Early Literacy Resources - Books
Reading with your child is a special time to bond and connect with them. Holding them in your arms with a book is a wonderful time to share stories and rhymes and sets them up for the enjoyment of reading for the years to come. Reading to your child helps them with learning new vocabulary and concepts, problem solving, building memory and learning about the meaning of things.
To provide a literacy rich environment, it is important to surround your child with books that they can explore with you and on their own. Allow your child to look at the book and explore all the nooks and crannies: how do corners feel, feel the ridge of the spine, flip pages and explore how thick or thin each page is, do the covers feel different from the pages, what is the front of the book and which direction do the pages flip? Reading with your child models important literacy skills such as how to turn pages, reading from left to right and from top to bottom, letters form words, there are spaces between words and words together form sentences, pictures help to tell the story.
To have a joint attention with your child while reading a book is important. The book should have features that engage with your child’s vision or tactile needs. For younger children, touch 'n 'feel board books maybe a good starting point for hands-on exploration and interaction with a book.
For children with low vision choose books with bold lettering, bright colours and illustrations. Start with books with simple illustrations and introduce more complex images as you go.
For children who are blind, twin vision (print/braille) books are the way to go. Twin vision books are typical published children’s books which have a braille overlay on them for each page that has print. This is a great way for sighted parents to read to their children who are blind. Your child can do a free exploration of the braille while you are reading.
If your child is older, you may want to place your child’s hands on top of your hands and you can move your hands across the braille from left to right across the page and move down to the next line. This will give your child a sense of reading from left to right. Do
not worry about proper braille reading technique or that your hands are moving over each word in sync as you read along. It’s more important for your children to understand the general direction of how words are read on the page and how we interact with them- top to bottom, left to right, turn the page, start at the top left side again.
Links for book ideas and publishers/ organizations
https://www.bestproducts.com/parenting/baby/g804/touch-and-feel-baby-books/
Seedlings: Braille Books for Children
Website: http://www.seedlings.org
This publisher has braille books for children and print/braille books for young children. These books are offered at reasonable prices. They have a 2020 Book Angel program which offers 3 free braille books per year for each child.
National Braille Press
http://www.nbp.org
This publisher offers print/braille books at the same price as the print edition. Children's Braille Book Club offers a subscription to monthly print/braille books. These titles are great for Kindergarten to Grade 3. They also offer the ReadBooks! Program that offers a free braille book bag which contains print/braille books, a tactile ball, tactile alphabet letter sheets and much more. They also offer Bumpy Basics: Board Books! which are affordable board print/braille books for sale.
Braille Children’s Books
https://www.beulahreimerlegacy.com
This company sells affordable print/braille books for young readers.
Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA)
https://celalibrary.ca
Access to this online library service is offered through your local public library. (Not all libraries in BC are members of CELA but it is worth connecting with your local public library.) CELA provides access to alternate formats such as audio files, braille files and other digital alternate formats.
Credit: Blind Beginnings, PRCVI, BC Blind Sports, Vision Loss Rehabilitation Canada
Photo Credit: Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash