Promoting Emergent Literacy Skills (JVIB, 2018, p. 542-550)
How might the cultural background or socioeconomic status of families impact their ability to implement the suggested strategies for promoting emergent literacy in toddlers with visual impairments?
As an early intervention TVI/COMS, along with introducing the ECC I also discuss emergent literacy. When I meet with families, I typically bring books at each visit. I will also bring story boxes and sensory bins to encourage engagement and development of language. We will also create experience books during outings or when playing outside.
There are several families I work with who have different cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic status. With every family I work with, I provide literacy resources for them to sign up and receive tactile books, braille books, and auditory books. I believe these free resources are part of a foundation for toddlers and their parents which in turn motivates them to build upon and create rich literacy opportunities as they grow and develop.
Finally, if it is anticipated the child will be a braille reader, I have been fortunate to use family support funds to get a braillewriter for families. Providing coaching and instruction with parents empowers the families to incorporate it into their daily lives and routines. Together we create grocery lists, to-do lists and a braille rich home environment.
Matthew, I agree the socioeconomic status of a family can have a significant impact to promote emergent literacy. Materials cost a lot of money and the focus can be on food, shelter and daily living needs. It can be difficult for a family to justify specialized materials. I now work in early intervention and provide a lot of these materials for families. I spend a lot of time brailling books for little ones that parents get at book sales because I want them to realize that braille readers should always have access. I agree with you that when a child does not have these resources at an early age, they are already at a disadvantage. Thank you for your thoughts.
I completely agree! I have found setting families up with free literacy programs is so empowering to them. Often times, I get a text message from parents with pictures of their new books their children receive in the mail. In addition, modeling concepts and then leaving materials for them to use in between our visits is great for reinforcement. I also found it encourages the parents to get creative and extend their learning and their childâs learning.
Living in Southern WV, I see the impact of socioeconomic status all the time on the literacy skills of many of our students regardless of their vision. Many times grandparents are raising children due to the addiction of parents and more often than not the grandparents are just simply trying to survive raising a child again. While we do in fact have very educated families in our communities, sometimes that is not the norm and some children have more education than their parents. Access to age-appropriate books and materials is also an issue, as some of our smaller communities do not have access to a library. Quite frankly, as you state, itâs just not a priority for whatever reason. I think itâs important that the schools in smaller communities to try and have as many parent involvement events as they can to try and promote more excitement around literacy for their students and families.
I was definitely one of those students that did more for a teacher who expected more out of me and respected the things I struggled with and took time to explain to me on a level that I needed. As a teacher, I try my best to have high expectations of all of my students and try to build on the abilities that they have. One thing that I have done in the past that I consider to reflect the high expectations of my students is a student ECC portfolio with each of my students. We sit together at the beginning of the year and go over the ECC goals for that year. We then sit together several times out of the year and talk about the progress of those goals, what we might need to change or add. Then at the end of the year, I have my upper level students create a PowerPoint of their goals, projects that worked on, and accomplishments that they made. Most of them enjoy doing that believe it or not.
Reflecting on your own experiences as a student, how did teacher expectations influence your academic performance and motivation? How might you apply these insights to your own teaching practice?
In thinking back to my own experiences, I remember thinking back to my reading classes in 1st and 2nd grade and pinpointing that experience to why I never picked up a love of reading for enjoyment. Back then, they always did the round robin for reading and I hated it. I was always too concerned about messing up reading aloud or reading to slow that I never listened to the others and therefore had problems answering the questions the teacher might ask. As a result of that I was placed in remedial reading classes and had to go to a totally different class for that. I absolutely hated that and felt embarrassed. Now was that the right thing for me at the time? I donât really know, I just know that the teachers in my remedial class didnât have very high expectations of me or the others and I never pushed myself in reading. It wasnât until I got to High School and College did some of that change for me. I had a teachers and professors that pushed me beyond my comfort zone but also took the time to explain what I might not really understand. They wanted me to be successful and actually apply myself. I respected them more for pushing me than just giving me busy work. Sadly I never did acquire a love of reading for enjoyment, but I will say that I try to work on that daily.
How might the cultural background or socioeconomic status of families impact their ability to implement the suggested strategies for promoting emergent literacy in toddlers with visual impairments?
I currently am working through this connect this past year. I have a student who is originally from Honduras, and has been in the country for only 3 years. They currently are labelled BVI and ELA, level 4. They have done a good job, but I am always am back tracking to make sure they understand everything that is being read and discussed in his classroom and even with me. I never want to assume that they know and or understand everything because I know their background. I often am stopping my lessons and asking the question, âtell me what you are struggling withâ âin your own words, tell me what is happening in this paragraphâ Can you relate to this paragraph in any way" etc. Some times I just outright as, do you understand thisâŚand because of the relationship I have built with my student, I can have great conversations with them to help clear up any confusion they might have. Because I know both parents also have limited English, I use a program called Talking Points to stay in contact with them, as well as using google translate whenever I am sending an email home, stating that I am using the program and it if is not translating correctly, let me know and I will use an interrupter. I will say our district is a more progress and does include several options that allows students to chose their own books to read or they integrate more culturally relevant stories, which is awesome.
I totally agree, I remember my undergraduate work, and I was taught the same thing. It frustrates me, especially when we have know about science based research for 30 years and we are just coming around to using them in the school systems. Then I think about all of the students who I had previous to coming into the BVI world who never really âgotâ reading and I never had the appropriate skills to help themâŚwhich saddens me.
I totally agreeâŚone of the first things I do when I get a new BVI family is that I visit their home with their team. This can include the cultural liaison, which is a great connection for our families. I want all of our families to understand that they are in control of their childâs educations, and I am hear to support them regardless of their status.
Prior to viewing the module video, what were your assumptions about Dyslexia? How did the simulation activity change or contribute to your understanding of Dyslexia?
I have always been told that Dyslexia is a visual based disability. Iâve suspected one student in particular is Dyslexic for a long time and when Iâve consulted reading specialists on strategies related to it, Iâve been told it canât be Dyslexia because my student is blind. This video is going to be so helpful moving forward and I plan to reference it quite a lot. Not only is it almost impossible for a student with a visual impairment to get screened for Dyslexia, but I struggle every year getting students identified properly with ID or anything else, which could help them with funding and adult services. Iâm so tired of hearing that the tests arenât ânorm referencedâ and no one knows how to interpret the information. Itâs a real problem in our field.
I also always thought Dyslexia was more of that reversal piece. Iâve heard thatâs not all Dyslexia is, but I never had a course of understanding that itâs really about the phonemes more than just the reversal of letters. So I have a student who constantly reverses every single braille reversal that exists (r and w, d and f, m and sh, y and and, etc). But her phonemic awareness is amazing. Once she can identify the letter, she can decode it and she spells great. So, based on this definition, her issue would not be Dyslexia. Though, this exercise has really made me think differently about another student who struggles strongly with reading. He can often identify characters but cannot sound out even basic words. Having access to this phoneme translation key, Iâm going to see if any of the mistakes he makes could be similar. I wonder are these translations the same for all people with Dyslexia, or just examples?
It is so important that weâre providing these resources for families. Even family who do not have social economic or cultural differences may not know where to find the resources. Out students are at such a disadvantage not having access to incidental reading. I took a course on poverty several years ago and how it impacts reading - for average developing students - and the statistics on the amount of vocabulary students are exposed to in low income situations is staggering. We have to do everything we can to get braille in studentâs hands and educate the families on purposeful learning.
I agree with your response. There are so many different languages and cultures, it can be so hard to know enough about your students and their families to fully implement these strategies. Google translate can only do so much. What Iâve learned over the years is trying to talk to families and learning about them and what things look like at home can be huge. Like our students who are blind, many times an ELL doesnât have the background knowledge to understand some of our vocabulary words. Being conscious of this is very helpful to preview information that would otherwise be a struggle. An lastly including parents in decisions about goals and the IEP. This can especially be hard when weâre used to writing them and having a conversation at the meeting, and if the parent doesnât speak the same language as you, itâs hard to have these meaningful experiences with a translator.
Are You Communicating High Expectations? (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2022)
Reflecting on your own experiences as a student, how did teacher expectations influence your academic performance and motivation? How might you apply these insights to your own teaching practice?
Thinking back to elementary school, I was not a very motivated student to learn how to read. I do not remember anything about my 1st and 2nd grade classrooms which would have been where the foundations for reading were being taught. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy reading until I was out of high school and college where I found novels that were interesting to me. Math was always my favorite subject and highly motivating to me. I do feel that I have experienced many good teachers and a few great teachers throughout my educational career. Of course it was the great teachers that motivated me most. It was the teachers that gave me the most positive praise and âyou can do itâ attitude that had the most impact on me. It made me want to excel.
In the article, âAre You Communicating High Expectations?â resonated with me because as an intervention specialist we were not communicating high expectations to my students with learning disabilities. The regular education classroom teachers would express to me in front of the students that I would need to pull âmyâ students because the activity would be too difficult for them. I never created any pushback to my teachers because I didnât want to cause any problems. In that smaller classroom environment, âmyâ students did excel because they felt more comfortable and confident in that smaller environment. I donât think the regular education classroom teachers meant any harm, in fact, I think in their minds they were helping âmyâ students. However, looking back we probably did more harm than good by also incorporating ability groups in the area of reading. I know now that keeping all students in the classroom with much teacher and peer support is the best practice. After reading the articles and listening to the videos from week one of this class, I know that it will be best practice to teach new braille students alongside their peers in the regular education classroom.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience! This is a great reminder to always believe in our students and share that belief with them. I also love the last part you wrote about holding high expectation for staff. That frame of mind and collaboration time probably helps school colleagues continue that high confidence in our students.
Wow!! What a great teacher!! This makes my heart melt! I love the teachers that go above and beyond the classroom. One might think that this is what a teacher should do, but there are probably only a handful that would go to oneâs appointments. Kudos to her! I hope you reached out to her to let her know the impact that she had on you. Thanks for sharing your school experience.
I think it is imperative to have the âgreatâ teachers in the early years of elementary because they set the foundation for learning/reading to build upon in the later years. I also think that it is very important to hold high expectations for ALL students. Creating a warm environment with the high expectations will have a huge impact on student learning and success.
Reflect on the seven specific suggestions provided for teachers of reading classes with ELLs. How practical and feasible are these suggestions in real classroom contexts?
Provide additional work on English phonemes that are not present in the studentsâ native language. This would require the teacher to have background knowledge of the studentâs native language and be able to transfer these skills between the languages.
If students are literate in their native language, focus on differences between that language and English, with less attention given to elements that will transfer. While I understand the concept here, it would make a lot of sense to connect the elements that transfer to build skills rather than focus mainly on new skills.
Provide extra practice in reading words, sentences, and stories. There should also be extra practice listening to and speaking words, sentences, and stories in order to build the background before reading becomes fluent.
Use cognate words in the native language as synonyms when teaching vocabulary. Again, this requires background knowledge of the language, or at a minimum the time to research and find the appropriate native vocabulary.
Identify and clarify difficult words and passages. This takes a lot of on-the-spot teaching and creativity. This is not always easy to do in the moment and can make the student more confused if material is not explained well or correct.
Consolidate knowledge of the text through the use of summaries.
Find appropriate ways to use the native language. This could be a great idea if the student is interested in converging the two languages. For example, some teachers like the students to teach others about their language or culture but this could be intimidating or overwhelming depending on the student.
Overall, like most information that comes from sources outside of daily classroom instruction, most of these are great in theory but not always easy to implement.
Prior to viewing the module video, what were your assumptions about Dyslexia? How did the simulation activity change or contribute to your understanding of Dyslexia?
Prior to viewing this module, I had some general knowledge about this condition. Here in North Dakota a law was passed in 2023, with key requirements for schools to help children with reading difficulties. According to our DPI website it states: The law is North Dakota Century Code NDCC 15.1-32-26, in which dyslexia is defined as a neurological (brain) difference that causes difficulties reading words, spelling, and decoding.
One thing that I didnât realize was that individuals with dyslexia do not necessarily see and write letters backwards. I found the information Marnee Loftin shared on how dyslexia looks different at different ages useful. I didnât know that pre-readers have difficulty with rhyming words, often an early sign of dyslexia. In the video series, Ask the Expert Series from the National Center on Improving Literacy, âWhat are Some Signs a Student with Visual Impairment May Need an Evaluation for Dyslexia?â, Marnee Loftin again states these early readers with a visual impairment, have difficulty rhyming words and decoding simple words, cat, dog, etc just like children with normal sight. And in the elementary ages, I now know what the guessing of words is called simply âword calling.â I think weâve all had students who have done this. And the same with theyâll just look at the first letter and say a word.
With the simulation activity, it was indeed challenging as one had to refer to the code and then see if the word made sense. After reading a few lines, one understood what the paragraph was about so that helped me in decoding the words without having to always look back at the key. One can certainly see the frustration students would feel and why students with dyslexia exhibit the characteristics Marnee Loftin described in the module, like slow and labored reading, words eliminated etc.
Hi @shannong, I find that the values you listed in your post marry quite well with many school standards and goals. As you stated in a previous post, we must âthink of Maslowâs Hierarchy. Physiological needs must be met before focusing on other aspects of life.â Unlike Maslow, I believe that belonging is at the base of the hierarchy, because when we treat people like they belong, we (the community/tribe) will make sure that their physiological and safety needs are met.
When considering families who seem disengaged from school, one way we can bridge this divide is by developing a beginnerâs mindset for each family. This will enable us to have an open heart that Stephanie Davis (@whatawhat) mentioned in her July 10th post (Week 2: July 7-13 - #104 by whatawhat). When we created space to hear all of a familyâs story, we most likely will discover places where trauma has occurred and where resources and healing are needed.
Currently, there is a movie streaming about five young Mexican-American high school caddies (The Long Game). Itâs set in 1955. In one scene, the father of one of the caddies becomes very angry when he learns that his son is involved with the schoolâs newly-created golf team. The fatherâs anger is due, in part, to the fatherâs belief that the dominate culture will not accept (or will harm) his son. This belief is rooted in the fatherâs experiences. Thus, while the fatherâs response to his sonâs golf game may seem irrational (or even cruel), the father is just trying to protect his son. (At the same time, we can observe the important educational values the father is imparting to his son outside of school.)
With all that we now know about the brain, trauma, and learning, we must remember that learning does not occur solely in the pre-frontal cortex, in isolation of the limbic system. As a famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt states: âPeople donât care how much [we] know until they know how much [we] care.â
Hi @rika.paloalto! Just the other day another TVI and I had a conversation about the importance of having students actively participate in their IEP meetings. Thatâs a great way to build confidence, raise expectations, and âcarefully [consider] the childâs present levels of achievement and their potential.â We were also thankful that the NFB offers intensive IEP training opportunity through their IEP Advocacy Academy.
Pamela, I can totally relate. I, too, have had experiences of having ELL students with little to no English language experiences. It was frustrating as an intervention specialist not to have many strategies or tools to lead my students to success. I am sure that school is a very scary place for that little girl along with many other students that face the same situation. It makes me sad. Looking back, I wish I would have felt that I had more of an impact on learning for my ELL studentâs education.
According to the article written by Suzanne Irujo, there is very little research out there for effective literacy instruction and these are just the strategies that she finds helpful. Putting the 7 strategies into place would be very difficult for your specific student. I am guessing for your particular student, especially given her young age, the instruction would need to be placed on the area of phonics and speaking. If your student is not even speaking, it is hard telling what could be going onâŚ.Could she have had a hearing impairment? Was she just too shy/embarrassed to produce sounds/words? Could she have had any other disabilities? It is so frustrating as an educator to feel so helpless. I agree with you that there is definitely an injustice to a wide variety of students that we come into contact with. I definitely do not have the answers, but I can totally relate with you.
I am curious to know if your student started speaking or making any progress by the end of the school year?