Modifying Text

Modifying For a Theme

Purpose / Helpful Software / Helpful Equipment / Formats

Purpose: Included students and students with diverse needs participating in the general education classroom frequently need theme material modified to a simpler, more "readable" level and/or form. Here's where that "Pyramid" idea comes in again. Before anything else, you need to figure out the "big ideas" of the theme in order to focus on them. Depending on your format, the text you use should be

presented in simple, short sentences;
preteaching & highlighting essential terminology
eliminating extraneous information altogether (a judgment call on your part); and/or
using picture support to increase fluency and comprehension

Helpful Software:

Microsoft Word
Boardmaker
Worksheet Magic
Picture It
Writing With Symbols 2000
Inspiration
Draftbuilder

Helpful Equipment:

Computer
Flatbed Scanner
Time-you'll need it
Refreshments-again, you'll need it
A Sense of Humor-one of these will get you through anything

Three of My Preferred Formats:

1. Kid Pix Slideshow & Book

Make a little storyboard or layout of how you want to present the big ideas. For instance, if you are making a book about the attributes of rocks, you might have your pages include:

some rocks are shiny,

some rocks are dull,

some rocks are smooth,

some rocks are rough,

some rocks are one color,

some rocks have many colors, etc.

Create one picture for each sentence. Be sure to make a cover for your book. Either make/draw your own picture to go with each sentence, or import pictures (there are some great pictures you can get off the web, but please cite your source or the copyright police will be after you...try doing a yahoo or google picture search) Type in each sentence and place it where it is most easily seen on the page. It's good to put each sentence in the same position on each page with bold contrasting font. You can also stamp an icon over a harder vocabulary word using the Kid Pix stamp feature. These icons come in handy if you want to add a motor activity to the book. Just make an extra copy of the icon, put it on tagboard, laminate it, stick velcro on it, and have the reader put their picture next to the matching icon on the page (where you have also put a velcro dot)

Print out each picture/page (use the 'medium' sized picture to save on ink) to assemble these into a book (more on this step later).

Save each picture/page and make a slideshow with them, putting them into the same order you have them arranged in the book.

Now the student can have the book read to him/her by looking at the slideshow (Kid Pix slideshow reads the text). After that they have the book to read for themselves (with the ability to look at the slideshow again if they have any trouble with the text).

When making the book, you can

slide each page into a sheet protector and put them all into a binder, or
laminate the pages back to back and spiral-bind them into a book if you have the resources to do this (most schools do). If you don't know how to operate the gizmo, find someone who does and have them show you how. It's really easy once you start to do it, and it makes nice looking books.

2. Powerpoint Talking Books

This method follows the same principals as the KidPix setup, but Powerpoint is a more age-appropriate tool for older students ( grades 5-12). Instead of going through how to do this, I'll direct you to an outstanding online resource, Ace Centre (it's not misspelled, it's in the UK) so you can download a free booklet that will guide you step-by-step through the process. I just did this, and it's great!

3. Creating Your Own Book

This is not as scary as it sounds if you follow some guidelines. Try these:

Create your storyboard or layout of big ideas. For instance, if the theme is 'Alaska', your layout could be:
- state symbols,
- history,
- major cities,
- resources, and
- famous people

Consider each of these to be a 'chapter' in your book.

Create a cover page for each of these chapters. You can do this by putting one big picture with a title on each page. You could also scatter a bunch of appropriate pictures around the title in the center of the page ( I like doing this).
Preteach important vocabulary by making a vocabulary page & putting it at the front of the book. In this case, the words might be: glacier, dogsled, Iditerod, Inuit, moose, pipeline, caribou, igloo, puffin, totem pole, etc. Put a picture of the vocabulary word on the left hand side of the page, and the definition of it to the right of the picture.

	Igloo: a home made with big blocks of ice
	Dogsled: a sled pulled over the snow by a team of dogs

In each chapter, put one or two facts pertinent to that chapter on each page under a picture illustrating the text. For instance, under a big picture of Anchorage, Alaska, type in 18 point font, "Anchorage is the biggest city in Alaska. It has more people in it than all the other cities in Alaska put together."
Insert your pages back to back in sheet protectors.
After every 4 pages insert a review page. The review page should have 4 multiple choice questions, and the answers can be in picture format if appropriate. Make 2 copies of the review page. Indicate the correct answers on one of those pages (highlight them, underline them, or circle them in red). Put the review page and the answer page back to back in a sheet protector. Now the reader can use a water based marker to circle their answers, and then self-correct by turning the page.
At the end of the book, put a section with reinforcing activities. You can use Worksheet Magic to create fill-in-the-blank sentences, a crossword puzzle, and a word search. You can also make a vocabulary match-up page. Arrange the pictures on one side and the definitions (out of order) on the other for the reader to match. You can so this with the cities and the famous people, too.

back