I love all this - I too have used games to help with reversals. My students love Bingo and the memory match game - they are great ways to incorporate learning into a motivating activity while embedding so many other skills too! Students have to pay attention during games to ensure they are making the match or matching the letter/word to the correct letter/word on their cards. I have tactile grids I run through a Piaf and then I can customize boards to work on specific letters or contractions the student may be struggling with. Great ideas!
Gina, thank you for sharing the book āInstructional Strategies for Braille Literacy.ā I already ordered it. I am always adding to my ābagā of resources and this one looks like a great one to add.
By incorporating as many senses as possible, we increase the likelihood of locking the new learning into our schemata. Music and movement are great ways to increase the ability to remember and cement information to long term memory. I am definitely incorporating the braille rap and the whole body movement activity shared by another participant are strategies I will be incorporating into my instruction.
- Considering the insights gained from the LMA standards outlined in the article, how do you plan to adjust your assessment practices as a TVI if you havenāt previously utilized these standards? Describe the specific changes or adaptations you envision incorporating into your assessment approach to ensure alignment with research outcomes.
Iām blown away by the standards outlined in the article and need to adjust my practices to reflect these standards. Most of the information outlined in the article I do include in the FVA/ETR, but I am not sure that I also incorporate it under my topic/label of LMA in the FVA/ETR. I also need to do a better job to make sure that I update the LMA annually and not just every three years. This definitely takes time and I am unsure if it is feasible to accomplish due to caseloads and time constraints, but I will try. I typically use reading passages that reflect my studentsā independent reading level, but do not include word lists. However, I understand that this may be important to include information regarding how quickly my student is able to recognize words. Additionally, the article mentioned that reading inventories should be collected over time. That would be an easy thing to incorporate into my routines by completing one time during each quarter of the school year. One piece of information that the article mentioned that should be collected is a silent reading speed. I am not sure how helpful this information would be? I am just curious if anyone does this? The article is a good tool for a TVI as it establishes the procedures and information to be collected during the LMA. I have downloaded the article and placed it into my resource folder for future references.
As an OT, I find watching individuals in different environments very enlightening, especially when the individual does not know s/he is being watched. I believe that different environments bring out different abilities or deficits. There are so many components to the different environments - auditory, tactile, visual, olfactory that can affect a personās performance. But you appear to be very aware of all those factors. I am amazed at how many people may step in to help individuals, who are quite capable, but resort to a learned helplessness and allow others to complete tasks for them.
I think your incorporation of games is wonderful. Kids learn through play and making the activity fun makes the task not only enjoyable for the student, but I think the teacher as well. I particularly like your use of legos and allowing the student to manipulate the block and then once the correct identification is made the student gets to keep the block and turn those blocks into a 3D creation. Thanks for sharing this joyful activity!
In your response, I like that you pointed out that the student was using different tools and mediums for different areas or subjects. As it relates to reading specifically the LMA gives us good information about efficiency for reading and writing, but so often other factors come into play including student preference, need for different tools, and fatigue. Thatās why it is good to highlight what tools should be used in each subject area in the accommodations.
I have often struggled with similar situations where my professional recommendation is for the student to use or at least have instruction in braille. However, since this is an IEP decision, it is often not accepted. Although I will defer to the team position, I often make sure it is clearly stated somewhere in the documentation that my professional recommendation is for the student to learn and/or use braille.
I check a studentās silent reading rate. Afterwards, I will ask the student questions about what they have read. This way, I can see if the student is actually reading the material or just skimming through it.
Hereās an article on why it is important to check reading rates.
https://viewweb.org.uk/uklma/strategy1_readingspeed.html
For anyone needing the text from the picture, here it isā¦
"TEACHING ACCURATE RECOGNITION OF CHARACTERS
- First be sure the student understands the configuration of the dots within the cell. Check his or her knowledge by using an enlarged model of a ell.
- Have the student use all six reading fingers on a page with lines (double spaced) of the character with a space in between each character. Ask the student to tell you what parts of the character he or she feels and what parts he or she does not and what the student feels as he or she moves his or her fingers across the characters one by one. Also ask the student to tell you where he or she feels the dots (first column, second column, top. middle. or left).
- If the student confuses the character with another braille symbol. repeat these steps with the other symbol. Then try interspersing the two symbols to help the stuĀ¬dent distinguish between them. Start with every other symbol being different. and then begin to intersperse the symbols more randomly. until you are certain that the student is identifying each of the symbols with 80 to 100 percent accuracy.
- Use the character in words in which it commonly appears. Take each word and re- peat it as many times on a line as the line will allow and then repeat it over and over Start with two letter words, then proceed to three-letter words and so on. Start with the character as the first letter in the words, and then include it at the end. Finally, in-
tersperse the words on a line two at a time and then three at time, until you are sure that the student is not having difficulty recognizing the words and letters. - Continue with this type of activity until the student has overlearned the letters or characters, he or she had difficulty with.
- Flash cards can also be used with the Voxcom to enable students to check them selves (see āUsing the Voxcom" in this chapter."
I totally agree with you that if we all had a standardized format, it would make things much easier. However, realistically, I just donāt know that itās possible given all of the specialized needs our students have. When doing my LMA, just as with my FVA, I have a more standardized skeleton or core assessments I do, and after completing those, I then decide what tools to use to get more data. I think the overall issue here, is that the LMA itself is not a standalone assessment, but really an evaluation that incorporates the use of many different tools and assessments. For example, when completing the LMA, I often use actual assessment tools such as the Johns Reading Inventory or the DeCoste Writing Assessment. Also, when considering the information and recommendations provided in the article, they donāt even really begin to touch on what to do for a student with Multiple Disabilities who is non-verbal or is functioning well below what the tools mention assess. Thatās why I like the EARubric Site (https://earubric.com/) because it follows a standard for what should be in the LMA but it also gives you a list of resources (free and for purchase) that you can use to get data if the student cannot be assessed as formally.
- If you were in the TVIās position, what additional intervention strategies would you propose to address Ambrosiās challenges with braille reversals?
I think the TVI did a great job with the interventions she used. Using multiple tools, the swing cell, corner board etc and removing similarly formed letters allowed Ambrosi to tactilely identify the H and master its identifiable form before then adding back in letters that are similar. It can be easy to jump right to a challenging activity but if the original skill (identifying the H) was not mastered fully it can create confusion for the student. It is good to take a skill back to the foundation and reteach the tactile cues and rebuild the foundation.
I agree that observing the student to see how they are using skills in different environments is key. I have a student who does fabulous when practicing touch typing in the app it self, but when typing academically in class she needs verbal cues to use the hand and body positioning she uses in the typing program. When a skill is truly mastered the student uses it in all environments!
I love your whole body approach! I love to incorporate songs and melodies with movement to create an āexperienceā for a student rather than talking at them. I use familiar tunes to teach students how to spell their names, and pair it to the movement of typing their name in braille and have used a verbal pathway song I made up to explain the positioning if the dots to identify letters when introducing braille. I sing the song while guiding the students hands over the letters.
āthe a has one dot, the a has one dot, this is the letter a it has one dotā
"the B has two dots, one is on top, this is the letter b it has twi dits
āthe C has two dots next to each other, this is the letter C it has two dotsāā¦ and so on
The article on the components of a valid LMA presented a familiar theme within our fieldāthe lack of consistency. The researchers presented a wide array of responses that represented different approaches. Assessing a low incidence, highly individualized population presents many difficulties.
A student that has not had a LMA and is defaulted to the most convenient learning media, is a not a rarity. Where to start? Assessment should always be the starting line.
I find it common that general educators assume that listening is the same as reading. Perhaps for some children it is, but one cannot assume that.
I would start with a reading inventory. For a low vision student, adjusting fonts and contrast while assessing fluency, speed, and understanding is easy enough to do. I would present the auditory reading in 2 different ways: human reader, and computer voice. Often a student with a lower vocabulary suffers from the absence of intonation and inference with a computer voice. This can be assessed fairly simply.
Having solid data on how presentation effects access, is the best tool.
Giving the gen ed teacher specific details on which fonts, contrast, or auditory form, allows the student to perform as any other student.
Sometimes of course, the LMA reveals less straight forward results. With our students with more complex sensory needs, the LMA may indicate more environmental modifications along with material modifications. In those cases, I would present the learning media in environmental specific details, for instance, noise level might tilt the learning media to auditory, or require more tactile support.
A teacher could create a document similar to Whatās The Complexity, and take the decision making off the gen ed teacher.
As always, a functioning educational team which values all contributors, is the students best ally.
I like the verbalization of the dotsāshe could also use her hands while speaking the dot numbers; if they are not solid in her hands, that would be shown. I have a student who habitually reverses āiā and āeā and āuā and āingā. She also displays directional reversals. I like the body movement idea as well. Another game might be challenging the student to write as many dot 5 words, or words with dot 2, or something like that, so that itās a game, and they need to pay attention at the same time.
I do think play is an important component in learning, and under utilized with such large tasks as teaching braille. For the dual certified teachers, having a student create or identify a route that matches a particular letterām or n would be good ones, allows for a deeper knowledge and creative participation. Though reversals are common, a route to one place might be an āandā and the return might be a āyā. I would pair that with a song or rhyme to keep them separated.
Components of Valid Learning Media Assessments (JVIB, 2023, p. 407-417)
Considering the insights gained from the LMA standards outlined in the article, how do you plan to adjust your assessment practices as a TVI if you havenāt previously utilized these standards? Describe the specific changes or adaptations you envision incorporating into your assessment approach to ensure alignment with research outcomes.
I had Dr. Sanford as my instructor so a lot of these practices have been ingrained into my assessment practices. In addition, I am a reading specialist so I feel I understand more of the aspects of reading than most TVIs, so I feel comfortable looking at specific data to make decisions. However, one new piece that has truly got me thinking, is that according to the article LMAs should be conducted often to āassess progress.ā I have ever used an LMA to determine my studentās progress, nor have I viewed the tool in this light. I use many other types of assessments to track progress as well as my IEP goals but not this one. In our state they are a part of a triannual review or if the student has a major change to their vision or the channel in which they currently obtain information. Doing them more frequently would definitely put a strain on TVIās that are already in short supply and carrying large caseloads. Especially if they are done with all of the pieces listed in this study. I also have taken a more āindividualizedā approach to LMAs and tend to pick and choose which parts of the assessment I do based on the student. This article has gotten me to think about making them the same for everyone, and including all of the pieces, even if I think they need them or not. It may give me information which I have not considered. But again this impact the time it takes to conduct an assessment that is so thorough. In an ideal world I would do all of the parts every year as this study suggests but if I am being honest, I often do less than stated and less often than they require. I plan to try to make some changes this year to be more in line with the study and see how it impacts student progress and my effectiveness on instruction.
Amy,
I am so glad you mentioned 2 things, technology and the size of the reports. Itās often hard for my to keep up with all of the technology that could benefit my students and to know what type to trial during these assessments as the options are many! so this is an area I struggle with making decisions on. In addition, I agree that reports that are too long or too technical are never read nor understood by general or even special educators. I did a survey once and found that most people only read the summary and the recommendations and that is it! So we need to be careful what we are saying and how so that its actaully utilized by people other than us!
- Considering the insights gained from the LMA standards outlined in the article, how do you plan to adjust your assessment practices as a TVI if you havenāt previously utilized these standards? Describe the specific changes or adaptations you envision incorporating into your assessment approach to ensure alignment with research outcomes.
I found the insights from this article to be very helpful and informative. When evaluating students, I have typically relied on the Koenig and Holbrook (1995) Learning Media Assessment of Students with Visual Impairments: A Resource Guide for Teachers to complete the Learning Media Assessment. I love that it has the forms included in the book that I can copy and use, and that it addresses various scenarios and needs of different types of students (preschooler, child with additional disabilities, etc.). However, this article has opened my eyes to many components that are important and vital to accurately assess a studentās most appropriate learning media that I may not have included in my previous assessments. I am planning to take the information from this article to create a supplemental checklist that I can use along with the LMA to make sure that I am addressing all of the questions that should be answered through this evaluation. Previously, my assessment experience has been primarily with preschool children. This year, I will be working with elementary age students and therefore will need to look at learning media a little bit differently as the needs will be more complex for these students. I feel that the supplemental checklist I create will help ensure that I am assessing these students as thoroughly and completely as possible.
I think you shared some wonderful strategies to help with Ambrosiās challenges. I particularly liked the body movement idea. Most of my experience as an educator has been with younger children. I find that any time we can incorporate whole body and movement activities into our lessons, children typically respond better. In addition to making it more fun and interesting for the child, that body movement component really helps them remember what they are learning. I have found this class to be extremely valuable in being able to learn from and gain ideas from other teachers.