Transcript reading - Sensory Support Service

sensory support service
Reading for Visually Impaired
Children
October 2013
www.sensorysupportservice.org.uk
Aims
• Participants will feel more confident in
effectively supporting the reading
development of the visually impaired child
that they work with
• Participants wills consider useful strategies in
identifying reading difficulties the child is
having and so more able to report this back to
teachers
Reading development
• The main components of reading are
• Accuracy - being able to accurately read each
word – relying on a combination of whole
word recognition, phonological awareness and
phonic knowledge
• Speed - the ability to read words at a
‘reasonable’ pace
• Comprehension - the ability to understand the
words that are read
Research, Reading and Severe Vision
Impairment
• Research (Tobin 1993) shows that pupils with severe vision
impairment tend to lag behind their sighted peers in all 3
aspects of reading
• Extent of this difference appears to increase with age.
• At approximately 7 years, the reading performance of pupils
with low vision is in line with sighted peers but then begins to
fall behind
• Also the worse the vision is (and therefore the closer the child
needs to be to the page) the worse their reading ability is
likely to be.
Reading Challenges
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Reduced access to print at home
Reduced access to print in the environment
Possible reduced access to sharing books at home
Reduced access to print in school
More limited resources due to the need for enlarged
print resulting in less choice
• The need to master low vision aids (cctv, magnifier
etc) at the same time as developing reading skills
Reading Challenges- (cont)
• Difficulties in discriminating component parts of
words
• Difficulties in scanning text due to enlarged print
• Slower speed leading to comprehension difficulties
and frustration
• More limited access to pictures in books
• Vision fatigue – much more likely to tire when
reading and therefore reading pleasure and time
spent reading is reduced
• Inability to be comfortable when reading
Also these children are individuals
who may have had reading
difficulties even if they were fully
sighted
Also!
Increasingly, if a visually impaired child is
falling behind in reading accuracy and speed,
they have print read to them as they have LSA
support and they need to ‘keep up’ with the
lesson. The problem with this is that they
consequently get less reading practice and
their reading difficulties can be masked.
Strategies to support reading development
You are a fantastic resource!!
Provide more reading practice on a daily basis.
This can be identified as a priority due to the
child’s vision impairment and time can be
negotiated with the class teacher when this
can happen each day.
When sharing a book with the child
• Check print size and ensure it is the appropriate size.
• Check reading level
One way to check this is to get the child to read 100
words from the book and note down how many
mistakes are made in that 100 words. More than 10
mistakes would indicate that the text is too hard
(frustration level). Less than 5 mistakes indicates
that while the child can read it independently there
is not much instructional value.
Miscue analysis
By photocopying a passage of 100 words or so you
can note the mistakes the child is making while they
are reading. This will provide information when
about the difficulties the child is encountering.
E.G.
• Phonics
• Reversals
• High frequency words
• Missing out words
• Missing out lines
Reading strategies- (cont)
• While a child is reading, notice reading ‘behaviour’.
Is the child having a ‘go’, using phonic clues or
context clues? If so which? Point out phonic patterns
and high frequency words as they read
• If a child is struggling with phonics and high
frequency word recognition it may be useful to
practice with flashcards before each reading session
• Check the child’s reading comprehension by asking
simple questions about the passage.
• If a child’s reading speed is very slow, re-read the
passage to the child so that they can hear it at an
appropriate pace to aid comprehension
sensory support service
Sensory Support Service
Elmfield House
Greystoke Avenue
Westbury-on-Trym
Bristol
BS10 6AY
Tel: 0117 9038442
Fax: 0117 9038440
Text: 0781 050 6669
www.sensorysupportservice.org.uk