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Screen reader tech activities: Thanksgiving lesson plan
Using holiday poems to teach technology skills.
How do you start teaching digital literacy skills to young students who are learning technology? Memorizing a list of commands is B-O-R-I-N-G!
How about incorporating tech skills into activities using motivating poems? Thanksgiving is just around the corner, so this post will focus on Thanksgiving poems; however, you can choose other holiday poems or any age-appropriate poems. You can locate poems for various age groups on websites that provide educational materials without copyright concerns. These activities will work with any tablet or computer and with any screen reader. For these activities, I will be using an iPad running VoiceOver and will share the gesture, refreshable braille display (RBD) command and Bluetooth keyboard (BTK) command.
The poems used in this post are individually attached so that you can share them directly with your student.
Read and pause commands
Review the Read and Pause commands.
When the VoiceOver focus is at the beginning of the text:
- Gesture: Initially start reading with a two finger swipe down, then a two finger, single tap (toggles between Read and Pause)
- RBD: R Chord initially to begin reading, then P Chord (toggles between Read and Pause)
- BTK: VO+A initially to begin reading, then Control (toggles between Read and Pause)
Ask the student to listen to the poem, pausing when you say, “Pause!” and continuing when you say, “Read!”. (Only say “Pause” and “Read” one time during the first reading of the poem.)
If the student is successful and ready for a challenge, ask the student to pause each time he/she hears a number.
Download and use the Five Little Turkeys document to practice Read and Pause commands.
Screen reader speed
Encourage your student to increase his/her listening speed by increasing the speed of the screen reader. Listen the first time through at your student’s normal listening speed then increase the speed. With VoiceOver, I typically increase the speed by 5 increments. Listen to the poem again. Increase the speed again by an additional 5 increments. Listen to the poem again. Now, decrease the speed one time by 5 increments. Listen once again – the student should now be able to clearly understand this poem at a slightly increased speed after listening to the poem these four times at various rates of speed. Be sure to ask your student a couple comprehension questions, including a summary of the poem. With this poem, you can ask the student to listen for a particular color before increasing the speed of the poem.
Teacher Hint: Poems used for this activity should be one level below the student’s current reading level. Do not use materials that are too challenging for your student!
On the iPad with VoiceOver running, set the rotor to Speaking Rate, then increase or decrease the speed.
- Gesture: With two fingers, twist until the rotor is set to Speaking Rate. Flick up to increase the speed; flick down to decrease the speed.
- RBD: Press 5+6 keys multiple times until the rotor is set to Speaking Rate. Joystick up (or 3+space) to increase the speed; joystick down (or 6+space) to decrease the speed.
- BTK: Press up+right arrows multiple times until the rotor is set to Speaking Rate. Up arrow to increase the speed; down arrow to decrease the speed.
FYI: This poem is often used with Thanksgiving bracelet making activity. Use a pipe cleaner and add the corresponding color bead while reading the poem. (Materials: pipe cleaner with white, blue, green, black, brown, red, yellow and orange beads. Use beads with different sizes, textures or shapes for students who are not able to identify the beads by color.)
Now try listening to a new poem, such as Glad I’m Not a Turkey at 5 increments above the student’s normal listening speed.
Copy and paste
This activity provides opportunities for your student to copy and paste multiple times as he/she creates his/her own original poem. Ask the student to create a list of things that he/she is thankful for. If your student is a beginner speller/keyboarder, then encourage the student to use dictation to create the list. Make sure that each item in the list is on a separate line.
Copy and Paste commands
Use the rotor set to Edit, Select or Select All, Copy, and Paste. (See iPad Curriculum for details on how to copy and paste.)
Note: It is more efficient to use RBD or BTK commands to copy and paste.
Once the text is selected:
- Gesture: Set the rotor to copy and then swipe down; set the rotor to paste and swipe down
- RBD: C chord (copy); V Chord (paste)
- BTK: Cmd+C (copy); Cmd+V (paste)
For beginners or emerging readers, share a document with only the text, “I’m thankful for”. Copy and paste the text to a new document, and then have the student type, dictate or copy/paste a word from his list.
If the student needs the activity modified further, provide only the one phrase on the page, so that the student can use the “Select All” option. The student can Select All one time but paste the sentence multiple times.
For more advanced students, have him/her copy various sentences from the I’m Thankful poem template.
Navigating and editing
Review the navigating and editing commands. Remember, the easiest way to navigate to a desired location with the RBD is to use the routing button below (or above depending on the braille display) and one to the right of the desired braille character. (See iPad curriculum for details on how to navigate and edit a document.)
To navigate with gestures, set the rotor to words
Use the Turkey Handprint Poem for this activity.
Read the entire poem and the word list below the poem. Note that the “_” (underline) indicates where an answer should be placed.*
Navigate to the beginning of the poem. Then navigate by words to find the “_”.
- Navigating by gesture: Twist 2 fingers to change the rotor setting to Words, then swipe down to move by words
- Navigating by RBD: Use the routing button to the right of “_”
- Navigating by keyboard commands: Up+down arrow to set the rotor to words; down arrow to move by words
Read the word list at the bottom of the page. The words on this activity are in the correct order; however, for a more challenging activity, place the words in random order. The student should navigate to the first word and copy/paste that word after the first underline OR the student can simply type/dictate the first word after the underline.
More advanced students may want to delete the underline after he/she has added the word.
*This document could be adapted so that a text box, is substituted for the “_”. The student can simply navigate to the text box and type/paste the desired word directly into the sentence.
The Turkey Handprint poem is often used as a part of a Thanksgiving craft project. Each student can dip his/her hand in paint and then place his hand on a piece of construction paper or braille paper. For a braille student, use thick paint or add texture – such as sand – to the paint so that the student will easily be able to feel his hand print. Once the paint is dry, add the printed and/or brailled text below the hand print.
Resource
iPad curriculums (including gestures, RBD commands and Bluetooth keyboard commands) are available for free download from the P2T Curricula and Resources page.
Original post published November 2019; updated November 2024.
By Diane Brauner
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Attached File(s)
https://www.perkins.org/sites/elearning.perkinsdev1.org/files/Five%20Little%20Turkeys.docx https://www.perkins.org/sites/elearning.perkinsdev1.org/files/Glad%20I%E2%80%99m%20Not%20a%20Turkey.docx https://www.perkins.org/sites/elearning.perkinsdev1.org/files/Turkey%20Handprint%20Poem.docx https://www.perkins.org/sites/elearning.perkinsdev1.org/files/Thanksgiving%20Poem.docx https://www.perkins.org/sites/elearning.perkinsdev1.org/files/I%E2%80%99m%20Thankful.docx
