ALIST Spotlight-- Therese Garison, Helke Elementary

Our ALIST features a variety of educators who go above and beyond to meet the needs of their students. Therese Garison at Helke Elementary in Vandalia is a paraprofessional who is an incredible example of someone who goes above and beyond. Therese is a team player who is always open to new ideas and creates fantastic supports for students. Today's ALIST Spotlight highlights these supports created by Therese.

Sensory Supports
Therese has provided students with a structured work area for completing assignments. This study carrel provides a space for students to work on assignments with reduced visual distractions.

Therese has incorporated supports for active movement breaks using the taped track below.

As well as passive calming breaks in a comfy bean bag with a favorite book.

Visual Supports
In addition to the structure of the environment, Therese provides structure using visual supports. We LOVE this visual schedule which provides the student with forced choices at certain times of day so that they have shared control of what work to do.

She communicates regularly with parents using a visual recall sheet.

Visual supports are also a great way to support communication and emotional regulation. We love this clever speech bubble request board and the feelings board with body picture so the student can point to any body part that may hurt.

Instructional Supports
Therese does a great job of incorporating student interests and getting them involved in their learning. She chooses learning themes that are motivating and allows the student to create their own learning tools such as the independent word wall and hunks and chunks posters.

We are so fortunate to have Therese as part of our ALIST and her students are very lucky to have her!