The development of literacy for all children, regardless of their vision, should be the same. However, children with vision impairments may require additional help to get them involved in the literacy process, which can be easily missed because of the lack of vision. Just like all other children, beginning braille readers would benefit from an integrated approach to literacy, where listening, speaking, reading and writing activities are part of language learning.
Like all early print readers, braille readers would also benefit from extensive exposure to their literacy medium. They should be immersed in a braille-rich environment. This requires a lot more effort, as braille materials are not as widely or easily available as print. Nevertheless, it is an important measure to ensure an inclusive environment. Print books should be adapted to braille, and where possible, real objects be provided for a multi-sensory approach to meanings of concepts and words.
Vision plays an important role in concept development and word meanings. It is possible therefore, that certain concepts or meanings of words are not yet fully understood by a child who is unable to see. Hence, effort must be made to introduce and explain these concepts and meanings to the child with vision impairment. This can be done through having the child feel the objects, if possible, or through verbal explanations. Extra care must be taken to ensure that the child has learned the concept or meaning correctly.
Important landmarks around the classroom and school can also be labelled in braille for identification, much like what print signages would be for a sighted student. Objects too, can be similarly labelled, and this can help in concept development as well.
Braille readers should also be read to, and their favourite story books be made available in braille so that they can ‘follow’ as the teacher reads to the class, as would the sighted students would, when the teacher points out each word as she reads. Here, it would help if the child could imitate proficient braille readers through modeling braille reading. This can later help in developing efficient tracking when reading.
While the focus for young braille readers should be on the meaning of the written language, they should also be taught, like the other children, the letter sounds (phonics). They should be exposed to decoding skills for sounds, phonetics, as well as for meanings, semantics, in a written text.
Just as sighted children are encouraged to scribble on paper to develop writing skills, young students who will learn braille should also be encouraged to “scribble” on their braille writer, imitating braille writing. Ample opportunities should be given to them to model writing behaviour, where they can pretend to write something, and then ‘read’ it back to an adult later. This is no different from a sighted child ‘reading’ back his squiggly lines.
Finally, it is important also to engage braille student in decision-making. They should be encouraged to play an active role in their own literacy and language acquisition, through making simple decisions like what books they would like to read. This would make them more pro-active in their own literacy development and language learning, making them more independent learners later on.
It can be seen therefore that literacy instruction for a young student who will learn braille is not very different from that of a sighted child. Both need extensive exposure to the language in all its forms – written and spoken. But because braille materials are less easily available as compared to print, a conscious effort must be made to surround the young braille learner with braille.
Hence, to ensure an inclusive literacy instruction, it is important that the young student who will learn braille has exposure to all aspects of literacy, be it listening, speaking, reading or writing.
This article was written as part of my course assignment at Renwick Centre on “Teaching Literacy to Vision Impaired and Blind Students”.