Land We Can Share: Teaching Literacy to Students with Autism

Paula Kluth, Ph.D., (she/her) is a consultant, author, advocate, and independent scholar who works with teachers and families to provide inclusive opportunities for students with disabilities and to create more responsive and engaging schooling experiences for all learners. She is a former K–12 special educator who has served as a classroom teacher, co-teacher, and inclusion facilitator. Paula has also been a university professor and taught courses on both inclusion and disability studies. Most recently, Paula’s work has centered on helping teachers and administrators educate all students in their schools and classrooms. She also frequently works with families and advocacy groups to support goals related to inclusion. In addition to inclusive education and autism, her professional interests include universal design for learning, co-teaching, and educating students with complex support needs.

Paula is the author or coauthor of 15 other titles including Universal Design Daily, 30 Days to the Co-Taught Classroom (with Dr. Julie Causton), Don’t We Already Do Inclusion?: 100 Ideas for Improving Inclusive Schools, and Just Give Him the Whale: 20 Ways to Use Fascinations, Areas of Expertise, and Strengths to Support Students with Autism (with Dr. Patrick Schwarz). She is also the author of a few books for children, including Coaster, a story of a puppy with wonderful wheels.

You can find out more about Paula’s work by visiting her web site, www.inclusionrules.com, or by connecting with her on social media (@paulakluth).

Kelly Chandler-Olcott, Ed.D., is an associate professor in Syracuse University’s Reading and Language Arts Center, where she directs the English Education program. Aformer secondary English and social studies teacher, she now teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in content literacy, English methods, literacy and technology, and writing for professional publication. She was awarded a Meredith Recognition Award for excellence in university teaching in 2000.

Dr. Chandler-Olcott’s research interests include adolescents’ technologymediated literacy practices, classroom-based inquiry by teachers, content literacy, and inclusive approaches to literacy instruction. With funding from the National Science Foundation, she and several colleagues recently completed data collection for a multiyear study of the literacy demands that reform-based mathematics curricula present for students in urban secondary classrooms. Her newest research project is a literacy intervention situated in an inclusive humanities class in an urban middle school.

Dr. Chandler-Olcott’s work has been published by such journals as English Education, Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and Reading Research Quarterly. She has also co-authored four books, the most recent being Spelling Inquiry: How One Elementary School Caught the Mnenomic Plague (Stenhouse, 1999), with the Mapleton Teacher-Research Group; and Tutoring Adolescent Literacy Learners: A Guide for Volunteers (Guilford, 2005), with Kathleen Hinchman.