It’s essential to teach students who are blind or visually impaired to navigate safely from one location to another. The goal for students is for them to travel independently from any point in the classroom to any other point in the classroom as well as be able to travel from the classroom to significant locations in the school building. Remember, if a student's vision is impaired, they will not be able to observe activities that are available in their environment unless they are shown what is available through guided exploration.
Gathering Information From the Environment
Students should be encouraged to use all their senses to gather information about their environment. Interpreting the information they gain through the students usable vision, hearing, touch and smell can help the student establish and maintain their position in space.
Audition. Students can develop auditory perception of objects by using sound waves through echolocation. Students can also use environmental sounds to judge time. For example, hearing students bustling in the hall signals that it is time to go to lunch.
Touch. The sense of touch allows a student to determine the shape, size, temperature, texture and weight of any given object. This can be used for academics, but also for all areas of activities of daily living (e.g. identifying food, distinguishing clothes, etc.) Air currents can also be helpful in knowing if doors and windows are open.
Smell. The sense of smell can be helpful for identification of areas (e.g., kitchen, cafeteria, clorox in bathroom, etc.). Smell can also help warn of danger. Smell can also provide information about others as well as personal hygiene.
Strategies to Encourage Environmental Exploration
Use your voice to help the student. Describe with clear directions and in a normal speaking voice where you are and how the student can get to you.
Explain what is happening around the student. Show where sounds and smells are coming from. As the student explores, describe everything with variety, quality, and richness.
Orient the student to the classroom/school/playground and furnishings within those areas. Let the student know if you’ve changed the room around or left a door open.
Avoid over-protection. Remember that all children get bumps and scrapes occasionally. Safety is important, but over-protection can be just as detrimental to a student as under-protection.
Strategies to Develop Environmental Awareness
In the classroom, the student should learn routes, but still be shown the "whole".
In the community, use tactile, auditory, olfactory, and visual exploration accompanied by meaningful verbal descriptions. This will help the students make sense of the world around them. Outings into the community should be important components of students program )pet stores, grocery stores, airports, restaurants, gas stations, post offices, taxis, office buildings with elevators and escalators, bus rides, bowling alleys, etc.
Develop an age-appropriate arm strengthening program to support physical ability to use protective technique and teach good protective trailing technique.
Consider having the student use a feather duster to practice trailing walls, fences, railings and play equipment, maintain contact and walk parallel.
Attach interesting items (balloons, braille messages, stickers, etc.) along familiar trailing surface for student to locate and to increase motivation for maintaining contact while trailing.
School Campus Orientation
Orient the student to their classroom, playground and school building including any additional classrooms the student will be going to.
Show the student where their cubby or locker will be and walk them around the classroom and school building, pointing out important or helpful landmarks.
Let the student explore the different work stations and areas that they will need to travel to. This would be a good opportunity to tell the student what activities are available in each of the stations and what the rules and expectations are for each of those areas.
Orient to the Playground
It is important to orient or familiarize the student to the playground prior to their first day whenever possible. This can be done by first showing the student any climbing structures and guide them in finding the walls or fences that they can use to trail with a hand (if appropriate). Students who are visually impaired need support from staff during periods of free play on the playground. Make certain that students with visual impairments play and talk with classmates rather than sit on the sidelines. Describe choices of activities that are available. Support the inclusion of the student in group activities.
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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
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
