Teaching Reading and Writing to Students with Visual Impairments: Who Is Resp...

M Cay Holbrook
Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness; Apr 2008; 102, 4; Academic Research Library
pg. 203
classrooms developing literacy skills and
other essential skills.
It is hard enough for teachers of students
with visual impairments to find the time to
teach all of the unique skills that students who
are visually impaired must learn. But, when
faced with budgetary constraints and person-
nel issues, we sometimes have to make do
with what we have. Part of my role as the
coordinator of the Vision Program is to ad-
vocate for more resources in general (because
it is the right thing to do), as well as to
continue to find creative ways to meet stu-
dents’ literacy needs while keeping best prac-
tices in mind and dealing with the day-to-day
reality of working within a larger system.
REFERENCES
Com, A. L., & Koenig, A. J. (2002). Literacy
for students with low vision: A framework
for delivering instruction. Journal of Visual
Impairment & Blindness, 97, 305-321.
D’Andrea, F. M., & Farrenkopf, C. (Eds.).
(2000). Looking to learn: Promoting liter-
acy for students with low vision. New York:
AFB Press.
Koenig, A. J., & Holbrook, M. C. (2000).
Ensuring high-quality instruction for stu-
dents in braille literacy programs. Journal
of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 94,
677-694.
Ontario Ministry of Education. (2005). Edu-
cation for all: The report of the expert
panel on literacy and numeracy instruction
for students with special education needs,
kindergarten to grade 6. Toronto: Ontario
Ministry of Education.
Smith, M., & Levack, N. (1999). Teaching
students with visual and multiple impair-
ments: A resource guide (2nd ed.). Austin,
TX: Texas School for the Blind and Visu-
ally Impaired.
Wormsley, D. P. (2004). Braille literacy: A
junctional approach. New York: AFB Press.
Carol Farrenkopf, Ed.D., coordinator, Vision
Program, Toronto District School Board, 38 Orfus
Road, Room 158, Toronto, Ontario, M6A 1L6,
Canada; e-mail: <[email protected]>.
Teaching Reading and Writing
to Students with Visual
Impairments: Who
Is Responsible?
M. Cay Holbrook
“Teaching reading and writing to students
with visual impairments—Whose job is it?” is
a very complex question. I am tempted to
change the question a bit. Instead, I would
like to ask, “Who is responsible?” in which
case, I could discuss the responsibilities of
school administrators (at the school and dis-
trict level), state departments and provincial
ministries of education, and the federal gov-
ernment and the responsibilities they have to
recognize and appropriately fund services for
students who are visually impaired. I could
talk about the responsibility of teachers to put
into place appropriate instructional plans and
set up effective educational teams, as well as
the responsibility of parents for advocating
and supporting their child’s literacy develop-
ment during early childhood and throughout
school.
When considering the central question of
this Perspectives column, we need to examine
what is meant by “reading instruction.” In this
context, instruction and teaching are inter-
changeable terms, so the question can be an-
swered based on what I believe about who
should “teach” reading to students who are
visually impaired. The answer might be dif-
ferent for students who are visually impaired
and read print than for those who are visually
impaired and read braille. There are several
techniques that can be categorized as “teach-
ing methods,” and direct instruction is one of
them. Also included in the list of teaching
methods are discussions, simulations, exper-
iments, field trips, practice, and role-play ac-
tivities. Some, or all, of these methods could
be used in the course of reading instruction,
but the central question of this column is:
Who provides direct instruction in reading to
students with visual impairments?
©2008 AFB, All Rights Reserved Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, April 2008 203
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Can we separate the braille code from the
teaching of reading for children who are
learning beginning reading in braille? We
cannot and should not make such a separa-
tion. Yet, even in schools for blind students,
there are distinctions between the teacher who
teaches reading and the teacher who teaches
braille. Are these distinctions made because
most educators learned braille as a code after
knowing how to read in print? Is it because
we overemphasize the braille code because it
is different and unique? The squiggly lines,
straight lines, and circles that make up print
letters also constitute a code for representing
spoken language, but sighted educators are so
familiar with that code that it seems ridicu-
lous to refer to it as a code. Although much
work is done in the early years by children
who are sighted in letter identification and
production, it would be very strange to put
these children in a “print” class that was sep-
arate from a reading and writing class.
DOES IT TAKE A VILLAGE?
I am also tempted to take the easy road (and,
frankly, the correct road) and say that reading
instruction is not just the job of one person,
that the development of reading (and writing)
skills takes a team. First and foremost, the
parents of a child with visual impairment
play an early and ongoing role in teaching
their child about books, and reading, and lov-
ing reading. Second, the child’s classroom
teacher is a key participant in teaching a child
to read and write. Third, the child’s teacher of
students with visual impairments has an im-
portant role to play. But, answering the ques-
tion, “Whose job is it?” from the perspective
of the “it takes a village” model makes me
feel quite uncomfortable, because this answer
begs other questions, such as “Who takes
primary responsibility for making sure that
the team works effectively together?” Or
“Who is accountable?” or “Who is in charge
of the village?” These are legitimate ques-
tions that speak to the very crux of the matter
of “Whose job is it?”
My answer is that reading instruction for
students with visual impairments is the job of
a person who possesses all of the following
characteristics:
• Creativity, flexibility, and other personal
 characteristics of a good teacher.
• Ability to teach. The person teaching read-
ing should have experience, at least at the
level of student teaching or field experi-
ence, and have received feedback about his
or her teaching from a qualified person.
This person should have a proven track
record of success in formal, organized,
teaching. He or she should be skilled in
examining student performance and plan-
ning, adjusting, or realigning instruction to
meet student needs.
• Understanding and knowledge about the
development of language and literacy in
young children.
• Competence in the code or codes or media
that are used by the child. By competence,
I mean a deep comfort with the code, not
mere familiarity.
• Understanding and knowledge about the
impact of visual impairment on the acqui-
sition of literacy. This includes concept de-
velopment, tactile skills, hand movement
requirements, use of tactile graphics and
diagrams, and other related skills.
Who is the person who has these characteris-
tics? My hope is that this person is a teacher
of students with visual impairments. My fear
is that, in most situations, there is no person
who possesses all of these characteristics. If a
single person does not exist with these char-
acteristics, what happens? Should we look for
a combination of people, each of whom fill
part of the requirements for teaching reading
instruction, or should we make sure, through
training, that a single person does exist with
these characteristics? This would require a
204 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, April 2008 ©2008 AFB, All Rights Reserved
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.
fundamental change in our preparation of
teachers and would require us to implement
personnel preparation at the pre-service or
in-service level that would round out a teach-
er’s characteristics. In other words, we would
need to ensure that teachers of visually im-
paired students, who have competence in the
braille code and possess an understanding of
visual impairment, develop an understanding
of the development of language and literacy
in young children. Or we would need to en-
sure that classroom teachers, who have com-
petence and experience in teaching reading,
learn braille, as well as how to teach students
with visual impairments.
DOES THE CONSULTANT MODEL WORK?
I believe that the person who plans the read-
ing and writing program for students with
visual impairments should be the person who
carries it out. I am not a fan of the consultant
model in which a teacher of visually impaired
students develops lesson plans for someone
else to implement. I am concerned about this
model, because the person who implements
the instructional program is the only witness
to the student’s performance. Planning in-
struction should not happen in isolation from
a response to a student’s demonstration of
skill.
Consider, for example, a student in first
grade who is reading a story in a basal reader.
The teacher of visually impaired students may
have gone through the story and planned for
pre-teaching of contractions, and the person
implementing the program may have infor-
mation about braille. But the student, who is
presumably engaged in the story, will likely
have questions, the appropriate response to
which would require a knowledge of concepts
that relate to the complexity of learning for
students with visual impairments. For exam-
ple, the student may have questions relating to
braille contractions or the rules for the use of
contractions and the relationship of contrac-
tions to one another. In addition, throughout
the reading lesson, the student will be dem-
onstrating posture, finger position, and tactile
exploration, not to mention interactions with
the text related to comprehension and fluency.
These teachable moments happen frequently,
and if the person planning lessons is not
present and engaged during instruction then
there is a danger of creating fragmented learn-
ing experiences that will likely not encourage
smooth, comfortable, connections that en-
courage a love of and confidence in reading.
This model I have described is dangerously
close to nonaccountability. As long as every-
thing goes well, there may not be a problem,
but when a child has difficulty, in the model
I have described, there is no one to take re-
sponsibility for instructional failures. The
person who plans the program (the teacher of
students with visual impairments) could legit-
imately say, “I planned a good program, it
wasn’t implemented well”; and the person
who implements the program could legiti-
mately say, “I was following the program the
best I could, but I’m not qualified to provide
this instruction.” The only person who suffers
is the child, who often is blamed for instruc-
tional and institutional failures. Accountabil-
ity matters. Whose job is it?
IS THE EXPANDED CORE CURRICULUM OUR
ONLY ACCOUNTABILITY?
I love the expanded core curriculum. I believe
that its definition of the unique skills needed
by students with visual impairments is one of
the most important achievements that has
happened in our field in a very long time. I am
concerned, however, that some professionals
have narrowly defined the role of the teacher
of students with visual impairments as solely
working in areas of the expanded core curric-
ulum, and I very much disagree with that
characterization. Just like the students with
whom we work, teachers of students with
visual impairments must also address all areas
of the core curriculum. I have heard discus-
sions about whether reading instruction “fits”
©2008 AFB, All Rights Reserved Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, April 2008 205
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.
in the expanded core curriculum in the area of
compensatory skills. In my view, reading and
writing is clearly a part of the core curriculum
for all students, and I think that separating
“communication modes” from reading and
writing is part of what has led to the practice
of seeing braille instruction as somehow sep-
arate from reading instruction. I believe that
teachers of students with visual impairments
should be closely and directly involved in all
areas of the core curriculum and the expanded
core curriculum, and that these teachers
should be directly responsible for certain cur-
riculum regardless of whether or not if fits in
the expanded core curriculum. Considering
braille as a “communication mode” that fits in
the category of compensatory skills might
work for students who have print reading
skills and are learning braille as a “compen-
sation” for vision loss, but it does not fit into
this catchall category for young children who
are learning to read and write for the first time
in braille. I think it is time for us to revisit the
expanded core curriculum and make sure that
the line between the core curriculum and the
expanded core curriculum is a little less well
defined.
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF ADMINISTRATORS?
I alluded to responsibility of administrators in
the opening paragraph of this essay. I cannot
feel comfortable closing this perspective
without pointing out that regardless of the
qualifications of teachers (both teachers of
students with visual impairments and class-
room teachers), we will not be able to effec-
tively teach reading to students with visual
impairments if we do not have the appropriate
administrative support. Universities could do
a beautiful job of incorporating teaching read-
ing in their preparation programs and gradu-
ate hundreds of qualified teachers of students
with visual impairments each year, but if case-
loads continue to be too high and geograph-
ically inaccessible so that teachers cannot
provide ongoing, consistent, direct instruc-
tion, the “job” of teaching reading to these
students will continue to present enormous
challenges.
M. Cay Holbrook, Ph.D., associate professor,
University of British Columbia, Faculty of Educa-
tion, 2125 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4,
Canada; e-mail: <[email protected]>.
Reflections on Teaching Reading
in Braille
Anna M. Swenson
A five-year-old’s tiny fingers move hesi-
tantly across a line of braille characters,
searching for the first letter of her name
.... Four years later, these same fingers
race across page 500 of a Harry Potter
novel in an all-consuming effort to dis-
cover whether her hero lives or dies.
Such are the intangible rewards of teaching.
During my three decades as a teacher of stu-
dents who are visually impaired, nothing has
given me greater pleasure and fulfillment
than teaching reading to young children who
use braille. All of us who interact with these
students—teachers of students with visual
impairments, classroom teachers, parents,
orientation and mobility instructors, and oth-
ers—have a role to play in their literacy de-
velopment. However, it is my belief that the
teacher of visually impaired students is ini-
tially responsible for laying the foundation of
literacy skills that will create strong, moti-
vated readers. Quite simply, teaching braille
to a young child means teaching reading. The
two are inseparable.
Preliminary results from the ABC Braille
Study indicate only about half of the students
followed from kindergarten through third or
fourth grade during the study remained on
grade level in reading (Barclay, D’Andrea,
Erin, Hannan, Holbrook, Sacks, & Wormsley,
2007). This is a finding of great concern,
given the importance of reading for educa-
tional and vocational success. The problem
206 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, April 2008 ©2008 AFB, All Rights Reserved
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.