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Making and Adapting Accessible Texts
This presentation introduces features that need to be considered when making or adapting texts for students with vision loss, multiple disabilities, and other needs. Resources include Literacy for Children with Combined Hearing Loss , Paths to Literacy for Students who are Blind or Visually Impaired, the Florida Instructional Materials Center for the Visually Impaired, and other sites.
Need literacy support for your family or classroom?
Contact the FAVI DeafBlind Collaborative’s Reading Specialist Shelly Voelker.
Learn about Comprehensive Literacy for ALL
Read an excerpt All Children Can Learn to Read and Write
Literacy Bill of Rights
Early Literacy for Students with Multiple Disabilities or DeafBlindness – Perkins Webcast
Lightbox Story Hour: A Tool to Provide Access to Literacy
The lightbox is a tool to provide access to literacy materials for students with multiple disabilities, including those with cortical or cerebral visual impairments (CVI). In the past, the lightbox has typically been used to promote sensory efficiency, but it can also be used to support literacy-focused lightbox programming. The lightbox can be used to build upon visual skills using the lighted background to draw visual attention to stories. The objective is to make literacy activities more meaning-focused, as with I-M-ABLE, which is an approach developed by Dr. Diane Wormsley. Using the lightbox for literacy activities is a way that we can work on sensory efficiency, while also making it fun and engaging.
Literacy Skills Checklist
CTVI, DeafBlind Specialist,
CVI Endorsed Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments
Get lots of useful tips, from the American Society for Deaf Children, for simple things you can do to enrich literacy skills and increase bonding with your deaf or hard of hearing child.
8 presentation videos (to be watched in sequential order) co-sponsored by:
Southwestern Project to Prepare Teachers of Students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, University of Arizona, Grant # H325K080241 U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs
Center on Literacy and Deafness (CLAD), Grant # R24C12001 US Institute of Education Sciences
- Dr. Susan Easterbrooks, Georgia State University, Literacy Overview: Where we have been and where we are heading
- Dr. Amy Lederberg, Georgia State University, The simple view of reading and how it can inform practice with DHH students
- Dr. Carol Connor, University of California-Irvine, Individualized intervention
- Dr. Brenda Schick, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fingerspelling and fingerspelling interventions to enhance early reading in DHH students
- Dr. Stacey Tucci, Georgia Pathways Project, Foundations for Literacy: An early literacy intervention for DHH preschoolers
- Dr. Susan Easterbrooks, Georgia State University, Developing reading fluency in DHH students
- Dr. Shirin Antia, University of Arizona , Vocabulary intervention for DHH students LINK ONE LINK TWO
- Dr. Susan Easterbrooks, Georgia State University, Syntax and literacy: DHH students
- Dr. Kimberly Wolbers, University of Tennessee, Writing Instruction: DHH students
The Clerc Center’s beliefs about the importance of language and communication in the development of students’ literacy skills are the foundation of our literacy program. Through a review of best practices in reading and writing, we have identified nine practices that create a comprehensive approach to literacy learning. These include dialogue journals; shared reading and writing; other journals and logs; independent reading; guided reading and writing; reading to children; language experience; writers’ workshop; and research reading and writing. Creating an ideal learning environment with high expectations for all students is the goal of incorporating all nine areas into a comprehensive approach.
The AACliteracy website provides guidelines for teaching literacy skills to learners with special needs, especially learners with complex communication needs (CCN) . . .
This website provides information on:
- What skills to teach
- How to teach these skills
- Videotaped examples of instruction with learners with special needs
- Maximizing the Literacy Skills of Individuals who Require AAC – Webcast
- National Center on Accessible Educational Materials
- UNC Center for Literacy and Disability Studies
- Deaf-Blind Model Classroom Resources
- Dynamic Learning Maps Alternate Assessment System