Cover page of the digital book Noelle’s Christmas Tree with an image of a Christmas tree with white lights next to a fireplace
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Christmas Themed Book for Early Readers: Noelle’s Christmas Tree

What kind of shenanigans can this cute kitty get into at Christmas time?

In first grade, my student has been learning to visually read lists of sight words. In braille, she practices reading some of the same high frequency words, as well as alphabetic word signs on flash cards. She has mastered reading all of her words and contractions, except for the contraction “here”. The student is practicing to tactually discriminate the difference between the contraction “have” and “here” by feeling for the dot five before the letter h in the contraction “here.”  At school, she plays games matching braille contractions, reads simple sentences with the contraction “here,” as well as builds her own sentences using braille flash cards. 

This month, I wrote a Christmas themed digital book with my student so she can practice reading the contraction “here” using a refreshable braille display with teacher support, as well as during independent reading using a copy of the book that has braille labels. For extra practice during reading, I ask the student to locate one of following contractions on each page: here, the, is, and tree. This book was written with my student using the Book Creator app.  Alt text was added to each image. It has been read by the student using the “read to me” feature of the app, as well as using the Voice Dream Reader app on her iPad.  

Note: Even though the contraction “here” is located at the beginning of each sentence, I also provide the student sentences where the location of the word varies to confirm she can tactually discriminate the contraction. 

Download the free Noelle’s Christmas Tree epub and/or PDF below:

Christmas themed book for early readers

Attached File(s)

https://www.perkins.org/sites/elearning.perkinsdev1.org/files/Noelle%E2%80%99s%20Christmas%20Tree.epub https://www.perkins.org/sites/elearning.perkinsdev1.org/files/Noelle%E2%80%99s%20Christmas%20Tree.pdf
By R Saladino

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