Jump to content

Menu

Anyone else homeschooling a blind or seriously visually impaired child


Recommended Posts

My dd4(in March) is completely blind in one eye and has impairments in the other. Right now we are doing a very laidback homeschooling mix of Montessori, Charlotte Mason, and Waldorf style--that I put together myself. Looking ahead in the years to come, I like the looks of Living Books Curriculum and Oak Meadow. Which, in your opinion, based on your experiences of homeschooling your VI child, would be a better fit? Or is there something else you've used successfully? Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am taking a Braille course online, so I will learn it and teach it to my daughter. We are also teaching her print. She may be able to read some print, but her vision therapist also wants her to learn Braille. That way she'll be able to give her "good" eye a rest from time to time. Her vision therapist also has a Braille typewriter that she will let me use. I haven't thought about using an abacus yet. My daughter can see well enough to pick up little counting bears, so that's one way we've been working on numbers and counting, as well as colors. We also listen to a lot of "learning through music" CD's, which my little one loves...she's a big music fan. As of now, I have no plans to send her to a school for the blind. We do have a vision therapist who sees her once a month.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What you are doing sounds good. I suggest you continue to work with math manipulatives and add dominoes and rods. She's still young, so do what feels appropriate. My sister has an incredible numbering sense; however, she lost her vision at 8yo. I have no idea what role her age of vision loss played in her development. You can print out large sized domino cards to work in conjunction with the actual dominoes.

 

http://teachmath.openschoolnetwork.ca/Subitizing.htm

 

I don't know what age my sister started using the abacus. I'm way out of my depth here. Look into using a Soroban abacus.

 

http://www.abledata.com/abledata.cfm?pageid=19327&top=13205&trail=22

 

Read aloud books. Poetry, silly songs, and rhyming. Word games and tongue twisters.

Edited by Heathermomster
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's called a Cranmer's abacus for the blind. It's adapted from a Soroban abacus. My girls do all their computations on it. I taught them myself. It's not hard. Just don't get sucked into the whole audio book thing; kids who listen don't develop good writing skills.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's called a Cranmer's abacus for the blind. It's adapted from a Soroban abacus. My girls do all their computations on it. I taught them myself. It's not hard. Just don't get sucked into the whole audio book thing; kids who listen don't develop good writing skills.

 

Thank you, Velleta. I am currently taking a Braille course, so I'll just add learning how to use an abacus to my continuing education.:)

Also, I agree with you about audio books. They are good to use from time to time, but I definitely want my daughter to read independently and write.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Loved seeing the pics on your blog of your cutie!! My dd is 11 (adopted from Hong Kong), has Down Syndrome and has a significant visual impairment (past legally blind, but uses glasses and compensates more than I could ever imagine). What you are doing sounds great!

 

I have to make accommodations on writing/tracing. I've found that it's best to write things in a fairly dark shade of highlighter and let her trace them. When I attempted to do printing practice on lines/dots, it was difficult.

 

Jenn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Loved seeing the pics on your blog of your cutie!! My dd is 11 (adopted from Hong Kong), has Down Syndrome and has a significant visual impairment (past legally blind, but uses glasses and compensates more than I could ever imagine). What you are doing sounds great!

 

I have to make accommodations on writing/tracing. I've found that it's best to write things in a fairly dark shade of highlighter and let her trace them. When I attempted to do printing practice on lines/dots, it was difficult.

 

Jenn

 

Thank you for visiting my blog.:) Also, thanks for the idea about tracing for writing. It's also cool to "meet" someone who has a similar adoption story.

I totally get what you mean about compensating. My daughter amazes me with her ability to find and pick up small objects and also with her ability to navigate unfamiliar places.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

My DD10 was born with cataracts and as a result developed glaucoma which resulted in underdevelopment of the optic nerve in one eye. Because of the cataract surgery (removal of the natural lenses) it's a little hard to give a good answer when asked "What is her vision?" But it's something like 20/200 in her "good" eye and 20/400 in the other one. She's reading and writing, but we do have to get creative sometimes. When she was 2, she insisted on doing school with her older brother, so I printed out tons of coloring pages and worksheets from LearningPage.com. I tried to give her some tactile learning opportunities like foam bath letters and numbers in the tub, and magnetic letters on a cookie sheet. And we got Counting Frogs from Rainbow Resource which she enjoyed. I also found lots of children's books in larger formats. The very large board books are called "Lap Editions" and I've even found some things like the Ramona and Little House books in large print. My husband was also born with cataracts and grew up listening to audio books, so we've always done them in our house, but DD listens to them all the time.

 

DD was comfortable with the format of Saxon math (with the exception of the drill sheets with 100 problems--print was too small) for books 1-3. However the format changes with Saxon 5/4 and the cost of buying a large print text was outrageous ($600!!!) So we switched to Teaching Textbooks. We have a large computer monitor so the lessons are nice and big and easy for her to navigate. And there's an audio component too, with a voice explaining the lesson, then explaining how to do things if she gets something wrong. I'm generally in the same room with her and will step in where needed, but it's working beautifully right now.

 

For Spelling, I asked DH what he thought we should do. He said, "Face it, if she's like me she'll probably always be a poor speller." I wasn't willing to accept that, so we worked a bit extra on phonics even after she was reading to get ready for spelling. Then in 3rd grade we began Phonetic Zoo and it's a perfect fit for her. Her spelling is still pretty bad for words she hasn't worked on, simply because she doesn't have quite as much of that visual component to help her recognize the correct spelling. But I have her read by sight at least a little every day, outside of normal schoolwork. I figure this is a case of "slow and steady wins the race."

 

I used First Language Lessons with my older son and since the first book (FLL 1 and 2) is all oral it worked well for DD too. I wasn't sure about moving to the workbook, but when I had a chance to look at it I was pleased to see that even thought the font size is a bit on the small side, the is a lot of white space between lines. This makes it SO much easier for DD to read the sentences!

 

I do much more reading aloud for her, both of textbooks and story books than I did for my older son. I often give her supplementary history and science books that are really below her reading level because the print size is usually larger. She is required to read by sight at least 20 minutes a day, in addition to regular school work. And like I said, she really enjoys audio books so there are plenty of those as well.

 

I was a little disappointed when I was actively looking for homeschool support for parents of blind and visually impaired kids compared to other groups. There's Blindhomeschoolers.com and another list. But really what I've found is that trying to find large print and audio materials is the best help. DD uses a magnifying glass sometimes, but she gets irritated with it. She has glasses, but she often "forgets" them in another room. We've found that adjusting the lighting helps. Sometimes I'll enlarge things for her on the copier or re-draw charts or things with higher contrast so she can see them better. We just do the best we can.

 

Blessings!

Edited by Suzannah
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just don't get sucked into the whole audio book thing; kids who listen don't develop good writing skills.

 

I beg to differ. My husband grew up primarily reading via books on tape from the Library of Congress and Recording for the Blind. He has a minor in communications, is an excellent writer, and is an attorney on Capitol Hill. When choosing book, the content of audio books is just as important as books in print. I read aloud to my children all the time. This is practically the same thing as an audio book. DD10 is an aspiring writer. She does struggle with spelling, but is coming along nicely with punctuation and has filled a small bookshelf and a filebox with stories. I won't say they are all suitable for publishing, but they are creative and interesting with a wide vocabulary and an interesting arc.

 

I used to think of listening to books as something less than reading. But after living with my husband for some time, I realized it's not so different. If I insisted that my daughter read The Secret Garden by sight, she probably still wouldn't be finished reading it. But she's read it in audio format several times, as well as all the "Little House" books (several times), all of the Narnia books (several times), Little Women, Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, Charlotte's Web and many, many others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...