Come with Me

The National Literacy Strategy has helped us to raise standards for pupils with learning difficulties. The Inclusive Readers Series is designed to support teachers in this area by providing attractive, stimulating and appropriate reading materials for children with moderate or severe learning difficulties across the 7-11 age range. It includes fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and could help to support a multi-sensory approach to learning.

The Inclusive Readers Series aims to do more than develop children's reading and writing - it aims to enable readers to extend their knowledge and understanding, to develop a fascination with language, to explore a range of emotions and, where appropriate, to help them to deal with difficult issues. The books represent positively many aspects of disability, and reflect the cultural diversity of society.

Each pack consists of a 16-page A3 (11-2/3 x 16-1/2) big book, with full color illustrations; a pull-out section of characters and images from the text to cut out and laminate for use in follow-up work; a teachers' book with half-term and weekly plans, plus activities for pupils at different levels; and photocopiable differentiated versions of the text at four levels (P5-6, P7-1C and 1C-2A) for use with individual pupils - the lowest level using words with symbols.

The Come with Me Big Book is written by Maggie Walker and illustrated by Sara Walker. It might be best if you stay close by me as we travel through this story. Where does it begin? It begins, of course, once upon a time - once upon a time in a dark, dark forest...

This story is written for Year 3, and uses a predictable structure and strongly patterned language. Suggested activities include units on light and dark, tracking lights, object permanence and finding hidden objects. The Come with Me Teachers' Book, by Maggie Walker, Val Davis and Ann Berger, includes activities that are particularly suitable for pupils with visual impairment.