VOCABULARY & PLANNERS

Core Vocabulary

video screen with question on the left side over the word "yes" and on the right a student in wheelchair with his arms raised and smiling towards the camera

Supporting Individual Access to the Universal Core Facilitated Materials

by Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, Department of Health Sciences, UNC-Chapel Hill

Universal Core Module.

This module is part of a group and emphasizes the importance of individual core vocabulary systems and gives guidance for determining the format of the display. Facilitator guides and full documentation of the trainings make them perfect for professional development of instructional assistants or others working with these students.

text with types of videos shown each day, a white woman with glasses and medium dark hair smiling, and a set of electronic devices of colorful symbol grid displays

Speech Without Limits YouTube Channel

by Jeanna Antrim

YouTube Channel

The Speech without Limits YouTube channel is a great source for ideas about how to use target core vocabulary across the day. Each video is short (about 2 minutes) and focuses on a single core word. You’ll see examples of activities and hear how you can word things differently to incorporate the use of the target word more often..

Handout with short sections of text and bold headings; hyperlinks visible within text; and a science lesson chart about plants show example of activities

School Year of Core

by PRC Language Lab

The series has two levels of monthly vocabulary words along with a comprehensive set of ideas, resources, and materials.  

SYOC Page

School Year of Core Older Student Lessons

by PrAACtical AAC Blog

The series has two levels of monthly vocabulary words along with a comprehensive set of ideas, resources, and materials.  These materials are specifically appropriate for older learners of all abilities.

SYOC – OSL Page


AAC Made Easy. Vocabulary Lists

Fluent AAC

Suggestions for vocabulary to model on an AAC system for nearly 40 activities. Each activity includes ideas for words and phrases to communicate for different functions such as commenting, asking questions, directing others, etc.

Vocabulary Lists

Vocabulary Planners

These entries may overlap with the Device Trial Data content, as the planners are often used for data collection as well.

Vocabulary and Data Chart

Form for planning the trial contexts, selecting vocabulary, and setting up the data collection system.

SGD Planning and Data Documents

Collection of documents related to planning trial contexts and collecting data.

graphic organizer with different shapes connected to each other with arrows. Lines in each shape for text, two location show 3 vocabulary words already entered.

Building Language Where do I start?

by Speak for Yourself

A detailed graphic organizer to guide the collection of words associated with an activity to support modeling / aided language input. It includes prompt questions that are really helpful for identifying the most meaningful vocabulary across language functions.

Graphic Organizer


Core Is All Around

by Lesson Pix

Lesson Pix is a website for making visuals for your students. In addition to the paid services they have many materials that are pre-made and available for download. The “Core Is All Around” graphic maps out how core vocabulary can be used across the day in an early childhood setting. Educators can see how they might create maps across different grades to plan for the use of core vocabulary all d

Core Graphic Organizer

Topic word bubbles is in the center spiky circle of the graphic organizier with different related words in the colorfully outlined shapes that surround it.

Core Vocabulary Activity First

by PRC / Saltillo

From Chat Corner resources page, select:

  • “Activities to Teach Core”,
  • “Choosing CORE Vocabulary Activity First Approach”
  • pdf link
  • A single pdf document includes separate pages for each activity entry. Each page is a graphic organizer of a target activity in the center, surrounded by different parts of speech such as: feeling words, questions, recurrence, negate/stop, nouns, describing words, people, and actions. Some activities also include an additional “communication script” handout.

Saltillo Chat Corner