Letter writing can be a way for students to feel safe asking questions, while working on braille skills in a real world activity. One of my students started corresponding with the speech therapist's dog, which gave him a chance to practice communication and connection. As his TVI, I worked with him on editing skills, using correct formatting, and punctuation. He also read responses from the dog Coby and edited those letters. He was asked to solicit assistance when there was something in one of the letters that he didn't understand.
This year for Braille Literacy Awareness Month, we created a packet of information for the School Board and the Superintendent. Pictured are all the items included as well as the two documents that I copied from a website and listed the website at the end.
As I teach my students cooking skills, we also learn how to write a grocery list for what we're cooking. But what if a student can't write the list? What if pictures are the media used to communicate, as well as read and write?
In addition to the many challenges that students with visual impairments face academically online, it can be difficult to find opportunities to socialize with peers. Here are a few ideas I have shared with families to try with their children during this period of at-home learning.
A common requirement in education is the lesson plan. Frequently I hear colleagues across the nation comment that they don’t do them. This confuses and concerns me. I’ve been teaching nearly 30 years and I still do lesson plans. They have morphed over the years from structured to lax to structured once more. And by lax what I really mean is notes written down on a spiral or scrap piece of paper. Nothing formalized. Now I’m back to using a lesson plan book and modifying it to meet my own needs.
A student of mine is what I call "tactually hesitant". She's not defensive, just hesitant with new textures and experiences. She is in a life skills class and is learning braille, and recently she surprised me! It took me nearly a school year for her to feel comfortable exploring a tub of dried beans and then a tub of uncooked rice. A couple of years ago I made her a "beach tub" based on the book "The Beach".
One of my students has been working with me for two and a half years on becoming more independent in cooking, learning new recipes, and learning to use new appliances and cooking implements. This year she is a senior, so at her annual IEP meeting we made a few changes to her goals.
As TVIs, therapists, special educators or family members, we never have enough time to create all of the books that we want to. Happily APH came out with a cool new product called
Recently I had the idea to make a position book for a student learning braille. My thought was to focus on the positional terms under/over. I made the book with tactile objects (flower, dominoes, hand sticker, “blanket”, shapes, starfish, “cracker”, and button). I punched a hole in a butterfly and tied a string to it. My thought was to use the butterfly to put either under/over depending on what the word card stated. Velcro was placed on the bottom of the page so that the words could be changed out.
In addition to the many challenges that students with visual impairments face academically online, it can be difficult to find opportunities to socialize with peers. Here are a few ideas I have shared with families to try with their children during this period of at-home learning.
One of my students has been working with me for two and a half years on becoming more independent in cooking, learning new recipes, and learning to use new appliances and cooking implements. This year she is a senior, so at her annual IEP meeting we made a few changes to her goals.
Submitted by Liz Eagan and Laurie Gaston