Functional Literacy Guest post by Sasha Long.
Functional Literacy by: Sasha Long, MA BCBA There is a misconception that academic and functional skills are mutually exclusive. We for some reason got stuck in this thinking that tells us that instruction and activities are either academic or functional but cannot be both. When our students get older and we begin to transition to more functional tasks – that doesn’t mean that we are leaving academics behind. It’s our responsibility as late elementary and high school teachers to ensure that our academic instruction has a functional component since that looming 22nd birthday isn’t far off. So let’s talk about our academics and functional skills can live together in perfect harmony. We can still challenge our students and teach them important academic skills while preparing them to be independent adults. Selecting literacy goals for some students is easy or obvious. Some students are following some type of skill sequencing and we can quickly identify where to go next. For other students