Bullimbal School uses a balanced literacy approach to literacy teaching in all classrooms, based on information outlined in “Research-Based Practices for Creating Access to the General Curriculum in Reading and Literacy for Students with Significant Intellectual Disabilities” Erickson, Hanser, Hatch and Sanders (2009).
At Bullimbal School we recognize that self-selected reading is an important component of the literacy program of all literacy learners.
Emergent students should have the opportunity to interact with books independently as well the opportunity to read books with an adult for enjoyment (see Shared Reading).
Conventional students should have a range of books available at or below their reading level to assist them to read with comprehension at one grade level higher.
We recognize that our most important role in self-selected reading is curation. We recognize that for self-selected reading to occur, all students need to have a range of motivating texts available to choose between and a large part of our role is to curate appropriate texts for each student.
