A BIGmack is a speech-generating device. A message can be pre-recorded to the BIGmack and played when the speaker presses the large, colorful button on top. As a former self-contained classroom teacher, I loved using BIGmacks to create opportunities for emergent communicators to communicate and participate in class activities. In this blog post, I share three ways to utilize BIGmacks in a self-contained classroom.
1. Read Alouds and Reading Comprehension
In my early years of teaching, I made the mistake of leading and running most classroom activities. For example, I always read to my students during read-aloud activities. However, I quickly learned that all I taught my students by doing that was to be overly reliant on me. Moreover, students did not actively engage with the reading, hindering their performance in reading comprehension activities. In view of that, I started using BIGmacks to help students engage actively in read-aloud and reading comprehension activities.
Here is how I do it: I pre-record the reading passage up to two sentences at a time using multiple BIGmack buttons. I invite students to take turns reading to the class during read-aloud activities. Students who are verbal and capable of independently reading will use the BIGmack as a checker; students who are nonverbal and/or need support to read can use the BIGmack as a model or a speech-generating device. Similarly, comprehension questions and answer choices can also be pre-recorded onto the BIGmacks to support students’ participation.
2. Circle Time
Circle time is often used to develop the social, emotional, and communication skills to help young students succeed in school. This time typically follows a structured routine of greeting peers, checking in about everyone’s day, and orienting the class by discussing the schedule, days of the week, and the weather. This allows teachers to prepare the BIGmacks with pre-recorded messages preemptively. For example, record the day of the week on your BIGmack so students can “answer” the question, “What day is it today?”
3. Social Games
One of my favorite times of day in my self-contained classroom was involving my students in social games. These games provided students real-world opportunities to practice the social and communication skills they had previously been taught. When playing turn-taking games, common phrases such as “my turn,” “your turn,” or “good game” can be loaded onto the BIGmack. Alternatively, peers’ names and phrases like “good job” can allow nonverbal students to communicate more seamlessly when playing team-building games.
