Teaching BVI Students Reading Skills

1. T.S.Makarova [email protected]

Teaching BVI
Students Reading
Skills

2. Tips for Teachers

Types and degrees of visual impairment
Adaptive equipment
Equal access to education
Individualized learning pace
Supportive learning environment

3. Adaptive equipment

Electronic adaptations:
Scanners to change print text to electronic one
Software to access electronic text through Braille display
equipment
A computer voice output
Audiocassette tapes, CDs,MP3s
Digital audio recordings
Braille documents
Large print, magnifies

4. Teaching Methods

Highly structured, multisensory, direct and explicit
approach
Predicted structure
Planned repetition
Kinesthetic, auditory and visual modalities in instruction
Reduced reading
Extended time to formulate replies

5. How to Assist the BVI Student to Learn

Talk to the student before the course begins:
- previous learning experience
- assistive technologies
Provide with information to obtain electronic versions
Go over the class agenda, summarize the material orally
Say aloud anything written on the blackboard
Refrain from pronouncing ‘this’ or ‘that’, ‘here’ or ‘there’
Spell out unfamiliar words
Go over any handout verbally
Repeat and recycle the material multiple times

6. How to Assist the BVI Student to Learn

Allow a blind student to use his own computer or
adaptive notetalker in class
Ask all students to identify themselves as they speak
Pair a sighted student with a blind one
Engage the class in oral exercises
Engage sighted students to produce taped recordings of
assigned texts
Include oral testing

7.

Task
Goal
Equipment Sighted
Students
1)
Readi Masterin Digital
ng
g
audio
aloud pronunci recordings
ation and
Intonatio
n skills
2)
3)
Visually Impaired Tips to the
or Blind Students Teacher
Listening to 1)
the text
from end to
end (looking
2)
into the
text)
Finding out
whether the
text is quite 3)
clear
Repeating
the sense
groups after
the
teacher/spe
aker
Listening to
the text from
end to end
Finding out
whether the
text is quite
clear
Repeating
the sense
groups after
the
teacher/spea
ker
1) Reduce reading
material
2) Make
sentences
shorter
3) Exclude
unfamiliar
words
4) Record the text
slowly
modelling
good phrasing
and expression
5) Divide the text
into sense
groups
6) Record the
sense groups

8.

Readi Mas Digital 4) Pronouncing the
ng
terin audio sense groups to the
aloud g
recor blind student
pron dings 5) Pronouncing the
unci
sentences from the
atio
text to the blind
n
student
and
6) Recording
Into
7) Practising at home
nati
on
skills
4) Repeating the sense
groups after the sighed
student
5) Repeating the
sentences from the
text after the sighed
student (another one)
6) Listening to the
other students while
they are recording or
reading the text to
each other
7) Practising at home
8) Recording at home
7) Pronounce
the sense
groups
8) Arrange pair
work
9) Do not use
the words
‘look’
10) Spell or ask
your sighted
students to
spell unfamiliar
words and
explain/translat
e these words
into your native
language
11) Provide
with the text
to read it at

9. Tips to the Teacher

Reduce reading material
2) Make sentences shorter
3) Exclude unfamiliar words
4) Record the text slowly modelling good phrasing and
expression
5) Divide the text into sense groups
6) Record the sense groups
7) 7) Pronounce the sense groups
8) 8) Arrange pair work
9) 9) Do not use the words ‘look’
10) 10) Spell or ask your sighted students to spell unfamiliar
words and explain/translate these words into your native
language
11) 11) Provide with the text to read it at home
1)

10. Reading Aloud

You must excuse a letter from somebody you
may this morning not even remember. It is the
lonely young man with the black face beside
the door to whom you were so kind last night.
I have only just returned from Cambridge, to
Calcutta, and know no one here. It was a real
ordeal to find myself at Government House, at
such a large party, all alone in the world.

11. Dividing into Sense Groups

You must excuse/ a letter from somebody/ you
may this morning/ not even remember./ It is
the lonely young man/ with the black face/
beside the door/ to whom/ you were so kind
last night./ I have only just returned/ from
Cambridge,/ to Calcutta,/ and know no one
here./ It was a real ordeal/ to find myself/ at
Government House,/ at such a large party,/ all
alone in the world./

12. Pronouncing Sense Groups

not even remember
you may this morning
you may this morning/ not even remember
a letter from somebody
a letter from somebody/ you may not even remember
a letter from somebody /you may this morning /not even
remember
You must excuse a letter
You must excuse a letter from somebody
You must excuse a letter from somebody /you may this
morning
You must excuse a letter from somebody /you may this
morning / not even remember