Strategies to Make Literacy Meaningful to Beginning Braille Readers

This idea is a follow up to a case study:  Case study - Holistic Approach to Braille Reading Readiness.  It builds on the notion that individualizing lessons and materials according to a child's interests is the best way to provide both motivation and meaning.

Initial Letter Sound Recognition Activity

• Line the boxes up with a fun object inside to play with.
• Place one braille label for each item on the top of its matching box.
• Give the child the Braille label for the object you want them to find.
• Child finds matching initial letter sound from feeling the labels on top of the boxes.
• On finding the correct label, open the box to find the matching object and then the child is rewarded by being able to play with the object. Make sure objects will be of interest to the child.

Alphabet Book

• Make an alphabet book based on the learning opportunity presented within the curriculum. This book was based on the child’s love of spacemen. The child experienced feeling a model of an astronaut at the museum in Manchester and then came back to school and made this book in partnership with the Teaching Assistant. The child chose the materials to make the items in the book and then the initial letters were added. This way the knowledge and understanding of the alphabet is built up, guided by the activities and interests of the child, in no specific order.

Model Making

• Make models of the rocket launcher and breathing bottle (see picture in alphabet book).
• Child can then play with them, dress up using the breathing bottle, a boiler suit and helmet, big gloves and wellington boots.
• Alongside the Teaching Assistant they say what they would like to write and the TA writes it for them.
• The child writes a line of a a a a and then feels along the line they have just written.