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Teachers’ Experiences with Literacy Instruction for Dual-Media Students Who Use Print and Braille Tina S. Herzberg, L. Penny Rosenblum, and Mary E. Robbins
Structured abstract: Introduction: This study analyzed survey responses from84 teachers of students with visual impairments who had provided literacyinstruction to dual-media students who used both print and braille. Methods:These teachers in the United States and Canada completed an online surveyduring spring 2015. Results: The teachers reported that they introduced braille totheir students at the mean age of 7.8 years. The three most common reasonsreported for introducing a student to braille were the student’s diagnosis, printreading speed, and print reading stamina. The amount of instructional time inbraille literacy varied widely, and slightly more than 60% of the students wereinitially introduced to uncontracted braille. The teachers reported that approximately half of their students were at or above grade level with their print literacyskills, but only about 25% were at or above grade level with their braille literacyskills. Discussion: Both contracted and uncontracted braille were used whenbeginning braille instruction for students reading both print and braille. The rolesof student motivation and confidence appeared to be important considerationswhen designing and providing braille literacy instruction. Implications for practitioners: There are many factors that should be considered when determining ifa student should transition from print to braille as a primary literacy medium.Motivating students to want to learn and use braille is critical. A comprehensivecurriculum is needed for use with established print readers at various readinglevels who are making the transition to braille.
Vision loss can affect a student’s proficiencywith learning to read and write. Teachers ofstudents with visual impairments are responsible for conducting comprehensive assessmentsto determine the optimum primary literacy medium for their students and to identify if there isa need for dual-media instruction in both printand braille (Koenig & Holbrook, 2010). Visualefficiency, reading efficiency, and prognosis areimportant considerations in the assessment pro
cess (Bell, Ewell, & Mino, 2013; Koenig &©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved Journal of Vi
Holbrook, 2010). If a student is likely to experience progressive vision loss, it is essential toaddress both immediate and long-term literacyneeds, which may require providing reading andwriting instruction in both print and braille.Some students begin literacy instruction asdual-media learners, some students begin asprint readers and later learn to read braille, and,in rare cases, some students initially read brailleand later learn to read print (Koenig & Hol
brook, 2010).sual Impairment & Blindness, January-February 2017 49
Research investigating the reading andacademic performance of students who aredual-media learners is limited. Lusk and Corn(2006) gathered information about 103 students in the United States and Canada whowere receiving simultaneous literacy instruction in both print and braille. Teachers reported that although 35% of their studentswere reading below grade level in print, 57%were reading below grade level in braille(Lusk & Corn, 2006). These findings were ofconcern, since both reading proficiencieswere so low. Identification of the factors, assessment strategies, and materials necessaryto support increased print and braille readingefficiency were identified as areas for furtherstudy. In addition, Lusk and Corn (2006) suggested that future research explore at whatlevel of visual acuity and visual field shoulddual media be implemented.
A variety of approaches exist for providingbraille literacy instruction, including beginning with uncontracted or contracted braille;using a basal reading approach; implementinga whole-language approach; using an individualized, student-centered approach; or utilizing a combination of two or more of these.Prior to the ABC Braille Study, a clear consensus could not be reached on the most effective strategies for teaching braille readingskills (D’Andrea, 2009). The ABC BrailleStudy found that introduction to more contractions earlier in instruction correlated tobetter performance on reading measuressuch as vocabulary, decoding, spelling, andcomprehension (Wall Emerson, Holbrook,& D’Andrea, 2009). The authors concludedthat regardless of the approach used to introduce the braille code, basic reading skills andprocesses should be the primary focus ofbraille literacy instruction (Wall Emerson etal., 2009).
Students with effective literacy skills canderive meaning from what they read, whichsignificantly affects motivation for reading
and leads to higher levels of reading50 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, January-Februa
achievement (Melekoglu & Wilkerson,2013). Students who are less engaged inreading are at risk of failing to learn to readproficiently (Morgan, Fuchs, Compton,Cordray, & Fuchs, 2008). If students lack theliteracy skills to obtain meaning from whatthey read, their motivation for reading decreases or fails to develop altogether.Melekoglu and Wilkerson (2013) reportedthat a lack of reading motivation limited students’ willingness to improve critical readingskills and strategies necessary for academicsuccess. In contrast, students with higher levels of motivation for recreational readingwere characterized by increased academicperformance and positive reading behaviorssuch as engagement and comprehension(Naeghel, Keer, Vansteenkiste, & Rosseel,2012).
Reading motivation trends among studentswho read braille mirror those of their print-reading peers. Data from the longitudinalABC Braille Study demonstrated that prekindergarten through fourth grade students inthe high-achieving reading group were morelikely than students in the low-achievingreading group to read by themselves and toreport that they liked reading (Sacks, Hannan,& Erin, 2011). Students in the low-achievingreading group were more likely to report thatthey did not like anything about braille, andstudents in the high-achieving group moreoften reported there was nothing they dislikedabout braille. The researchers concluded thatmotivation is a critical factor in readingachievement and that teachers of studentswith visual impairments need to work in collaboration with other team members to identify and implement strategies for motivatingstudents who are struggling to learn braille.
The current study reports the results of asurvey administered to teachers of studentswith visual impairments in the United Statesand Canada that gathered information abouttheir experiences with providing instruction
to dual-media learners. Teachers were askedry 2017 ©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved
to provide information about their students’print and braille literacy skills, as well as theirmotivation for and confidence in reading.
Methods INSTRUMENT
A survey was developed using Survey Monkey, an online survey tool. Teachers of students with visual impairments were askedabout their training, background, and experiences specifically related to teaching studentswho use both print and braille literacy media.For the remainder of the survey, each teacherselected one student who used both print andbraille and responded to questions with thisstudent in mind. Questions were answeredabout the student’s demographic background,assessment tools used in determining medialiteracy, curricula used in instruction, studentconfidence, and student motivation for usingprint and braille.
CRITERIA FOR PARTICIPATION
AND RECRUITMENT
Approval to conduct the research was obtained from the Institutional Review Board atthe University of South Carolina Upstate. Ane-mail invitation with the survey link was sentto teachers of students with visual impairments across Canada and the United States.The survey remained open for two months inthe spring of 2015. Certified teachers who hadprovided braille literacy instruction to at leastone student who used both print and braille inthe last three school years were invited toparticipate. They were required to be able toreport on at least one student who was in anacademic literacy program, read within twoyears of grade level, and had an establishedmethod for reading and writing. In addition,their student had to meet at least one of thefollowing criteria: (1) he or she had alreadylearned to read and write in print, but waslearning braille because print was no longer aviable literacy medium; (2) he or she was a
current print reader learning braille as a sec-©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved Journal of Vi
Table 1 Demographic data of the teachers of students with visual impairments (N = 84).
Variable Number (%)
Gender (n = 84) Female 79 (94.0) Male 5 (6.0)
Years of experience (n = 84) 1–3 9 (10.7) 4–6 11 (13.1) 7–10 15 (17.9) 11–15 13 (15.5) 16+ 36 (42.9)
Reading endorsement (n = 83) Yes 13 (15.6) No 70 (84.4)
Setting in which employed (n = 83) Itinerant 70 (84.4) Residential or specialized school 7 (8.4) Resource classroom in a public
school 6 (7.2)
ondary reading medium, with the expectationthat both media might be used in the future; or(3) he or she was a younger student simultaneously learning to read in both print andbraille.
Eighty-four certified teachers of studentswith visual impairments participated in thestudy. Seventy-eight (92.8%) worked in theUnited States and six (7.2%) worked in Canada. Demographic data for the participants isprovided in Table 1. Sixty-three of the teachers (75.0%) had between one and 15 studentson their caseloads who received direct visualimpairment services. The remainder had acaseload of 16 or more students.
Results All data were via teacher report through theonline survey. No verifying data were collectedor reviewed by the researchers. Not all questions were answered by all participants.Throughout the Results section, the n is indicative of the number of teachers of studentswith visual impairments who answered that
question for their students. Statistical datasual Impairment & Blindness, January-February 2017 51
analyses related to motivation and confidencewere performed using SPSS version 23.0.
The current age of 81 academic studentsranged from 6 to 18 years (M = 11.5, SD =3.2). Thirty-three (39.3%) of the 84 studentshad at least one documented additional disability. Ten students were deaf or hard ofhearing, nine had a learning disability, six hadautism spectrum disorder, three had a traumatic brain injury, two had a physical disability, two had other health impairments, andone had an intellectual disability. The currenteducational level (n = 83) was 49 (59.0%) inelementary school, 16 (19.3%) in middleschool, and 18 (21.7%) in high school. Of the84 students, 62 (73.8%) had a clinical lowvision evaluation and were provided instruction in the use of optical aids before a decisionwas made to introduce braille.
Students (n = 79) were introduced tobraille from age 2 to 17 years, with a mean of7.8 (SD = 3.2) years. Teachers were providedwith a list of informal and formal assessmenttools used in the decision-making process,with more than one response allowed andspace provided to list additional tools. Themost frequently reported tool reported by the81 teachers who answered the question wasobservation of student performance in readingand writing activities (n = 37); followed byinformal or locally developed learning mediaassessment (n = 33); learning media assessment developed by Koenig and Holbrook(1995) (n = 26); Functional Vision andLearning Media Assessments for Studentswho are Pre-Academic or Academic and Visually Impaired in Grades K–12 (Sanford &Burnett, 2008) (n = 18); and Evals (TexasSchool for the Blind and Visually Impaired,2007) (n = 6).
Eighty teachers of students with visual impairments reported on the amount of timeelapsed between the initial decision to teachthe student braille and the start of formalinstruction. Forty (50%) reported less than
one month, 24 (30.0%) reported one to52 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, January-Februa
three months, seven (8.7%) reported four tosix months, five (6.3%) reported seven to ninemonths, and four (5.0%) reported more than oneyear. The majority of 82 students (68, 82.9%)had been receiving braille instruction for morethan one year.
The teachers of students with visual impairments were provided with a list of studentcharacteristics that may have influenced thedecision to introduce the student to braille,and they could select multiple options. Themost frequently selected characteristics werethe student’s diagnosis (n = 69), print readingspeed (n = 37), print reading stamina (n =33), future plans for higher education (n =28), future plans for employment (n = 17),print reading decoding skills (n = 14), motivation level (n = 14), and print reading comprehension (n = 13). The teachers were alsoprovided with an opportunity to list otherfactors that they considered when making thedecision to transition the student from print tobraille. The most frequently mentioned itemwas assessment data about the student’s printreading ability (n = 46), followed by the needto establish a foundation of braille literacyskills for the student because of the belief thatthe student might not have access to brailleinstruction at a later time (n = 31), availability of resources to assist the student in makingthe transition from print to braille (n = 13),time in the teacher’s schedule (n = 12), theteacher’s personal belief about when a studentshould transition from print to braille (n =10), and availability of other team membersto support the student’s transition to braille(n = 8).
The teachers were asked if they beganinitial instruction with contracted or uncontracted braille. Of the 74 who responded, 29(39%) began with contracted braille and 45(61%) began with uncontracted braille. Whenasked about at what age students were introduced to braille, they reported that 25 studentsaged 4 –10 years and four students aged
11–14 years were introduced to contractedry 2017 ©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved
braille initially. The mean age of these students was 7.62 years (SD = 2.72). Similarly,it was reported that 36 students aged 2–10years, 5 students aged 11–14 years, and 2students aged 15 and 17 years, respectively,were introduced to uncontracted braille initially. The mean age was 7.57 years (SD =3.43).
An open-ended question asked teachers ofstudents with visual impairments what influenced their decision to begin instruction ineither contracted or uncontracted braille.Seventy-three reported a variety of considerations. The three most frequently mentionedwere the student’s personal characteristics orabilities (n = 19), the teachers’s personalbeliefs (n = 19), and the braille curriculumused (n = 10). The teachers’ personal beliefswere almost equally divided between beginning with uncontracted braille (n = 10) andbeginning with contracted braille (n = 9). Ateacher who cited personal beliefs as a consideration said, “I believe uncontracted braillehelps students to become better spellers.” Another who cited personal beliefs for beginningwith uncontracted braille said that there is a“faster satisfaction or usability to introducethe full alphabet first.” Yet another had acontrasting personal belief: “I feel teachinguncontracted braille makes double the work.First learn uncontracted and then learn contracted.” Other common considerations werethe age of the student and the blending ofbraille literacy instruction and the general education curriculum. One teacher said, “I useuncontracted braille to keep the student moreconnected with the curriculum used in herclassroom.”
The amount of braille instruction studentsreceived in a typical week was reported by 81of the teachers of students with visual impairments. Seven (8.6%) students received onehalf-hour or less of instruction per week, 10(12.4%) students received more than one half-hour but less than one hour per week, 19
(23.5%) students received one to one-and©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved Journal of Vi
one-half hours per week, 11 (13.5%) studentsreceived more than one-and-one-half to twohours per week, 14 (17.4%) received morethan two hours but less than three hours perweek, four (4.9%) received three to fourhours per week, 10 (12.3%) received morethan four hours to five hours of instruction perweek, and six (7.4%) received more than fivehours of instruction per week.
The teachers were provided with five statements related to a student’s access to brailleduring instruction. Forty-three said that theyallow the student to see their hands whilereading braille, 19 said they showed the student braille configurations visually as the student read braille tactually, 18 obstructed thestudent’s view of his or her hands duringbraille reading, nine blindfolded the studentwhen he or she was reading braille, and ninesimultaneously showed the student the wordor sentence in print as the student read thebraille tactually. In some instances, it wasreported that visual access was not possiblefor the student because of the significance ofthe vision loss. Other teachers reported thatthe student naturally closed or diverted his orher eyes from the braille page.
Table 2 includes teachers’ reports of howmany words their student read in print andbraille per minute. They were not asked toreport sources of data used in answering thequestions about reading rates. Some teachersprovided reasons for why they did not reporttheir student’s print or braille reading speeds,or both. Twelve teachers reported that theydid not know the student’s print reading speedor that the data were unavailable. Three otherteachers reported that their students couldno longer see print. Similarly, 11 teachersreported that they did not know the student’sbraille reading speed or that the data wereunavailable. Eleven additional teachers reported that their students were still in theinitial stages of learning braille letters.
Seventy-seven teachers reported on the
print literacy skills of their students. Elevensual Impairment & Blindness, January-February 2017 53
4
Table 2 Reading rates of the students in words per minu
Medium Education
level 1–10 wpm
11–30 wpm
3w
Braille
Elem. Middle High Elem. Middle High
9 1 0 8 5 1
5 2 2
15 2 6
(13.1%) students were performing abovegrade level, 30 (39.0%) were performing atgrade level, and 36 (46.9%) were functioningbelow grade level. For braille literacy skills,three (4.2%) out of 72 teachers reported abovegrade-level-performance for their students andgrade-level performance for 16 (22.2%).Fifty-three (73.6%) students were reportedlyfunctioning below grade level.
Teachers were provided with a list of common tools used to write braille, and could selectmultiple responses. The most frequently usedtool was the Perkins Brailler (n = 76), followedby refreshable braille displays (n = 17), braillenotetakers (n = 16), embossers (n = 7), PerkinsSMART Braillers (n = 5), Mountbatten Braillers (n = 4), slate and styli (n = 4), and theelectric Perkins Brailler (n = 3).
Teachers were provided with a list of common school subjects and asked to report the
Table 3 Primary learning medium used by academic stu
Education English or Medium level language arts Mathemati
Print Elementary 31 42 Middle 10 16 High 9 12
Braille Elementary 12 4 Middle 1 1 High 3 2
Auditory Elementary 5 2 Middle 5 0 High 5 3
Total 81 82
54 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, January-Februa
pm).
51–75 wpm
7–100 wpm
101–125 wpm
126–150wpm
5 2 4 5 0 1
3 0 2 0 1 1
1 2 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0
primary medium students used for each subject. Table 3 summarizes these data.
The teachers were provided with a list ofmaterials and curricula often used for brailleliteracy instruction. They could select multiple responses to indicate what they used withtheir students. The most commonly reportedmaterials were teacher-developed materials(n = 54); followed by Building on Patterns(Boley et al., 2009 –2012; Pester, 2006; n =32); Mangold Developmental Program ofTactile Perception and Braille LetterRecognition (Mangold, 1994; n = 29); BrailleFundamentals (Cleveland, Levack, Sewell, &Toy, 2002; n = 15); Patterns (Caton, Pester,& Bradley, 1983; n = 14); I-M-ABLE(Wormsley, 2011; n = 3); Braille Connections (Caton, Gordon, Pester, Roderick, &Modaressi, 1997; n = 3); and Braille Too(Hepker & Coquillette, 1995; n = 3).
s, by subject.
Computers andScience Social studies Music technology
32 31 29 30 12 13 9 11 11 11 5 8
7 8 1 2 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 7 8 10 8 3 3 1 2 4 5 2 3
te (w
1–50pm
8 2 1 3 3
dent
cs
78 80 57 66
ry 2017 ©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved
Table 4 Student level of motivation and confidence for r
Rating Motiv(n =
Very motivated or confident Somewhat motivated or confident Neutral Somewhat unmotivated or unconfident Very unmotivated or unconfident Unmotivated or unconfident Depends on the task
3218124803
Participants were asked to rate their students’ level of motivation and confidencewith reading print and braille for completingacademic tasks. Table 4 provides their ratings. Correlations were computed to determineif there was a relationship between the student’smotivation and level of confidence with readingin each of these media. The Kendall’s T testidentified a positive correlation (T = .391, p <.05) between motivation and confidence for students reading print. No significant differenceswere found between motivation and confidencefor students reading braille.
Teachers were asked about the type of material students read for pleasure. The mostfrequently reported type of material was fiction books (n = 51); followed by nonfictionbooks (n = 33); web pages (n = 17); picturebooks (n = 16); graphic novels, includingcomic books (n = 10); e-mail (n = 7); andmagazines (n = 6). Large print (n = 33) wasthe most frequently reported method for how
Table 5 Frequency of students’ reading for pleasure usi
Frequency
Daily 3–5 days per week 1–2 days per week Less than 1 day per week
My student does not read [in this medium] for pleasure©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved Journal of Vi
ng materials in print and braille.
Print Braille
Confidence (n = 70)
Motivation (n = 77)
Confidence(n = 46)
8 14 6
20 22 — —
14 32 8
13 7 0 3
18 18 0 6 4
— —
students accessed pleasure reading materials,followed by auditory (n = 26), e-readers (n =25), standard print (n = 22), computer (n =16), live reader (n = 14), hard copy braille(n = 12), and refreshable braille display (n =2). Teachers were provided with a list of audiodevices and asked which options their studentsused to access pleasure reading. More than oneresponse was allowed. E-readers (n = 25) weremost frequently reported, followed by the National Library Services player (n = 13), VictorStream (n = 9), and BookPort (n = 8). Table 5reports the frequency for the number of timesper week students used braille, print, or auditoryto access the pleasure reading materials.
Discussion Eighty-four teachers of students with visualimpairments shared information about theirwork with students who used both print andbraille literacy media. They reported that their
rious media.
Print Braille Auditory (n = 76) (n = 76) (n = 73)
18 (23.7%) 3 (3.9%) 12 (16.4%)11 (14.5%) 2 (2.6%) 12 (16.4%)18 (23.7%) 11 (14.5%) 14 (19.2%)13 (17.1%) 19 (25%) 13 (17.8%)
eadi
ation 77)
ng va
16 (21.1%) 41 (53.9%) 22 (31.5%)
sual Impairment & Blindness, January-February 2017 55
students were introduced to braille at a varietyof ages, and a wide range of informal andformal assessment tools were used in thedecision-making process. There is a need formore formalized ways to determine the needfor dual media instruction. In addition, it isnot clear from these data which studentswould benefit from beginning braille instruction with contracted versus uncontractedbraille. Future studies that use longitudinalapproaches, similar to that used by the ABCBraille Study, and focus specifically on dual-media learners of various ages, have the potential to provide the field of visual impairment with this type of valuable information.
As illustrated in Table 3, braille was lesslikely than print to be used as the primaryliteracy medium across all grade levels andfor all academic subjects. This may indicatethat the students in the study were more proficient in reading print than in braille. Ahigher proportion of elementary-age studentsreportedly use braille in their academicclasses as compared with students in middleand high school. With the exception of English language arts for elementary-age students, braille was equally or less likely thanauditory modes to be used as the primaryliteracy medium. Although students weremore likely to use braille for that subject thanfor any other, only 19.8% of students acrossgrade levels used braille as their primary literacy medium for it. Fewer students primarilyutilized braille for science (11.5%), socialstudies (11.3%), mathematics (8.5%), computers and technology (6.0%), and music(1.8%). This finding may be the result ofstudents having higher proficiency with literary braille than with the Nemeth Code forMathematics and Science Notation. It is unclear from the data whether students utilize asingle medium or dual media for their academic subjects. Although the primary literacymedium was reported for each subject, somestudents may use multiple media for a subject,
depending upon the task. If a student is prone56 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, January-Februa
to visual fatigue, an advantage of dual-mediainstruction may be that the student could usebraille for subjects or content that are notvisual in nature, such as reading text. If thismethod effectively reduces visual fatigue, thestudent may then be able to use vision fortasks that are more difficult to access tactuallyor through auditory means, such as map reading and interpreting graphs and figures.
Other characteristics that may be predictiveof how successful a student will be in learningbraille could not be definitively identifiedfrom this study. However, the data suggestthat incorporating braille in both academicand nonacademic settings, including for recreational activities, may enhance motivationfor developing braille literacy skills. With theexception of one teacher of students with visual impairments, all respondents identifiedmotivation as being important for a studentlearning braille. The majority of studentswere reportedly very or somewhat motivatedfor reading print (64.9%) and braille (59.7%).Although only 15.6% of dual-media studentswere reportedly somewhat or very unmotivated for reading print, 26.0% of dual-mediastudents were somewhat or very unmotivatedfor reading braille. Despite the acknowledgedimportance of motivation, many teachers reported that their student only used braille foracademic purposes. The number of studentswho read for pleasure daily was remarkablylow for all literacy media, particularly considering that more than half of students werereportedly very or somewhat motivated forreading in print and in braille. Students weresix times more likely to read daily for pleasure using print (23.7%) as compared withbraille (3.9%). Similarly, although 38.2% ofdual-media students reportedly read for pleasure three or more days per week in print,only 6.5% of these students read in braille atthis frequency. In part, this may reflect thatbraille instruction is often delivered in a one-on-one setting with a teacher in a format
that is focused on acquisition of braillery 2017 ©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved
contractions and rules rather than approachedby how to incorporate braille in the student’slifelong literacy skill set. It is essential thatstudents’ reading preferences be consideredand that they have access to a wide range ofmotivating braille reading materials. It is alsoimportant that teachers assist students of allages in identifying meaningful ways for incorporating braille into their daily lives foractivities such as labeling household items;writing notes or cards to a pen-pal; reading,writing, and following recipes; making lists;managing money; reading menus; reading environmental signs; and other similar tasks thatpromote independence, self-confidence, andmotivation for using braille.
There was a statistical significance betweenteachers of students with visual impairments’perceptions of student motivation and theirperceptions of student confidence in usingprint to complete academic tasks. It is noteworthy that not all teachers who provided aranking of their student’s motivation to readprint and braille provided a ranking of studentconfidence. Further study is needed to evaluatethe relationship between student motivation andconfidence in developing skills in a new literacymedium. In addition, future study that collectsdata directly from students is warranted.
LIMITATIONS
This study has several limitations. First, datawere self-reported from the teachers of students with visual impairments and were notverified by the authors through record reviewor observation. No work samples to documentstudent reading or writing were collected. Inaddition, these teachers were not asked toreport measurements used in answering thequestions about reading rates and grade level.Since the majority of them reported that theyworked with students in itinerant settings,knowing the students’ motivation for readingfor pleasure, the types of literacy tools theyused in core academic subjects, and the stu
dents’ perceptions of their literacy abilities©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved Journal of Vi
may have been limited. In addition, no datawere collected from students about their motivation or confidence to use print and brailleto achieve academic tasks.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONALS
Since learning braille contractions and rulesdoes not ensure that braille will become ameaningful literacy tool, it is crucial foreducators to formulate strategies for tailoringinstruction to address the individualizedlearning needs and preferences of students.Braille knowledge and skills should be reinforced through incorporating braille into motivating, practical, everyday life activities beyond the academic learning environment. Topromote and encourage more students to develop strong braille literacy skills, teachers ofstudents with visual impairments need to ensure that students have access to motivating,age-appropriate, pleasure-reading materials inbraille. To become proficient braille readers,students need to read braille in multiple andvaried settings, not exclusively during instructional time with teachers or for academicpurposes. In the initial stages of braille literacy instruction, pairing braille pleasure reading with print or auditory versions may bebeneficial for the student so that he or shedoes not become frustrated due to difficultieswith tactile discrimination, limited brailleknowledge, or inefficient decoding skills thatcould interfere with braille reading fluencyand comprehension. These are important considerations for increasing student motivationand building proficiency with braille reading.
Although Building on Patterns was reportedly the most frequently used curriculum forteaching braille to established print readers,this program was not designed for dual-mediastudents and, therefore, it may not be as effective for this population as it is for the targetaudience. The field of visual impairmentwould benefit from the development of a curriculum that is specifically designed for
academic dual-media learners at varyingsual Impairment & Blindness, January-February 2017 57
educational levels. Many teachers of studentswith visual impairments reported having developed their own materials. A database for locating and sharing materials and a framework forevaluating their quality and efficacy would bebeneficial to the field of visual impairment.
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Tina S. Herzberg, Ph.D., associate professor
and director of graduate programs, School of Edu©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved Journal of Vi
cation, University of South Carolina Upstate, 800University Way, Spartanburg, SC 29303; e-mail:[email protected]. L. Penny Rosenblum,Ph.D., professor of practice, Department of Disability and Psychoeducational Studies, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210069, Tucson, AZ 85721; e-mail:[email protected]. Mary E. Robbins, Ph.D.,teacher of students with visual impairments, SouthCarolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, 101Executive Center Drive, Suite 120, Columbia, SC
29210; e-mail: [email protected].sual Impairment & Blindness, January-February 2017 59