WE LOVE BOOKS!

The goal of Gateway's  Media Center is to serve our students, their families and staff.  Our students have multiple disabilities and range in age from birth to 21 years. We want to meet the needs of students who have autism, cognitive impairments, and/or physical limitations, and who are nonverbal or have very limited verbal communication skills.

The school library or Media Center provides resources and equipment to meet the student's IEP and curriculum goals. Our center utilizes Follett circulation software plus an online card catalog. Our collection contains 11,650 print and nonprint resources and pieces of equipment. Our resources include board books, picture books, BIG books, magazines, adapted books, sound books, audio and video tapes, CDs, DVDs, computer software, and a toy lending library. There is a large collection of augmentative communication and assistive technology devices to support the educational programming for our exceptional students.  We have a multiple switches and alternative input devices to help our students access computers.

The media specialist collaborates with other staff to make reading, listening, and viewing opportunities more meaningful for our students.  The media classes focus on adapted books that have been written by a team of Gateway's teachers.  The books are designed in a standard format and use Mayer Johnson's Boardmaker picture symbols.  These books serve as the core for classroom instruction and media programming.  The books usually contain repetitive lines to facilitate student comprehension and participation with communication devices.  Adapted books also teach concepts included on the students' IEPs.  These books provide opportunities for practicing emerging literacy skills that can help students discover reading and establish a lifelong love for books.

Our Center invites parents and friends to help us get additional resources and materials by collecting Campbell soup labels and General Mills' box tops. The labels and box tops can be mailed to our school address. Visit these web sites for the details:

http://www.campbellsoup.com/
http://www.boxtops4education.com/