Materials and Resources

Abilitations
This website contains great resources for children with special needs. You can request a free catalog and there is also an online catalog. It has just about any type of accommodation for a child with special needs you can think of.

Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning
This is a Vanderbilt university website. The site contains tons of information about social and emotional development and their relationship to successful early learning. It offers a lot of material that can be downloaded and some of this material is available EN ESPANOL. It also has a lot of videos that we can actually view FREE OF CHARGE. The site also has several chat rooms that one can join.

Flaghouse Inc (Canada)
This is another website that has a lot of material and equipment for children with special needs.

Inclusion.com
Nice website about inclusion and what it really means. It has a lot of online resources and a lot of information about books, DVDs, videos and articles all about inclusion.

The Incredible Years
This website has lots of really cool resources for parents and especially for teachers. There are a lot of materials and resources and information that we can all use.

ODIN books
1110 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6H 1G5
Phone: (604) 739-8804 OR TOLL FREE 1-800-223-6346
Fax 604-739-8874

This local bookstore has an amazing collection of education, special education, psychology, child development and early childhood education resources. Their only problem is that their books and other materials are quite pricey.

Kaplan
This is a great website. It has a great catalog that you can order and have delivered to your door. It has lots of material and equipment and toys for just about any developmental area you can think of.

National Early Childhood Transition Center
I believe this is an important website. Transition issues have often been reported by parents of children with special needs as a major hassle. This website provides a lot of tips and ideas and recommendations on how to make transitions easier on both parents and children. It also has a list of videos on school transitions. The only downside is that it might be more geared toward professionals than it is toward parents.

Pocket Full of Therapy
This website also has great resources for toys and equipment. This site has a great bonus: you can actually send an email to a therapist, if you have a question, via their website, and a therapist will return your email as soon as possible.

The Secret Life of the Brain
This is a nice website that describes how the brain develops, from pre-birth to the end of the early years. It is quite informative and a lot of fun to watch.

Sensory Overload Simulation
Did you ever wonder what it is like to experience sensory overload? Did you ever wonder why some children with autism and other disorders, do not like it when a noise is a bit too loud or a light a bit too bright? Watch this “simulation” video and you will understand.

School Specialty Supplies
This website offers a lot of useful materials and equipment for all developmental areas.. They have several catalogs that show all their materials. Catalogs can be shipped to you for free.

Superduper Publications
This website has a lot of really cute and nice toys and materials for all areas of development. They ship free to USA and Canada.

Toys for Special Children
This website offers some interesting toys that can foster children’s development

Wintergreen Toys
This website has a wide variety of toys and materials that would be useful to all children

Note: While HELP has selected and evaluated these “Recommended Links”, we cannot guarantee the function, accuracy or currency of the websites and the information contained within them. They have been provided for informational purposes only.

Literacy for the Early and Middle Years

Get Ready to Read
This is a website that allows you to check whether or not a child is ready to learn how to read and it also gives you plenty of ideas on how you can stimulate children in ways that will foster the development of skills that they will need, in order to learn how to read and write.

Get Ready to Read: Literacy Checklists
This is a great website that contains checklists that can be used to determine whether or not a child is ready to learn how to read. The checklists are available in both English and Spanish. It also connects you to other websites and resources that are about literacy and getting ready to read and write.

Kindergarten Readiness Indicators
This website allows you to check and see whether or not your child and/or student is ready for kindergarten. It also connects you to other websites that help children who are not yet ready for kindergarten, get ready for it.

Launching Young Readers
This website is part of PBS’s literacy website. It provides a lot of useful information that parents and educators can use, in order to help children develop their literacy skills. The information provided can help children who are on their way to develop their literacy skills and those who are struggling with these skills.

Reading and Writing: What Parents and Educators Should Know
This is an awesome website. It is part of the PBS literacy website and it describes the stages that children go through, in order to become fluent readers and writers. It shows the progression of the development of reading and writing skills, from babyhood, through grade 3. Highly recommended!

Reading Development: One Child’s Journey to the World of Reading
This is a nice illustration of the process that most children go through, in order to become fluent readers.

Reading Rockets
This website contains a lot of useful information about reading readiness. It gives parents and teachers advice as to how they can recognize whether or not a child is ready to learn how to read and offers advice as to how parents and teachers can help struggling readers. This website also connects the user to other websites and resources on the development of reading skills in children.

Writing Development: One Child’s Journey from Scribbles to Stories
This is a wonderful website to visit. It is part of the PBS child development website. It follows a child, Toby, through his journey with literacy. It shows (by describing and showing examples) how he started with scribbling and ended up being quite a good writer! It links development and literacy, by giving nice examples. Highly recommended!

Child Development: The Middle Childhood Years

Attachment Parenting – Canada (Child Development Milestones: The Middle Years)
This article presents a nice list of the skills and milestones that children need to reach or achieve, in the middle childhood years, in order to function well in school, and society in general.

Child Development Tracker
This website allows you to check what developmental milestones a child needs to reach, in order to be developing typically. The website covers the age range of birth to 8 years.

Developmental Milestones Chart
This chart does a great job of linking developmental milestones, from the early infancy years, through the adolescence years. It shows how children acquire skills that they will need both in the present and in the future, as many of these skills are foundations for later more complex skills.

Developmental Milestones Summary
This a great website for anyone who would like to know whether or not a child is developing typically. It starts by defining the different areas of development. It then moves on to state which milestones should be reached by children, in each developmental area, and at what age. It covers the birth to seventeen years age range.