literacy and visual impairments
Like April Wa. said in regard to repeated readings, the fact that children with visual impairments are at risk of experiencing delays in the development of language and literacy=duh! Was this a surprise to anyone else? Maybe I shouldn’t assume it is a well known fact, but it seems like it is pretty much a given that children who have a visual impairment will experience delays. They are experiencing the world in a totally different way from most people. They don’t have the benefit of visually matching things they see with words they say. I think this study, however, is very helpful. I like how they emphasize using very descriptive, oral language. For example, when the teacher described the Japanese fans and the plastic spider. I definitely agree that helps compensate for not being able to see the objects. I also like that they recommended specific strategies at the end to promote the three components of emergent literacy. It is a good resource for anyone that may come into contact with children with visual impairments.
Yeah, it definitely has to be tough, during the early years especially. When you think about very young children, a lot of the books for them are mainly pictures with only a few words to describe the picture. As children get a little older though, there’s a lot of great books with very descriptive language that should be enjoyable for children with visual impairments. I can remember loving my teachers reading chapter books aloud to us in 4th and 5th grade. However, I guess the challenge here is getting the children even interested in reading at a young age when they do not have the benefit of word-picture correspondence. The authors did offer up some great suggestions though.
I think it is not that much of a surprise that kids with visual impairments may experience delays in literacy. It is also known that reading Braille takes significantly more time than reading words formed with the alphabet. But, I will tell you this great story about a little boy I know. He is blind and had not learned to read all throughout elementary school. I don’t if anyone ever tried to teach him. Once he entered middle school they worked with him and his language and literacy progressed rapidly! He loves to spell now and listen to books on tape. He knows all of his letters and the sounds that they make. He can read Braille, he can spell any word given him. It is pretty amazing and inspiring to me!