Books don’t have to be words and illustrations. At Sanchez Elementary, a pair of educators have found that making the books more interactive helps teachers reach every learner where they are.
Sanchez Elementary Librarian Tricia Moore and teacher Kristen Glancy have been partnering together over the last year to bring inclusive, adaptive books into library time in Glancy’s classroom.
Moore said Glancy is the one who first showed her adaptive books and they’ve worked together to bring more stories into the classroom.
“She came to my office after school one day, sat down and said, ‘I want to show you these books that work really well with my active students. I have lots of them you can borrow.’ I had never seen books like this before,’ Moore said.
The stories are laminated on circle rings, with some sort of interactive activity, like a place to velcro an illustration from the story.
Now that she’s learned more about adaptive books, Moore has found more books to add to their rotation. The duo coordinate based on curriculum and pick books that will coincide with what they’re learning, and sometimes throw in a story that they know the students will enjoy just for fun.
“These books are really great for building vocabulary, fine motor skills, learning the parts of a book, things like that,” Moore said. “It’s also so much fun to work with Ms. Glancy’s students. I love to see how much they’ve grown every week. They brighten up my day!”
And the best part, the students love it too, Glancy said.
“The kids love to be involved with the book,” she said. “My students have been more engaged during library time.”
With students who have different levels of mobility and different reading levels, the interactive books also allow all of Glancy’s students to participate.
“Some of my students need a hand on material to attend to the story.” she said. “Having these adapted books gives these students the ability to join into the library story. A few students have surprised us throughout the year by answering questions by connecting the images to the story.
“When the students connect the images you can see in their eyes just how excited they are to join in the lesson.”