

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ODD - The use of Google Docs or Microsoft Word to complete written assignments will benefit students with ODD since poor handwriting is common.

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For students who have dysgraphia, students can receive feedback or leave voice comments/video comments when reading or listening to a text or doing a "worksheet" Kami allows any piece of paper to be uploaded in a .pdf and becomes interactive allowing students to truly engage with an activity in multiple modalities.

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For students with Dysgraphia and struggling to write, students can use their verbal ability to communicate and express their knowledge in a way that allows for students with writing struggles to still effectively and efficiently communicate to others and convey their ideas.

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The read-write extension on Google Chrome allows support for language learners with reading-based disabilities whose listening skills are often much stronger than their reading skills.

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A website that provides interactive Social Studies games for students that improve upon skills learned within the classroom.

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This section contains dozens of awesome geography, history, and USA-themed games. They are listed by popularity. To sort these by grade level, use the filters on the left. To see video instructions of how to play a game, click on it in the related items slider underneath each game.

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Mr. Nussbaum Games Social Studies and Geography Games Activities

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This section features nearly 50 award-winning online geography games focusing on geography, history, and other social studies topics.

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Allows students who struggle with writing and typing the ability to create text through talking. This can also aid some students with dysgraphia.

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See the latest announcements from Google Cloud Next. Watch now

Accurately convert speech into text with an API powered by the best of Google's AI research and technology.

New customers get $300 in free credits to spend on Speech-to-Text. All customers get 60 minutes for transcribing and analyzing audio free per month, not charged against your credits.

Transcribe your content with accurate captions

Enable the power of voice to create better user experiences

Improve your service with insights from customer interactions

Get started quickly with our in-console tutorial

Benefits

Flexible model deployment

Deploy ASR wherever you need it, whether in the cloud with the API or on-premises with Speech-to-Text On-Prem.

Demo

Put Speech-to-Text into action

As in this demo, you can easily infuse speech transcription into your applications with the Speech-to-Text API.

Key features

Domain-specific models

Choose from a selection of trained models for voice control, phone call, and video transcription optimized for domain-specific quality requirements.

Speech-to-Text On-Prem

Maintain control over your infrastructure and protected speech data by leveraging Google's speech recognition technology on-premises, in your own private data centers. Contact sales to get started.

View all features

Customers

Learn from customers building audio and voice solutions with Speech-to-Text

What's new

What's new

Sign up for Google Cloud newsletters to receive product updates, event information, special offers, and more.

Documentation

Tutorials and getting started resources

Speech-to-Text in-console tutorials

Learn how to add Speech-to-Text to your existing apps. Get started quickly with our in-console tutorial.

Use cases

Use cases

Empower your customer service system by adding IVR (interactive voice response) and agent conversations to your call centers. Perform analytics on your conversation data to gain more insights into the calls and your customers. Speech-to-Text and its enhanced phone call models are already powering Google Cloud's powerful solution, Contact Center AI.

Implement voice commands such as "turn the volume up," and voice search such as saying "what is the temperature in Paris?" Combine this with the Text-to-Speech API to deliver voice-enabled experiences in IoT (Internet of Things) applications.

Transcribe multimedia content

Transcribe your audio and video to include captions and improve your audience reach and experience. Add subtitles to your content real time to your streaming content. Our video transcription model is ideal for indexing or subtitling video and/or multispeaker content and uses machine learning technology that is similar to video captioning on YouTube.

All features

All features

Support your global user base with Speech-to-Text's extensive language support in over 125 languages and variants.

Customize speech recognition to transcribe domain-specific terms and rare words by providing hints and boost your transcription accuracy of specific words or phrases. Automatically convert spoken numbers into addresses, years, currencies, and more using classes.

Have full control over your infrastructure and protected speech data while leveraging Google's speech recognition technology on-premises, right in your own private data centers. Contact sales to get started.

Choose from a selection of trained models for voice control and phone call and video transcription optimized for domain-specific quality requirements. For example, our enhanced phone call model is tuned for audio originated from telephony, such as phone calls recorded at an 8khz sampling rate.

Pricing

Pricing

Speech-to-Text is priced based on the amount of audio successfully processed by the service each month, measured in increments of one second.

Take the next step

Start building on Google Cloud with $300 in free credits and 20+ always free products.

Take the next step

Start your next project, explore interactive tutorials, and manage your account.

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Speech-to-Text: Automatic Speech Recognition | Google Cloud

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See the latest announcements from Google Cloud Next. Watch now Accurately convert speech into text with an API powered by the best of Google's AI research and technology. New customers get $300 in free credits to spend on Speech-to-Text. All customers get 60 minutes for transcribing and analyzing audio free per month, not charged against your credits.

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Different techniques for teaching students with ADHD (in this case, Social Studies), including breaking up lessons into smaller parts, working on vocabulary, etc.

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This app allows students to work on their speech through watching and repeating, role playing and then listening to their progress. This app was created with the help of over 1000 speech therapists.

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Students can practice reading along with listening and seeing picture clues. There is also a place to practice phonics in order to help build better speech patterns.

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At Starfall, children have fun while they learn. Educational games, movies, books, songs, and more for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade learners.

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This website provides students fun games and hands on activities in order to promote language development.

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FREE speech, language, communication, and early literacy activities, ideas, and materials that will engage and motivate children to learn.

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Visual Timers are great for students to know exactly how long they will need to complete their work or how long an event will be happening. This helps them keep their schedule.

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Visual Timers

Many IEP students need specially designed instruction (SDIs) that may include kinesthetic learning, or accommodations like visuals. A visual timer can help a child visualize time.

It's one thing to tell a child they have 10 minutes left before it's time to leave. Watching a big timer on the wall or watching the minutes tick down on a clock can help a child begin to feel what 10 minutes is.

I actually grew up using a visual timer all the time.

See, for a long time, I was a competitive swimmer. We just called them pace clocks.

But, other than the big block of color, a pace clock is very similar to a visual timer. That's mostly what I think of when I see students using visual timers.

What is a Visual Timer?

It's a fancy name for a clock. Just kidding! They aren't all necessarily clocks. I say that because that is what you may hear from your child's IEP team.

Usually, a fancy version of a clock if it only had a second hand. Many kids need visual timers. They serve as a sensory or visual reminder of time. What goes around, comes around, right? Analog Clocks are sexy again.

A Visual Timer is a simple accommodation. You will often see them in an , 504 accommodation for ADHD, or anyone who needs visual reinforcement.

An app or a physical timer is used to provide both a visual reminder and an auditory alarm to keep the person aware of time.

These are often used when completing a task or doing another time-sensitive or time-restricted activity.

Types of Visual Timers

There are so many options available for students. Some of the options below for timers include sound. Again, think of the child and if they need a multi-sensory approach.

If you have a child or student who would benefit from using a Visual Timer, you can pretty much find anything to meet their needs and interests.

Apps, either on a phone, device, or desktop.

Many have a sound that can be volume-adjusted or muted.

Available in a variety of colors to accommodate visual needs and preferences.

Physical Timers (as opposed to an app) can have sand, colored oil, gel, lava-lamp-type material, and other features to meet other sensory needs.

Sand timers (what our grandmas used for eggs!) are small and can be transported anywhere, requiring no electricity.

Some are strictly visual, some are strictly auditory. Many are both.

Common Uses for Visual Timers

They're used for just what they say-a visual reminder of the time. This might be used to indicate the end of playtime before clean-up begins. Or, if you asked a child to read or complete a task if they struggle with task paralysis.

Many dentists even send home egg timers with kids, so that they know exactly how long to brush their teeth. Some toothbrushes have light flashers that serve this same purpose.

The possibilities are endless.

If your child with autism or ADHD has a hyperfixation, a visual timer can be a good way to manage that.

Visual Timers for Autism

In addition to the 3 free Visual Timers above in the Amazon widget, here are a few more.

1. Visual Timer on iTunes.

2. Mr Bomb and Friends, kids love this one! Just make sure it's not too distracting.

3. Visual Countdown Timer on iTunes.

4. Kids Timer on Google Play

5. Visual Task Timer on iTunes.

6. Children's Countdown Timer on Google Play

7. Visual Timers, on iTunes.

8. Timer for Kids, on Google Play

9. Happy Kids Timer, Google Play (I like this one because it also has chores!)

Visual Timer in your IEP

Like most other resource posts, I like to add a blurb about how to get this in your IEP. Visual timers are affordable. And, I've shown you several free ones. So, cost shouldn't be an issue.

Still, it amazes me what some people will dig their heels in about and not want to add to an IEP.

I can hear it now. "Well if we let Jacob use his tablet during class for the visual timer, I'll have to let all the kids use tablets."

Um, no you won't. Jacob is a child identified with a disability who needs support, services, and accommodations specific to him.

Anyway, if it's a problem, do what we always do: Put the request in writing, follow up, and ask for a PWN. Good luck.

When you purchase items from Amazon from this site, I receive a small percentage at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting A Day in our Shoes.

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10 Best Visual Timers for Kids with Autism or ADHD

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Many IEP students need specially designed instruction (SDIs) that may include kinesthetic learning , or accommodations like visuals. A visual timer can help a child visualize time. It's one thing to tell a child they have 10 minutes left before it's time to leave.

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This website take the social stories into an interactive game to engage the students more. Gives the students not only auditory comprehension but also hands on learning.

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Games can be the perfect tool to introduce and teach social emotional learning skills to kids and young adults. These are the skills that help kids become more self-aware, develop positive relationships, show empathy towards others, manage emotions, use self-control, resolve conflicts, and make positive decisions. If you need more background on SEL, make sure you read up on the basics of social emotional learning.

So often, educators are so busy teaching our curriculum and content that we sometimes leave these skills behind. It's so important to make real time for them and incorporate them into many of the activities you already do! For kids who struggle with some of these skills, learning them can be real work. With that said, it's important to make learning these skills meaningful, interactive, hands-on, and fun. That's why teaching social emotional skills in the form of a game just makes so much sense!

Here are several games (some I've purchase and some I've developed myself) that target these critical social emotional learning skills:
1. Social Problem Solving Board Game
Why It's Important: Social problem-solving is our ability to understand a social situation and use reasoning to deal with it in the most socially appropriate way. We really use these skills every single day. At school, kids might have to problem-solve what to do when someone isn't nice to them or when they see someone else breaking a rule and aren't sure what to do. At home, they might use them when an adult tells them to clean their room but they don't feel like it at the moment.

How It Works: This game focuses on considering a social problem, thinking about what it matters, considering choices and consequences, and ultimately making a decision that is best in the moment. Kids will roll a dice and work through a game board, picking up a situation card for each spot they land on. My favorite part is that kids will also act out scenarios which can help them to generalize the social skills over time.
2. Team Pictionary
Why It's Important: Teamwork is a critical skill for all ages. This is a skill kids and young adults use throughout the school day, but also outside of school, whether it is during a sports game or playing a game with friends at home. While learning to work together as a team, kids also learn other valuable skills including assertive communication, how to listen, turn-taking, doing a fair share of the work, and how to respectfully disagree with each other. These are not only school skills, but life skills.

How It Works: Split up into two teams. Let each team pick an artist who will draw for their team. Let the artists pick a card with a phrase they will have to illustrate on paper or on the board. Let both artists draw at the same time, while their team tries to guess the correct phrase they are drawing. The catch is that the artist can only draw images and not words, so team members must work together to come up with what the artist is drawing. The team that guesses the phrase first wins! The game can continue again and again, as different artists from the group should be chosen.
3. Social Communication Board Game
Why It's Important: Simply put, kids need to be able to communicate well with others. That includes having small talk with a classmate in the hallway, understanding nonverbal cues, holding a full conversation with peers at lunch, and using our social filter before we speak. Our communication skills have a huge impact on how we get along with others and develop relationships over time.

How It Works: This game is ideal for all kids, but especially those with social language challenges. Depending on which space kids fall on, they will have to decipher social cues from a real life photo, discuss what they would do or say in a situation, identify how they should think before they speak, or say a specific phrase in a variety of different tones. Since there are over 150 unique cards, kids can just play again and again while practicing these skills.
4. Empathy Board Game
Why It's Important: Considering and understanding the feelings of others is a foundational skill that supports social success. In order to know the "right" or socially appropriate response to situations, we must first really understand how others feel. Developing empathy isn't easy for all kids, especially those with social challenges and autism. It's important to highlight situations by stopping to think how someone else might feel or think. While thinking about how you might feel in a situation is a good start, t's critical to target how someone else might feel. That's because true empathy is really about understanding someone else's thoughts and feelings, which can often be different from our own.

How It Works: Students will work in partners and small groups to get through an empathy game board. For a person's turn, they will roll the dice and spin the spinner. Their spot on the game board and the spinner will tell them how to answer each card. For example, they might have to answer: Why does it matter? How might they feel? What might they be thinking? What might you do? Students might also have to act out what they would do in that situation. There are over 150 unique situations that help kids discuss and build empathy over real-life scenarios.
5. Social Charades
Why It's Important: A huge component to social awareness is learning to identify and understand the social cues of others. These social cues, including our body language and facial expressions, often inform others how we're feeling, what we're thinking, and what our intentions are.

How It Works: Create a list of different actions or have the kids come up with them themselves. Any action will do! Some examples might be waiting at the bus stop, sharpening your pencil, listening to music, running in a race, taking notes in class, and so on. The idea is that kids will randomly choose one action and act it out for the others to guess. By acting out these scenarios, students will need to consider what social cues would be aligned with that activity. Best of all, this is a quick activity you can do with just a few minutes of class time left that kids will love.
6. Roll & Spin a Coping Strategy
Why It's Important: Being able to manage our emotions is a critical skill. We all experience tough emotions, setbacks, or challenges along the way. It's just a natural part of life. How we handle those difficulties can make a big impact on our success. That's why it's so important to explicitly teach coping strategies and skills to manage our feelings on the spot. Sometimes, kids cannot self-soothe without being explicitly taught these strategies. Kids and young adults need to learn they can take a quick walk, write in a journal, take deep breaths, and use positive self-talk to calm themselves and feel better in moments of difficulty. Additionally, it's important that kids practice these strategies when they are already calm so that they can really use them when they are emotionally overwhelmed.

How It Works: Using a one-page board, students will take turns rolling and spinning. Depending on what they roll and spin, they will fall on a space with a coping strategy that they will have to practice. Once they practice that strategy, they can cover up the spot with a chip. Note that students can have their own boards or share if you have different colored chips. The first person to get one whole row across wins! Ultimately, the idea is that kids are practicing a wide variety of coping strategies, giving them access to more skills when they truly need them.
7. Feelings Uno
Why It's Important: Self-awareness is a critical skill that helps individuals understand their own emotions. In this activity, students can improve their emotional vocabularies by discussing a variety of different feeling words and what they mean. It also helps to normalize talking about different emotions and being comfortable sharing how we are feeling in the moment. Getting kids talking about emotions is key.

How It Works: This game just adds a simple twist to your normal Uno game, which all kids absolutely LOVE! Using the Uno colors, discuss what each of the colors might mean. Blue can stand for feeling sad, tired, bored, or sick. Green stands for feeling happy, calm, focused, and in control. Yellow means feelings frustrated, worried, or nervous. Finally, red should stand for angry. Every time a student plays a color of a card, teach them to use an emotion word that matches the color, share a time they felt that way, or discuss when someone might feel that way.
8. Executive Functioning Challenge
Why It's Important: Executive functioning skills are the processes in our brain that help us accomplish tasks. Sometimes we might think of these skills as only related to academics, but that's actually not true. Our executive functioning skills help us use our self-control to stop and think before saying something inappropriate, our flexibility to consider different solutions for social problems, and our time management to make sure we meet a friend on time. When executive functioning skills are stronger, kids and young adults have greater chance for success in school and beyond.

How It Works: This game can actually be played two different ways: partners and small groups, or as a full class. The idea is that students work through a game board, answering a variety of executive functioning questions as they head towards the finish line. The game cards have students completing executive functioning challenges, acting out situations, naming executive functioning skills used in a situation, and proving their knowledge about the skills themselves. For the full class version, kids can work in teams, collaborating on the answers and getting "points" to win the challenge.
9. Guess Who?
Why It's Important: This game builds on many different social skills. As kids find out more clues about the mystery person, they are learning skills for conversations, turn-taking, and problem-solving.

How It Works: Kids and teens can play the game just as it is intended. Each partner will have a mystery character. The idea is that the other partner will ask multiple questions in an effort to try and discover the character. For example, they might ask, "Does your person wear a hat?" and "Does your person have blue eyes?". Students will take turns until one player is able to identify the correct mystery person.
10. Self-Control Speedway
Why It's Important: Self-control is the skill that helps us stop, think, and make positive choices. Kids and teens need lots of practice with self-control in low-stress moments (like games and casual discussions) so that they can effectively use the skills when they need them the most.

How It Works: Students will play the game by taking turn rolling the dice and moving forward on the game board. When they land on a spot, they will use the picture to tell them which card to pick up and read. Students will read the card to discuss the question or act out the scenario. Practice involves reading through real-life scenarios, practicing calm-down strategies, and more.
11. Partner Scrabble
Why It's Important: Learning to work with others is a critical skill. In this game, students will learn to work together in a collaborative way to build words for the game board.

How It Works: Have students get with a partner or small team to play Scrabble. Each team will start with 7 letters, working to build the highest-earning words on the board. This game also builds on turn-taking and cognitive flexibility.

If you love the games I've put together, you can save by getting them as a whole set! This Social Emotional Learning Games Bundle gives practice with empathy, perspective-taking, executive functioning skills, communication, and more.

Use these games during break times, small groups, as an end of the week reward, or just a fun brain break. Kids will have fun but you'll know you're working on serious SEL skills that make a difference!

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Using Games to Teach Social Emotional Skills

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Games can be the perfect tool to introduce and teach social emotional learning skills to kids and young adults. These are the skills that help kids become more self-aware, develop positive relationships, show empathy towards others, manage emotions, use self-control, resolve conflicts, and make posi

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Autism - AVAZ is a picture board that students can use to communicate by finding what they would like to say and pressing the button. This gives them their voice.

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Avaz is a Picture based Communication & Learning App for people with special needs.

For Families

Give your child the confidence to communicate and learn.

For Professionals

The most effective and easy to use AAC solution within your budget.

AVAZ IS YOUR VOICE.

For people with speech difficulties

Avaz empowers people to communicate their thoughts, emotions, ideas, needs and wants.

Avaz can be used at home to communicate what they wish to eat and can also be used in school to access learning.

AVAZ CREATES OPPORTUNITIES.

Builds confidence and self-belief.

Give your child the ability to speak and stand up for themselves!

Adapts to the child's progress.

As your child keeps achieving milestones, Avaz will also keep evolving.

AVAZ SUPPORTS CAREGIVERS.

Designed for the child, parent and professional.

It takes a team to make an intervention a success. Avaz facilitates it.

CUSTOMER STORIES

How Avaz became Tanisha's voice

Avaz (voice in Hindi) is aptly named - it has become my daughter's voice and every communication attempt is a step forward to more communication.

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Get started by exploring our product webinars that cover Avaz in full detail.

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Featured Blogs & Resources

Ideas for using AAC, core boards, social stories and more

Let the Games begin!

AAC Games the entire family can play and communicate together.
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Read how to effectively use both AAC in low-tech form and high tech form.
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Avaz is a Picture based Communication & Learning App for people with special needs. Give your child the confidence to communicate and learn. The most effective and easy to use AAC solution within your budget. AVAZ IS YOUR VOICE. Avaz empowers people to communicate their thoughts, emotions, ideas, needs and wants.

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Hearing impaired-having a digital based "game" to increase engagement in the classroom will help boost confidence in hearing impaired, or other students with special needs. Choosing an appropriate platform that isn't too visually distracting, can beneficial.

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Gizmo, an all-in-one platform which allows anyone in the world to create a custom branded video game, reward their players, and capture high quality leads.

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iCommunicator is an online program that converts speech into text and a video with sign language. This can help students in the classroom who can't hear the teacher but this converts it into a sign language video for them.

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Hearing impaired- picture boards can allow students to communicate what they know, or this can be used for teachers to present on the board, so students can visualize what is being taught.

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Picto4me - AAC Communication Boards for Google Drive

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Picto4me store your project files on Google Drive. You signup with your Google Account.

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VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
Use auditory cues (like music) to transition between activities.

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TV Theme Songs

The response from teachers who have been using theme songs in their classrooms has been nothing short of overwhelming. Each and every email tells the same basic story.

"I am amazed at how well this idea has worked with my students."

"It's like magic!"

"I have a pretty tough class this year and thought the songs wouldn't work very well. Boy, was I wrong! You should see them scramble to get ready for recess when they hear the first few notes of Mission Impossible. Thank you so much."
The Basics
The main reason music works so well is this:

It's as simple--and complex--as that.

As you already know, there's a massive amount of talking done throughout the day. The majority of the talking is done by the teacher. In fact, research indicates the teacher's voice accounts for approximately 80% of the total volume.

The students, as you can infer, contribute the other 20%. Their talking could be in response to a lesson being taught. It might be the natural outcome of a think-pair-share situation. Add to those two the oh-so-annoying, off-topic social talk that can occur on a regular basis and we're dealing with a virtual tidal wave of words.

Note: Check out Talkative Students for a simple suggestion on how to deal with social talk.

But music, for the most part, is devoid of words. This is especially true of most TV theme songs. The melody of the song is a right-brain cue that is able to cut through all of the verbal clutter and send a clear, unmistakeable message.

Music Messages

A theme song can be used to send a number of different messages. The song could:

1. remind the students about something

2. initiate a pre-established procedure

3. time the length of a transition

4. create a pleasant background during student discussions

Listed below are some suggestions to get you thinking about the possibilities. These theme songs can be found on the CD that comes with the book, Eight Great Ideas . (It's included with the book because one of the ideas in the book is about using music for management.)

Instead of the traditional "N-B-C" association, my students knew the three chimes meant "Name, number, date." I usually waited until they were well underway on the assignment before I cued up the song. It was the rare paper in my room that did not have the proper identification on it.

The predictability of this song makes it perfect for transitions. After giving my students the transition goals, I would play the song. It only took about a week or two for them to become familiar enough with the song that it became, in essence, an internal clock.

My students had the freedom--a student need--to work away from their seats if it helped them get something done. When it was time to move on to something else, though, this song told them to return to their regular seats.

My district was big on working with students on the carpet. Not sure why, but they were and wanted to see it. A lot. The Bill Nye song, 28 seconds in length, proved to be the perfect song for getting them to come to the carpet without a word being spoken. From me, that is. They would talk on the way to the carpet; but, I was okay with that. It was an opportunity--freedom, if you will--for them to engage in social talk. All I required was that they stop the conversations and come to attention when the song was over. Win-Win.

This less-than-a-minute song is great for packing up at the end of the day. (Or the end of the period, secondary teachers.) The music is upbeat and high-energy.

I used just the first thirty seconds of the song as a way to get my students to prepare themselves for the start of our morning BELLWORK™ activity. (You can go to the BELLWORK™ page for more information about how to make this powerful start-off-the-day activity really fly.)

Another high-energy, upbeat song, this is a good one to get them out of their seats and pitching in whenever you want to return your classroom to a semblance of neatness.

Playing music in the background as students engage in think-pair-share discussions is a great way to not only time the length of the discussion but also create an environment conducive to the discussion. The conducive part is based on the fact that, psychologically, music is considered to be a "mask." It actually minimizes the impact of the other voices being used throughout the room.

If, for example, two students were to either burst out in laughter or get into a bit of an argument during the T-P-S, just about every other partnership would shut down to see what was going on. But with music playing in the background, the other pairs of students are less likely to notice.

Another advantage to the use of a background discussion song is the fact that the end of the song is a cue for the students to come back to attention.

I used to play this song when I was about to select a student--or-two--to help with a lesson. To make it a random selection, I made some large name cards with their first and last name written on them. We're talking cards big enough to read from across the room but narrow enough to hold aloft in my hand.

As soon as the first few notes of the song hit their little right brains, they were all thinking: "Mr. Morris is about to call someone to the front of the room to help out!"

As the song played, I would shuffle the cards and then hold one up.

Mr. Morris
In his best Bob Barker voice:
Natalie Adams! Come on down!

As you can imagine, there'd be some cheering and clapping just like the game show.

TV Theme Songs website
Here's the site where you can download hundreds of theme songs from television shows and cartoons.
televisiontunes.com

Send in your suggestions

If you've got a TV theme song you're using in your classroom, send in the title of the song and how you use it in your classroom. We'll post your submission on this page for other teachers to see.
Hey, Rick. Here's my theme song idea. Teacher Suggestion:
After you shared the idea of theme songs, I went a little crazy at first. Now I've learned to be consistent and that more is not always better.

This year, my students were taking forever to line up for lunch. Although they did not want to be last in a line of 8 third grade classes, they were still moving at a snail's pace to get out the door. So, I now use the I Dream of Jeannie song and the goal is to be out the door, in alphabetical order and ready to go before the song ends. It is working great!

Thanks for all your great ideas. It definitely helps me work smarter, not harder.

Audra Ciasullo
Third grade teacher

Teacher Suggestion:
It may be that I overlooked it in the Eight Great ideas book, but I would suggest renaming each of the song titles on your iPod according to the procedure it represents so that when you want name, #, date that's what you see, rather than the song title.

I've used the Jeopardy song as a way to clear a space for Drama in my classroom. My kids move my desk and about nine of theirs and get in place in under a minute. They love Clear Desks, please.

I've also used Andy Griffith to give them an opportunity to share with two other students something I've taught. It's an opportunity to move around the room when I begin to see the wiggles take over.

I hope this was helpful.

David Leonard
2nd & 3rd Grade
Cobb Mountain Elementary School

Teacher Suggestion:
I tried having my students turn in an assignment to the Mission Impossible theme song. It was amazing to see how quickly they were able to do it.

It was cute to watch the students who had already placed their assignment in the collection box stand around and dance to the remainder of the song. It allowed them to release some pent-up energy which is always helpful.

Thanks so much for the idea about using TV theme songs for procedures.

Gail Forest
Riverbank Teacher's Association

Return to Music Central Main Page

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The response from teachers who have been using theme songs in their classrooms has been nothing short of overwhelming. Each and every email tells the same basic story. "I am amazed at how well this idea has worked with my students." "It's like magic!"

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VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
Text-To-Speech within a Google Doc can assist with verbal & written responses.

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A high-quality unlimited TTS voice app that runs in your Chrome browser. Tool for creating voice from text or Google Drive file.

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VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
CoolSpeech converts digital text into spoken text with a variety of voices and saved as a WAV file.

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How students are engaged and motivated.

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Provide Multiple Means of Engagement - UDL guidelines examples

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Affect represents a crucial element to learning, and learners differ markedly in the ways in which they can be engaged or motivated to learn. There are a variety of sources that can influence individual variation in affect including neurology, culture, personal relevance, subjectivity, and background knowledge, along with a variety of other factors.

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Participation or demonstration of knowledge and skills.

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Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression - UDL guidelines examples

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The ways information is presented.

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Learners differ in the ways that they perceive and comprehend information that is presented to them. For example, those with sensory disabilities (e.g., blindness or deafness); learning disabilities (e.g., dyslexia); language or cultural differences, and so forth may all require different ways of approaching content. Others may simply grasp information quicker or more efficiently through visual or auditory means rather than printed text. Also learning, and transfer of learning, occurs when multiple representations are used, because it allows students to make connections within, as well as between, concepts. In short, there is not one means of representation that will be optimal for all learners; providing options for representation is essential.

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Provide Multiple Means of Representation - UDL guidelines examples

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Learners differ in the ways that they perceive and comprehend information that is presented to them. For example, those with sensory disabilities (e.g., blindness or deafness); learning disabilities (e.g., dyslexia); language or cultural differences, and so forth may all require different ways of approaching content.