Guide
Upper elementary: Tactile pictures supporting literacy and social connections
Looking for ways to enrich your elementary school student's literacy? Tactile Graphic Rich Environments, part 3.
This is the third part of providing tactile graphic rich environments for preschool and elementary students. In this post, we’ll talk about tactile pictures and drawing that support literacy activities and social connections for upper elementary students.
Social inclusion
At the beginning of the year, teach the students and teacher about braille, tactile learning and mobility. In late elementary, classmates can think critically about accessibility and have great discussions about tactile learning. Jessica, the TSVI along with the O&M Specialist and paraprofessional planned activities for hands-on time to braille, making tactile drawings and seeing use Logan’s tools and tactile curricular materials.
It is important throughout the year for Logan’s assignments to be displayed also. By making his tactile drawings on drawing film into visual/tactile images with a swell graphics machine, his work is visually accessible and creates an environment in class and around the school where tactile/braille/print images are common and expected.
Image 1: Logan next to a swell image of a garden on a poster that announces Garden Rejuvenation Day, the information is in print and braille.
Drawing
In later elementary grades, students are reading and learning more about the conventions of non-fiction books. They will write their own non-fiction books and learn about researching a topic. Their book needs to contain a table of contents, pictures, labeled diagrams, possibly a map, captions, and a glossary. These books are modeled on the non-fiction books they have been reading.
Image: Logan’s tactile image produced on swell machine is a lizard slinking through the grass.
Supporting literacy
In 4th and 5th grade, books are longer and may only have a few illustrations or one per chapter. These books can be intimidating for the young braille reader. By making the available illustrations tactile, Jessica was able to preview chapters with Logan in order to make predictions and build curiosity. This helped Logan complete his daily home reading assignments.
Editor’s Note: Observe Logan’s tactile graphics skills – how quickly he can find the salient features and identify the images. He has transferred concepts learned in previous tactile drawings and experiences and applies this knowledge as he explores new drawings. He is eager to explore the illustrations and uses the drawings to make inferences and to make educated guesses as to what might happen in that chapter.
Image: Gosling flying away from the robot.
Video: 3 Upper elementary: Tactile pictures supporting literacy and social connection
Key points
- Don’t limit your expectations!
- Help make meaning out of tactile imagery – teach salient features and build conceptual understanding, learn from your student
- Tactile details in drawings are symbols for things in the world and concepts (just like the braille alphabet are symbols for letter names and letter sounds)
- Drawing is universal, purposeful, and needed and follows a developmental progression whether it is visual or tactile – provide the tools!
- Support inclusion and access: make student’s tactile drawings visually accessible, provide and encourage use of tactile drawing tools by sighted peers and family
Late Elementary Strategies to support fluency with tactile pictures and drawing
- Student will be gaining fluency with graphics, diagrams and academic tactile materials – have student create materials also
- Support student in art class to access as much of the instruction as possible
- The purpose and meaning in drawing can develop in the same way for a blind student as it does for sighted peers
- Copy from models
- Create swell visual/tactile graphics of student’s artwork on drawing film – share with family
- When student projects displayed, create visual/tactile versions for display for drawing film drawings
- Iterations – practice, practice, practice, refine
- Review past work, looking at your drawings brings you back to that time and those stories
- Learn from your student, ask questions, see what works
- Encourage the process not the product, encourage the same language other kids are using about their drawings
- Describe what’s happening socially, who is drawing what, have other kids describe their drawing, let student know other kids decide to restart or erase mistakes and repeat same drawings
- Learn your student’s representational language
- Consider interdependent projects where student is collaborating and directing sighted adult or peer in art making process (e.g., do you want a mountain background or ocean background for your creature? What colors do you want here?)
Resources
Other posts in this series: (Coming soon!)
- Tactile graphic rich environments series: The missing link, Intro
- Preschool: 2D tactile materials supporting play and literacy, part 1
- Early elementary: Tactile pictures and drawing, engaging student in literacy activities, part 2
- Upper elementary: Tactile pictures supporting literacy and social connections, part 3
- Tactile drawing: Expanding creativity and social inclusion, part 4
- Tactile description: Building language and concepts, part 5
- HOW TO turn tactile drawing film into PIAF picture – sharpie method, part 6
- HOW TO make a tactile image using iPad, Goodnotes and Swell Machine, part 7
Additional Resource
Ideas and videos are by Jessica McDowell; post co-written by Diane Brauner
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