UDL Supports and Rationale
There are many supports I used in my book that follow Universal Design for Learning principles and that are meant to help kindergarten students with reading disabilities decode and comprehend The Tale of Peter Rabbit. My main goal is to help students with a variety of disabilities (dyslexia, processing delays, etc.) as well as typical students who are learning to read access this text. This BookBuilder is also meant to help students practice making predictions using this story.
The first support I added is a glossary; words that students may not understand are underlined so that they can be clicked on. When the glossary opens, there is a definition for the word, an example sentence, and a picture. This is meant to help all students understand difficult words, which will then help them to comprehend the text.
Throughout the book, students also have the option of highlighting text to hear it read. Although I did not add this support and it was automatically built in, it is helpful for students who are learning to read, as it provides an accurate model of how to pronounce the words. Additionally, I added my own audio on the first page, where students may not already know how to highlight text and press the play button to hear it read. Because I added the audio on the first page, students can hear the directions read so that they can successfully access the supports in the rest of the book.
I chose to limit the amount of text on each page so as not to overwhelm beginner readers or students with a disability. I also ensured that there is a picture on each page to aid students' comprehension of the story.
I also used coaches throughout the book, especially Pedro the Penguin, who asks comprehension questions on each page. Kate the Dog is also available on these pages to show students the answer to Pedro's questions after they attempt to answer first. This support is meant to help students who are only focusing on decoding the words to also focus on the content of the story. It is also just another opportunity to reinforce the plot of the story before making a prediction.
I also utilized Bot the Robot in my book to give more detailed summaries of what had happened so far at the two prediction points in the story. Again, this is meant to help students who are more focused on decoding focus again on the content of the story so that they can make an informed prediction. Students using this BookBuilder will be at a variety of decoding and comprehension levels, so Bot is helpful in reinforcing comprehension.
This BookBuilder is also meant to help students work on making predictions, and to emphasize this I have created explicit stopping points in the story where students are asked to make a prediction. Ideally, this book would be used after students have been given an introduction to predictions, so that they would be ready to begin practicing making predictions on their own. For students who are still learning what a prediction is, Pedro the Penguin provides helpful reminders.
I chose to ask students to write or draw their predictions outside of BookBuilder, because drawing is not a response option on BookBuilder. Some kindergarteners will not be ready to write sentences about their predictions, so not utilizing the student response option on BookBuilder is intentional and meant to offer students more varied options for responses.
Overall, each of these supports is meant to facilitate decoding, comprehension, and the ability to make predictions for both typical students and students with disabilities.
All pictures in the story are taken from: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14304/14304-h/14304-h.htm
