How Interesting!
Using High Interest/Low Vocabulary Books to Teach Concepts
What are your favorite genres to read? Do you prefer historical themes, biographies, science fiction, fiction or informational texts? Anything related to history is my favorite. To tell you the truth, if I were required to read a science fiction story, I could read a chapter and not be able to tell you anything about what I just read. I have absolutely NO interest in science fiction of any kind. Now if I have a chance to read a novel about World War II, I could read for hours and look forward to sharing literary details about the text. If we want children to love reading and learn to develop concepts from what they read, we need to ensure that we determine their areas of interest. Do you know the high interest areas of your learner(s)?
Many years ago, I had a young student with combined hearing and vision loss who loved everything about the American flag. He loved every picture, video, and song that he was able to experience as related to the flag. He’d point it out on a flagpole at school and carry around a book that contained flag pictures. He loved going to the Veteran’s monument at the park when it was full of American flags . He was quite the captive audience at school when we shared a daily video of the flag as we recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Each morning, he would arrive with either a small American flag or a picture of it and was happy to point it out to anyone as he entered the classroom. Needless to say, the flag was of high interest to him! He had not shown interest in other topic areas such as animals, cars, etc., so I knew I had to use his interest in flags to teach new concepts.
Just because a student has combined hearing and vision loss does not mean that he/she cannot participate in and learn from the experience of reading a story. Another former student of mine loved animals. She had a beloved dog and would bring up his name at school throughout the day. It was difficult to find books on the topic of dogs that were older elementary age-appropriate and written with limited print on the pages. I decided to create my own books related to dogs but narrowed down the sentence length and amount of concepts within the stories. The pages each had three to five words paired with a simple picture.
Here’s an example:
Book Cover: Dogs
Page 1: Dogs bark.
Page 2: Dogs have soft fur.
Page 3: Dogs have four feet.
Page 4: Dogs have a long nose.
Page 5: Dogs have wet noses.
Page 6: Dogs cuddle.
Page 7: I can pet dogs.
Page 8: Do you have a dog?
Depending on the student’s needs, the pages can be printed out and put together using appropriate color contrast for the print and background. If the student benefits from using a computer or tablet, the book can be created in digital format. Reading and experiencing the highly motivating topics of a story together adds to the development of understanding concepts.
Learners with combined hearing and vision loss must be taught concepts directly. They may not have opportunities to learn incidentally due to their vision/hearing loss. We can create literacy opportunities to teach these concepts.
Want to write a story yourself? Here’s a checklist of what to address when you create a book
1. Determine student’s interest areas. For students with deaf-blindness, be sure to address accessibility considerations with certain textures and/or colors.
2. Determine student’s visual, auditory, and physical adaptations necessary to make the story accessible to them.
3. Review educational assessment information, to determine what level of print would be most appropriate for the student.
4. Repeat core vocabulary word(s) throughout the story to generalize the concept. See the example in the story words above. The word ‘have’ was used on most pages to teach the use of the word in different sentences about the dog.
We all have certain topics that we really like and learners with deaf-blindness are no different. It is important that we learn about their areas of interest and determine the most effective and highly motivating means to teach concepts within stories.
Have you created adapted high interest/low vocabulary books? If so, we would love to see your examples!
Julie Brickhouse, M.Ed., NBCT, East Carolina University DeafBlind Project Teacher Support Program, Technical Assistance Consultant