Visual Impairment

[Guest]

Has anyone any involvement with visually impaired children either in their class or in the school. I am interested in how books are presented to them, what format they are in (braille, large print) and how children are introduced to books for pleasure.

[apple]

hi Brenda

our school has a resourse base for V.I children who are all fully integrated into each class and then given extra support in the base itself which is fully equipped for V.I pupils.

 

In the classroom we do a range of things. Firstly if the Big Book or similar is not accessible then we make our own version. This term is slightly easier as it's Nursery Rhymes so enlarging on the photocopier is easier to do with simple poems etc. We cut out any 'busy' patterns by tracing a simple outline in black.

 

Some children find some background colours hard to see e.g red so we make sure that we have a simple Black and white version of games we have made.

 

Only a very small minority are braille learners (2 out of 6) although all are registered blind. They are introduced to books for pleasure alongside the other children; however as part of their IEP's time is given for the V.I child to go over the books again and again.

 

In Reception many of the Reading Scheme books are of good sized print and evenly spaced wording. (we use Nelson PM Starters) Some of these books have braille inserted in them and this is always a great way for others to understand about visual impairments.

 

V.I children also have access to CCTV monitors, sometimes these are brought into the classroom or left in the base. We try to do our reading with them first thing in the morning as often the V.I child will get very tired due to having to work much harder at concentrating.

I hope this helps

Liza

[Guest]

Hi Brenda. I think as Liza said, only a small number of VI children actually learn braiile (around 4% of the VI population, more likely to be higher in a resource base such as Liza's) Soem children learn moon which is supposed to be simpler but takes up a lot more room, large print book should be availabale via your VTS or branch of RNIB. You can get boks with the braille inserted in clear plastic for use with both sighted and VI children at the same time. You may find out more about that from Clearvision, their site can be found below

 

clearvision

 

hope that helps

Jenny K.