Help me give my students Saddleback Educational "Hi-Lo" books. These books are high-interest, low-level books designed for secondary students with significant disabilities (at their level AND age-appropriate).
I teach English in a special education setting to high school students. My students have moderate to severe disabilities and are reading well below grade level. I am seeking books to add to my classroom library for them.
I am on a mission to teach my students to love reading.
One major challenge that I have is that the books available at their reading level are children's books. They are often large board books, illustrated, feature young children or cutesy characters, and they are very simple. Though my students are able to read and understand these books, they feel disinterested or even embarrassed to read "little kid books" in high school while their peers are reading large chapter books and literature.
The books I've selected in my cart give my students an opportunity to feel like their peers while still receiving instruction at their level. From differentiated classics (abridged and simplified literature) to Hi-Lo books (high interest, low reading level), my students would have a variety of reading options that they can use to practice their reading vocabulary and comprehension skills, to read for fun, or to use for class assignments. I already have a small number of these books in my classroom and they give my students such confidence! They are excited to be reading a book that looks like something a teenager would read, and that focuses on topics teenagers are interested in. Even more than that, many of my students have felt convinced that reading is too hard for them since they have struggled for so many years, but when books that they like are accessible to them and understandable, they feel so much more empowered and happy to read.
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