How might collaborative planning and instruction between TVIs and general education teachers be structured to ensure alignment, particularly in terms of addressing the interconnectedness of language comprehension and word recognition?
One tool that I always use, is meeting with the entire school team at the beginning of the school year to connect and put a face to me. I then always do a presentation about the incoming student and what their vision is like. If possible, I always try to use simulation glasses to give the teachers a general idea of what is happening with the studentâs vision.
I then start to break down the steps of what the student will need to do to access their curriculum and how I need to get it in a format that they can accessâŚI am just trying to open their eyes to the layers of what it takes to gain access.
Once this happens, I then meet with each teacher individually, and set up weekly meeting to connect and help plan out how to give access to the students. During these meetings we can then connect on any new topics and subjects, which then gives me the opportunity in my work space to connect it the student and pre-teach concepts and/or hold discussion to give the student more background and understand prior to classroom. The pre-teaching if often woven into my lessons with technology or learning braille, etc. This has worked well for me in my district.
#2
Without real-life experiences and hands-on/tactile learning activities, gaps between spoken language and reading comprehension skills will widen.
While working as AT specialist at a residential school the principal challenged me to bring STEM activities to every student. That was when I discovered the gaps between studentsâ spoken language and comprehension skills. For example, when asked to build a tower with given objects, most students built two-dimensional (flat) âtowers.â During another lesson, I gave a small group of blind high school students three wiki stixs each and asked them to make a triangle. This was supposed to be a lead-in activity to a lesson. However, although they knew a triangle had three sides, they did not comprehend how to connect those sides independently. It took a lot of trial and error for those academic students to figure it out. We had to slowly deconstruct the definition of a triangle in order to construct one. Such experiences taught me how much extra time is needed to develop basic concepts.
Word recognition automaticity was mentioned in one of the videos for this module. A similar approach is needed to build background knowledge (implicit hands-on instruction x multiple times to practice). However, trying to keep up with the standards for each class/grade leaves little time to build automaticity for essential concepts. This is why early intervention is vital. Likewise, creating collaborative relationships with families, general ed teachers, and TVIs is another essential keyâbecause building key concepts needs to happen throughout a studentâs day. Finally, VI students need to engage in accessible STEM experiences to help deepen their understanding of the world around them.
I love your idea of Surprise concept of the day! This type of activity not only helps with vocabulary but it helps build their language skills by having to describe, according to the article it would be the verbal reasoning. the student is able to use their background knowledge and reasoning skills to figure out what the concept is!
I do the same thing, however it may not be the entire team. As an itinerant, team meetings are difficult to do and teachers seem to be annoyed that I set them up. However as a professional development presentation that my coworker and I did was a success at a special education school (APH See Like Me presentation). This presentation was able to show more teachers who may have students with visual impairments and various kinds of impairments they may have (on video). Then they were also exploring the simulation glasses along with activities. We had a great response and hope to do one specifically focused for teacher aides and assistants.
How can teachers adapt instruction to ensure that students with visual impairments are able to apply their understanding of language structure in a variety of reading contexts, considering the challenges they may face in accessing written syntax and text structure?
One thing that my coworker did with a braille student was like a book study. She would choose a book that the student seems to be interested in (in this case it was Willy Wonka) and she would build her vocabulary by choosing a few words. Each vocabulary word would have a tactile picture that the student would identify and describe. She would listen to a read aloud and then reread the same section by herself in braille. Lastly, she would find the song or scenes that related to the section that was read and describe what was going on. At the end of the session she would ask comprehension questions.
I think this style of lesson was able to encompass alot of language and gives the student various opportunities for written syntax and text structure .According to the article, language structure affects how we comprehend the text. By the teacher allowing for various medias, tactile vocabulary, repetition, and description, this seems to allow the student to be able to comprehend the text in different ways.
@gina.carter, thanks for sharing both the challenges you face as an itinerant TVI and the importance of collaboration. I agree with you that âthe involvement of families is most critical when it comes to creating real life experiences and tactile learning activities as the student spends most of their time at home and where much of their experiences at home are routine and naturally occurring.â
I used to work as a Parent-Educator where the motto was something like, âparents are a childâs first and most influential teachersâ (The History of Parents as Teachers - Parents as Teachers). One of the toughest aspect of that job was getting parents to open the door during my weekly home visits. At times I would hear someone behind the door say, âTell her I am not home!â How discouraging! Often I felt like a traveling salesman. However, my patience and persistence eventually paid off. It was only then that I earned the privilege to have difficult conversations with the families I served.
Sadly, somehow when children enter elementary school the belief that parents are important teachers seems to change. Too often school folks take on an us against them mindset. (I am thinking of most IEP meetings I have attended.) Without truly understanding a familyâs story, strengths, needs, and challenges, we can make assumptions that become obstacles to collaborating. Or we can dump too much of the responsibility of teaching and learning onto parents without realizing how overextended a family is. Establishing a collaborative relationship isnât always easy. Misunderstandings will likely occur, but these can be corrected with Stephen Coveyâs 5th Habit: âSeek first to understand, then to be understood.â This is where educatorsâ professional skills come into play. One expertise that seasoned educators embrace is that of a builder: community builder, team builder, and bridge builder. Your post shows that you know quite a bit about building success for students and their total educational community.
#2 One of the best ways for educators can get students who are visually impaired to build background knowledge and vocabulary skills is by giving them as much life-like examples relating to the topic of what they are reading for them to explore. For example: If you want them to understand the concepts of how a tree grows, give them actually soil to feel, bark or leaves from a tree to explore and have them describe the what they feel, smell etc⌠Another great resource is a book box. Gather real life materials that are discussed in the book for them to manipulate as you discussed the given concepts you want them to learn. The more hands-on the lesson, the better the student will understand and retain for future lessons.
In what ways can educators incorporate real-life experiences and tactile learning activities to help students with visual impairments build their background knowledge and vocabulary skills, thus enhancing their reading comprehension abilities?
Educators can incorporate real-life experiences in so many ways to help our students build background knowledge and vocabulary skills. When students are young, read a book with real objects. If the story is about a whale wearing a bracelet, Iâd have a toy whale and a bracelet for students to explore tactilely while reading the book. When teaching students, if they are unsure of what something is, it is helpful to bring those items (when possible) to school to let students explore. For example, a student wasnât sure what an iron was, so I brought an iron and a little ironing board, and we ironed a towel (with parentâs permission). Whenever the student read or heard about ironing, he had background experience about an iron to increase his understanding.
When possible, I like to bring my students on field trips to the grocery store, post office, fire station, police station, etc. to give them more hands on experiences and to help them learn about the world around them. Many times, after the field trip, students will either verbally re-tell what happened on the field trip or write down their experiences which continues to grow their literacy skills.
Reading and discussing the contents of the book is another great way to increase background knowledge. Books can lead to great discussions and teaching opportunities.
And one of the best ways to increase background knowledge is to share the importance with parents and to encourage them to help their child explore the world. I am lucky that I have a child with vision loss, so I can share my personal failures/experiences, to help explain why their role is so very important in increasing a childâs background knowledge and therefore increase literary skills.
I love this example of how to adapt instruction to help our students. This seems very catered to the student and uses so many different modalities to learn. It seems like it would be very engaging!
You real life example of needing to deconstruct the definition of a triangle was sad but real. You are right that keeping up with standards for each class/grade leaves little time to build automaticity or even to have time to truly grasp the skills needed. There are so many great things in our education system, yet I wish we could slow down and actually make sure our students (actually all students), have time and experience to truly understand different concepts.
How might collaborative planning and instruction between TVIs and general education teachers be structured to ensure alignment, particularly in terms of addressing the interconnectedness of language comprehension and word recognition?
The planning and instruction between TVIs and general education teachers must be aligned to ensure attainment of reading skills by a student with visual impairment. While the classroom teacher and the TVI have distinct areas of instruction for students, their collaboration is necessary for both to provide the fullest instruction in literacy skills for students with vision loss.
The TVI has a focus on ECC topics, including braille which is done in context. This is an opportunity to fine-tune the choice of materials and literacy topics with direction from the classroom teacher on the studentâs particular areas for additional learning opportunities. The TVI helps with accommodation of materials so the instruction by the classroom teacher may be effective. Understanding the science of reading is important for the TVI to make best use of the instruction time with the student.
The TVI can support intentional lessons of what would typically be incidental learning to help build background knowledge and language. The TVI can use individual instruction time to help emphasize decoding and word recognition. Print awareness can be encouraged through activities accomplished with the TVI. Writing opportunities build literacy skills.
The general education teacher will be responsible for monitoring the students specific learning in literacy and these details should be shared with the TVI so both are working jointly with the student in need areas, not at cross purposes. This type of coordination will take planning time together. Each needs to understand what the other is working on and each needs to share student progress so instruction continues to be individualized and appropriate.
The student has to benefit from your extensive pre-planning all on its own; your outline seems to be an excellent way to make the most of each lesson. Also, great to hear your general education partner is cooperative in meeting to discuss the studentâs progress; that doesnât always happen. This appears to be a great example of partnership, all for the best of your student.
Week 3
2. In what ways can educators incorporate real-life experiences and tactile learning activities to help students with visual impairments build their background knowledge and vocabulary skills, thus enhancing their reading comprehension abilities?
Educators can incorporate real-life experiences and tactile learning activities to help students with visual impairments build their background knowledge and vocabulary skills, thus enhancing their reading comprehension abilities. There are several ways to do this: going out into the world and having first hand experiences or bringing in authentic items for the child to experience first hand or creating a replica of the item/experience are my favorites. One of my students is a struggling braille reader and he has many under-developed literacy skills. Actually all of the skills in Scarboroughâs Reading Rope - Word Recognition Strands have areas where direct instruction is needed. This week we have been working on vowel pairs - where he really struggles. When reading a passage with oa vowel-pair words in it we were reading a passage about a castle with a moat surrounding it. The student I was working with did not truly understand the concept of a castle and had never heard the word moat before. The verbal descriptions was not providing this child with a very good representation so I used a Fisher Price toy castle with a draw-bridge turrets and the best representation of a castle I could think of that would provide a hands on experience and better understanding of a castle and we placed the castle inside a small tub with water in it so that we could create a moat where the child could feel the water surrounding the moat and lower the drawbridge and understand how people could enter the castle and when the drawbridge was up the moat provided protection to the people in the castle. This experience has given the student with a visual impairment a better understanding of the concept of a moat, castle, some of the castleâs features , drawbridge and historical home protection systems (he compared the moat to a security system). Having this understanding gives him prior knowledge, new vocabulary words (moat, drawbridge and turret) and when this child hears or reads about these concepts in the future he will have a better understanding, enhancing his reading comprehension skills. While this activity was developed for the child with a visual impairment, all of the children who took part were active participants, increasing their understanding of this concept.
I love this idea. So many times I personally get caught up in trying to work with my students on their focused IEP goals that might revolve around braille or technology skills. However, it just canât be overlooked how important these little activities that might only take 2-3 minutes of your day. It may seem unrelated, but as so may people have commented, our totally blind students often just do not get the exposure. Although a whisk might seem unrelated to the IEP goal or even the core curriculum, as noted in our lesson, this vocabulary building and building of background knowledge is so critical. I think this gives all of a great reference point to justify a research-based reason for such activities should they come into question by supervisors.
I love that you addressed all 4 questions. Then went on to explain ideas and give examples of how you implement or collaborate with the teachers. These ideas are valuable. I am going to borrow some of your ideas such as this one:
âProvide materials in the appropriate medium for the student. Make sure everything the sighted students have is accessible for the BLV students.
Use tactile story boxes for each book to identify vocabulary, order of events, character details, etcâŚâ
Thank you for sharing
Gina-
I am also an itinerant TVI who moves from one school to the next during my day seeing multiple school aged students and in the evening I see children birth to 3 years old. With my Early Intervention children we do mostly hands on exploration and the parents are usually right by my side and we have more opportunity to discuss ways develop concepts provide repeated and ample time for the child to explore objects. Collaboration is the key. Just recently I was in a meeting where another provider had expressed her concerned that she did not she much progress in her sessions, this was very surprising since I have been seeing huge gains. She had never worked with a child with a visual impairment before and this child has no vision. We talked further discovered she was trying to do too much in her 30 minute session and not providing the child time to explore and have repeat experiences. Tactile exploration is so important and should not be rushed. As you said the parents/caregivers are the ones who spend the most time, and they are the most important teachers to any child in my opinion. Collaboration between providers/teachers is also key to enriched tactile learning opportunities. Unfortunately there are many instances where I do not have the opportunities connect, especially with my parents when the child is school-aged and we do not have that weekly interaction.
4.How might collaborative planning and instruction between TVIs and general education teachers be structured to ensure alignment, particularly in terms of addressing the interconnectedness of language comprehension and word recognition?
Collaborative planning and instruction between the TVI and general education teachers can and should ensure alignment. When the TVI knows what is being taught in the classroom, then the TVI can better support the student and the general education teacher in what the student needs to access the curriculum and general education teacher can support the student in the room. This could be by knowing what tools (magnifier, slant board, etc), media (large print or braille), as well proximity to the teacher or smart board. The TVI should be connected to the curriculum, lessons for the week, and if possible find a time weekly or monthly to meet and be part of the planning with the grade level. I know this is hard depending on caseload or if itinerant. This is where there would need to be some testing, observing, and finding out if there is a general understanding language comprehension and word recognition. It is looking at previous years and making sure the general education teacher is aware of the students level. I think making sure the classroom teacher and the TVI work together by planning, communicating, and working in tandem this will help to effectively address the interconnectedness of language comprehension and word recognition.
I had never thought of this, but actually ESY would be the perfect time to do activities like this. Also, it would be fairly easy to justify the need for ESY since these are concepts that the student needs to know to be successful in their everyday core classes.