I adapted Goldilocks and the Three Bears for my 4-year-old son who is deaf-blind.
2 Bears:
I wanted to create a story box for my son that was based off of a classic children's story. My son is beginning to learn ASL. I chose the...
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Posted by Anna Swenson
By Anne Spitz, Teacher of the Visually Impaired, Dover, MA
and Anna Swenson, Braille Literacy Consultant, Fairfax, VA
The ideas in this post grew out of a workshop in Connecticut on Braille Literacy Skills and are posted in their complete...
Posted by Steve Perreault
The real purpose of this activity is to create motivation about braille for teenagers who are newly blind and congenitally deaf. This approach uses language experience stories written in contracted braille to give the full sense of braille....
Posted by Katie Armstrong
Handwriting Without Tears (now called "Learning Without Tears") is a multi-sensory writing curriculum created for early childhood through 5th grade. I have been using the pre-school program called, Get Set For School, in my early...
Posted by Jaime Brown
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a classic loved by children and adults. This is a great story for teaching many topics and concepts, including big/little, life cycle, colors and foods. Teachers can adapt the story to meet varying...
Posted by Faye Gonzalez
Kids with visual and multiple disabilities often struggle with writing. Let’s face it, these students often struggle with being effective communicators, much less with being effective writers! In the maze of challenges our students...
Posted by Anna Swenson
Fluency, one of the five areas recognized by the National Reading Panel, is a goal for all beginning readers, whether they use print or braille. We recognize fluency when children read accurately at a normal rate of speed, observe punctuation marks, and use...
Posted by Diane Brauner
I have created a number of emerging literacy kits for TVIs to use to help young children to develop pre-braille skills. Each kit includes print/braille books with tactile pictures, real objects, activities, interactive concept alphabet book,extensive...
Posted by Megan Mogan
by Megan Mogan, MS, CCC-SLP, Speech-Language Pathologist
In my last post we talked about using van Dijk’s coactive movement strategies to establish meaningful and enjoyable topics for our early communicators. Next I want to share a pretty simple...
Posted by Jaime Brown
This month we are learning about friendship and how to have fun with our friends. We are reading two books in class and many of our activities are based upon the stories. My students are learning how to participate in parallel and cooperative...
Posted by Liamsmom
Concept book:
My 3-year-old son Liam, who is newly deaf/blind (lost his sight and hearing to Meningitis a year ago) is learning ASL and picking up on sign language very quickly. The next set of books I wanted to make for my...
Posted by Laurie Hudson
My three-year-old student with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) has difficulty finding items unless they have solid, contrasting backgrounds. I have been using the CVI Complexity Sequences Kit with him, written by Christine Roman and...
Posted by Katie Armstrong
These activities are designed to support fine motor skills, pre-literacy skills, math, and overall independence in the preschool children I teach. I have been slowly but surely introducing more independent work activities into my classroom and try to...
Posted by Katie Armstrong
Is it Winter or is it Fall? In Phoenix, Arizona it is hard to tell! In my classroom it is Winter, however when you look at all the leaves under the tree on the playground you would think it was Fall!
Hot and Cold
Here are a few ways that we...
Posted by Megan Mogan
Megan Mogan, MS, CCC-SLP, Speech-Language Pathologist
I’m sure you are a little confused that this is a literacy post and I am stuffing frosting into my face next to a student in the photograph to the left. Well, I promise you it’s a...
Posted by Liamsmom
My son became deafblind a year ago from Meningitis when he was 2 and 1/2 years old. Before he became sick, one of his favorite things was to be read to and look at books. I didn't want that to stop just because he lost his sight and...
Posted by Faye Gonzalez
The iPad can be a great tool to help kids with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI). Specific apps can be used to encourage visual attention and visual motor skills, whereas other apps can be used to help develop visual motor integration and fine motor...
Posted by Laurie Hudson
This activity is a way to make braille fun for emergent readers!
I have a collection of about 20 balls...all different sizes and shapes and textures and weights, including a tennis ball, a fuzzy ball, a football, a spiky ball, a bumpy ball, a koosh...
Posted by Megan Mogan
By Megan Mogan, Speech-Language Pathologist
What is "Adapted Adapted Literacy"?
Over the years, you may have noticed a shift in the population of students you serve as TVIs, Speech Therapists, Orientation and Mobility Specialists, etc. ...
Posted by Marsha Bork
VO Starter
This app is a free download and is a great starter for people that get an iPad or iPhone!
Description of App
VO Starter is the first app to offer blind and visually impaired iOS users training on the built-in screen reader, VoiceOver. For...