ONLINE PARENT RESOURCES

By: Carmen Willings
teachingvisuallyimpaired.com

When parents first learn their child is blind or has a visual impairment, they face an emotional impact and may have a difficult time trying to cope with the diagnosis.  Families will typically search for support and resources to learn more about the specific diagnosis and also seek to learn how to help their child learn and provide the best support and resources for their child. The following resources will help parents connect with support groups and other families with children who are blind or visually impaired. 

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TVI's Guide to Teaching the ECC: An Activities Based Curriculum for Teaching Students who are Blind or Visually Impaired

$50.00

Written specifically for fellow itinerant Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments (TVI’s), this book consists of over 400 activities and topic areas of discussion for instructing students in the Expanded Core Curriculum. The activities are age-neutral and multi-sensory and therefore can meet the needs of the broad range of students served on an itinerant caseload serving. The activities can be individualized to the students various learning modalities and scaffold in order to challenge students but ensure success. Select those activities that align with the student’s learning objects based on the student’s unique visual needs and academic and developmental level.

The core activities listed in the Activity section can be adapted to each thematic unit. These include:

• Object Characteristic Activities
• Quantity & Number Concepts
• Time Concept Activities
• Environment & Job Awareness Activities
• Listening Skills Activities
• Reading Foundation Activities
• Reading Fluency Activities
• Braille Basics Activities
• Writing Activities
• Tactual Efficiency Activities
• Developing Skillful Hands Activities
• Visual Efficiency Activities
• Optical Device Instruction Activities
• Recipe Activities

In addition to the core activity areas, each of the 32 Thematic Units incorporates additional unique ECC concepts and skills providing you with a years’ worth of activities. These units are cyclical and can be used repeatedly to help students build on prior knowledge and develop a deeper understanding of concepts. Each unit includes suggestions for activity adaptation associated with the unit. These include lists of objects, possible community based experiences, environmental print, poems, children & young reader books, children's songs, pop culture songs, movies, and websites.

Unique Concepts within the Units include:

• Self Advocacy Activities (e.g. advocating for safe classroom, presenting to class on visual impairment, requesting help and more)
• Social Skills Activities (e.g. Being bullied or teased, giving and receiving compliments, body language, "I" messages when upset and more)
• Recreation & Leisure Activities (e.g. exploring interest areas, getting involved in clubs and sports, playing games, and more)
• O&M Support Activities (e.g. Suggestions for community based experiences, dog guide information, locations in the school, bioptics, ride sharing, traffic signs, and more)
• Independent Living Skill Activities (e.g. chores, being responsible, using tools, recipe suggestions, hygiene, staying healthy, labeling foods and products, and more)
• Sensory Efficiency Activities (e.g. unique sensory experiences related to the unit, unique optical device activities, and more)
• Compensatory Activities (e.g. organizing materials, study habits, and many unique concepts related to the unit)
• Career & Vocational Activities (e.g. job awareness, completing applications, job task suggestions, and more)

Although the intended audience of this resource is fellow Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments, special education teachers may find these activities beneficial to the students in their classrooms as the activities are multisensory and include life skills and concepts needed by all students. This resource, however, is not intended to take the place of a Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments (TVI). Readers are advised to consult their own TVI’s regarding instruction in the ECC and the unique visual needs of the student’s served in their programs.

Note: This curriculum is a digital pdf download. Once you make your purchase you will be directed to an order confirmation page where you will find the download link. This download will also be included on the receipt sent to the email address you provide. The pdf download can be found directly under the order number.

Each download is intended for single instructor use per copyright. Thank you for helping me preserve the content and not distributing copies to third parties.

Product details

Digital pdf download: 364 pages (11 pt font)

Publisher: Teaching Students with Visual Impairments

Author: Carmen Willings

Language: English

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Visual Efficiency & Magnifier Fluency Grab & Go ECC Supplements

$20.00

This workbook is a pdf download that can be printed on demand for use with students. It contains five different types of worksheets for developing visual motor skills and near magnifier fluency skills particularly with the use of a video magnifier. As a supplement to the TVI’s Guide to the ECC, the worksheets correspond to each of the 32 ECC Thematic units. The worksheets, along with a list of environmental print for each thematic unit, are designed to help students refine their visual motor skills while reinforcing ECC concepts presented in the thematic units.  

Visual Efficiency & Near Magnifier Fluency Worksheet Details:

Digital pdf download: 210 pages

Publisher: Teaching Students with Visual Impairments

Author: Carmen Willings

Language: English

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Blind Children's Center

The Blind Children's Center is a family centered organization supporting children with visual impairments. It offers a range of publications and resources including educational books, booklets and videos.

Blind Babies Foundations ​

The Blind Babies Foundations mission is to provide family centered services to support children's optimal development and access to the world. As of July 1, 2014, Blind Babies Foundation became a program of Junior Blind. The website provides parent education and resources including a fact sheets on CVI (also available in Japanese), ROP, retinal diseases, optic nerve hypoplasia, and albinism. 

Braille Bug

Braille Bug is a website by the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). It is an excellent resource and a wealth of information for peers or siblings to learn more about braille, it's history and activities. It is geared not only to children interested in learning more about braille, but to teachers and parents as well. It provides information about braille including its history, a reading club, games to play, information about Louis Braille and Helen Keller as well as information for parents and teachers.

Center for Parent Information and Resources

This website serves as a central resource of information and products to a network of parent training and resource centers that focus on serving families of children with a variety of disabilities including visual impairments and blindness. It also provides a listing of categories of disabilities under IDEA.

National Organization of Parents and Blind Children (NOPBC) 

This is the New Jersey chapter of the National Organization of Parents and Blind Children (NOPBC) provides families with support, encouragement, and information.  The organization works to overcome lack of understanding about childhood blindness.  Although membership to this organization is open to professionals serving children who are blind, its mission is focused toward families.

Dots for Families

Dots for Families is designed for family members, teachers of children with visual impairments, and others interested in promoting literacy opportunities for young children with visual impairments.

FamilyConnect

FamilyConnect is an online, multimedia community created by the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) and the National Association for Parents of Children with Visual Impairments (NAPVI). This site gives parents of visually impaired children a place to support each other, share stories and concerns, and link to local resources.

Foundation for Blind Children (FBC) ​

Foundation for Blind Children (FBC) serves the blind and visually impaired of all ages, from birth to currently 102 years old. With three Phoenix-area campuses, FBC provides education, tools and services that enable ALL persons with vision loss to achieve greater independence. The organization’s vision is to have a world where vision loss is a diagnosis, not a disability.

The Louis Braille Center

The Louis Braille Center offers a catalog of braille books for all ages, a Saturday Program for children who are blind or visually impaired, and an information section for school children interested in learning about braille.

Lutheran Braille Workers

The mission of Lutheran Braille Workers is to provide the message of salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ to individuals who are blind and visually impaired throughout the world. They provide quality Bibles and Christian publications in braille and large print formats to individuals who are blind or visually impaired for free. They produce titles in 30 languages through the work of 5000 volunteers in about 200 centers across the United States.

The National Organization of Parents and Blind Children (NOPBC)

The National Organization of Parents and Blind Children (NOPBC) provides families with support, encouragement, and information.  The organization works to overcome lack of understanding about childhood blindness.  Although membership to this organization is open to professionals serving children who are blind, its mission is focused toward families.

​Wonder Baby

Wonder Baby is a project funded by Perkins School for the Blind and is dedicated to helping parents of young children with visual impairments as well as multiple disabilities. It includes articles, Q&A, resource, a blog, newsletter as well as giveaways.

Magic Foundation

Magic Foundation is a national non-profit organization created to provide support services for the families of children diagnosed with a wide variety of chronic and/or critIcal disorders, syndromes and diseases that affect a child's growth.