CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Preparing for the school year has been different compared to previous years. Many parents and teachers are unsure of what the year will look like because of the pandemic. One educator is helping parents and teachers across the country overcome these uncertainties.
Meet Tara Tuchel a teacher and speech and language pathologist in Minnesota who specializes in autism. Tuchel is the owner of Autism Little Learners.
Tuchel created the company a year ago to help teachers and parents find teaching resources. Since the pandemic began more people started to reach out
"It evolved and I think after COVID hit everyone was looking including me for more digital resources and that's kind of when I started writing little stories to help kids deal with coronavirus and all the changes in all of our worlds," said Tuchel.
One day Tuchel was asked to help a friend whose daughter has autism by creating stories about COVID-19. Tuchel decided to share the stories on her website.
“Her mom said it worked really well so I thought well I have this new little website so I’ll put it out there in case it can help anybody else and the feedback was phenomenal. People started asking more and more and then some of the clip artists on teachers' pay teachers started making pictures or art specific to coronavirus," said Tuchel.
As new things developed during the pandemic a short story was created.
"I have a story about wearing a mask to school. for places where it's required and so kids and kinda get information beforehand. It's all about being proactive, teaching it ahead of time, so that kids don't have anxiety and they can be comfortable with all of these changes," said Tuchel.
Some stories have even been translated into different languages. Tuchel plans to continue writing these stories.
“All of them are free. just because during this pandemic we all need things to help the children in our lives. I set out to write these for kids with autism, but they help all kids,” said Tuchel.
To download one of these stories click here.