Autism Resources: Books: Literacy Resources

Promotes literacy instruction for students on the autism spectrum who are in and out of the school setting. Focuses on students all across the autism spectrum. Provides many practical and useful examples. Mostly useful for educators and paraprofessionals, but helpful for parents to read. Promotes inclusion, thinking outside of the box, and differentiated instruction.

Promotes organized approach for parents and educators to teach comprehension and decoding to children on the autism spectrum. Provides useful tips for parents, such as teaching synonyms, looking up nouns on the internet, and teaching emotions. Focuses on individualized instruction. Received supportive review from Temple Grandin, Ph.D.

Useful book that offers tips, tools, and methods for teaching young students on the autism spectrum phonics. Focuses on phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency. Offers many tips and tools including ABC and thematic books, word walls, suggested books, environmental print, book box, text-picture match, using pictures, building sentences, and echo reading. The most helpful tool included with this book is the free CD of printables that is included. Most recommendations are available to print on the provided CD. Very helpful in recommending quick and easy tips for instruction.
Designed for grade levels K-3.

Helpful book for students on the autism spectrum at the secondary level.
Provides sample lessons and information on thematic units and age appropriate material.
Promotes team teaching, inclusion, focusing on instruction while meeting IEP goals, parent involvement, assessment, and assistive technology use.
Useful for both parents and educators; especially due to the focus on collaboration.

Useful tool for parents. Helps parents to face reading difficulties with their children “head on”. Includes 4-step plan for identifying and targeting reading issues. Helps to inform parents on reading assessments, early intervention, understanding IEP goals for literacy, and effective instruction, as well as tips for home instruction.

Blends opinions and theories from experts in both autism and literacy. There is a focus on case studies and research to support findings. There is also a focus on comprehension and how students approach comprehension and text, as well as what is needed for students on the autism spectrum to comprehend text.
Useful for educators, but parents may find useful.

Promotes teaching literacy to students with severe disabilities who many may feel are not “capable” of learning literacy skills. Focuses on best practice and including lessons on teaching core content. Promotes blending life skills and functional curriculum with core and academic skills. Includes sample lessons and checklists. Focuses on alternate assessment, IEPs, standards, progress monitoring, and using evidence-based practices. Also covers many other subject areas outside of literacy.
Useful for educators.

Focuses on phonics and sight word based approach; blends both.
Promotes letter/sound pairings, sight word recognition, blending, decoding, and fluency. Offers forms and checklists to use. Discusses phonemic awareness, decoding, and word patterns. There is focus on shifting from oral language to comprehension. Many strategies are included in the book.
Recommended for students in primary grades or older students who are struggling.
Mostly useful for educators.