Introducing Digital Task Cards to Students in Special Education

A few months ago, digital activities essentially became a necessity when teachers were required to teach online with zero notice. Digital task cards were popping up on BOOM Learning, Seesaw, as interactive PDFs, and more! Some students were able to access and use these materials with little to no instruction. However, some students weren’t able to utilize these materials because they lacked the prerequisite skills needed. So I am here to help you answer the question: what do you do if your students aren’t ready and can’t yet complete digital resources!

What prerequisite skills are beneficial for students in order to complete digital task cards?

Depending on the type of digital task cards, it is beneficial if students can demonstrate:

-scanning

-discrimination of images

-certain fine motor skills (such as finger isolation and the ability to drag and drop)

-matching

-completing multiple step activities

If your students aren’t able to complete digital activities yet, reference the list above to help determine what prerequisite skills they might need to improve/build on. 

How do I introduce digital activities to students that don’t have all the prerequisite skills?

I would suggest starting with errorless digital task cards! For the purpose of this blog post, I will be focusing on BOOM cards. As there are endless options for errorless digital activities out there, make sure you grab the ones that target the right skills. From the list above, you have already determined the skills(s) your students need to practice. Keep the following in mind when looking for activities. When searching, you can find digital task cards that target touching the named object. Additionally, you can find activities that require students to drag and drop images/icons, while others might require a swiping motion. 

To help students practice and learn each of these skills, I created Introduction to Matching BOOM Cards. You can download my FREE Introduction to Matching BOOM Cards: Clothing at the end of this blog post. Various other topics are highlighted in these task cards such as: colors, numbers, letters, shapes, animals, vehicles, furniture, and so much more! Three levels are included in each set. 

Level 1: The first level is errorless. As seen in the example above, students are required to drag and drop the identical image (from a field of one) onto a large picture of the same item.

Level 2: The second level introduces discrimination by also presenting a blank image. Students must choose between the identical image and the blank icon, and again drag and drop the icon onto the larger picture, as seen in the photo above.

Level 3: As portrayed in the above image, the third level takes discrimination a step further. This level requires students to determine the identical image from a field of two images. Again, students must drag and drop the correct icon onto the larger image. 

If you would like to try my Introduction to Matching BOOM Cards in your classroom, be sure to check them out here! 

Furthermore, if you would like to trial my Introduction to Matching BOOM Cards, you can download my free “clothing” BOOM card activity below. Samples from this activity were highlighted in my examples throughout the post. This freebie will assist you in introducing errorless digital activities in your classroom. It will also allow students to work on the prerequisite skills required to complete digital task cards. This single product can be used with students on varying levels.