Literacy Instruction for Students who are Braille Readers

1. Literacy Instruction for Students who are Braille Readers Dr. Sandra Lewis slewis@fsu.edu Friday, January 29, 2010

2. Classroom Teacher Learner Family School

3. Cambourne’s Conditions of Literacy Learning • Immersion • Demonstration • Engagement • Expectations • Responsibility • Use • Response • Approximation

4. Cambourne’s Conditions • Immersion • Need to be surrounded by an environment that is rich in spoken and written language • Demonstration • Need opportunities to observe models of the way that written language is used in daily life, as well as observe others read • Engagement • Need to have the belief in themselves as potential doers—”actors” in their world

5. Cambourne’s Conditions • Expectations • Need to be in an environment where adults believe that they will acquire literacy skills • Use • Must use reading and writing skills throughout their daily lives • Response • Need to receive feedback on their attempts at reading and writing • Approximation • Should be free to make attempts that move closer and closer to conventional reading and writing

6. Classroom Teacher Learner Family School Responsibility Engagement Demonstration Use Immersion Approximation Response Expectations

7. Holistic Approach • Involves the ECC • Expanded Core Curriculum • Those skills that most children learn incidentally, but which, because of their visual impairment, may not be easily mastered because children who are blind or who have low vision can’t easily access them (or knowledge about them).

8. Compensatory Skills Orientation & Mobility Social Skills Recreation & Leisure Skills Career Skills Technology Skills Visual Efficiency Skills Daily Living Skills Self-Determination Skills Expanded Core Curriculum

9. A Holistic Approach • Parts of the expanded core curriculum need to be infused daily into all the activities of the child with visual impairments • Including academics • No skill should be isolated • They all interrelate • Blind children especially need to be helped to understand these relationships

10. What can a parent do? • Read to your child • Assure that your child acquires important experiences • Include your child in home activities • Include literacy in those activities • Have high expectations for your child • Celebrate blindness/difference • Learn braille

11. Experience Based Literacy “The code need not and should not be introduced as a separate skill or competency but should be introduced within the context of meaningfulliteracy experiences. Isolated drill and practice of the signs and rules of the code will not motivate the child to enjoy reading and learning to read.” (Rex, Koenig, Wormsley, Baker, Foundations of Braille Literacy, 1994, p.65)