TRANSCRIPT - Low Vision and the ECC - Compensatory Access Skills Ð 3/15/24

>>Chrissy: I'm Chrissy Cowan. I am the mentor coordinator at TSBVI Outreach Department. And before that, I did quite a bit of itinerant teaching. So I was an itinerant with a large public school system. And then also out of the Region 13. So I -- a lot of what I'm going to be talking about today is based on those experiences. But also I just want to give a shout out for Dr. Kitra Hill, who wrote an article called -- oh, gosh. It's the specially designed instruction for students with visual impairments. That article is listed at the end of the handout and I think Kitra did a really nice job of really clarifying for me the compensatory access skills part of the Expanded Core Curriculum. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen and we'll get this PowerPoint going. I hope you can see that now. So, you know, compensatory skills, when the Expanded Core Curriculum came out, I could understand what career was and I could understand what independent living skills were and the other areas that were listed there. But I couldn't quite wrap my head around what compensatory access skills are. And so just doing a little bit of research, also the book ECC -- I forget the name of it. ECC Essentials, something like that. Anyway, it's at the bottom of that handout as well. And then I reference it during the PowerPoint. But, you know, that kind of gives a little outline of what compensatory access skills are. I think when the ECC was first designed, they just used the term "compensatory skills." It helps me to add the word "access" and I'm starting to see that more and more now in the materials that I read. So access skills are the skills needed for accessing -- and, you know, I have a real hard time between the word accessing and assessing and I use them interchangeably, but I mean accessing, for the most part. These are the skills that are going to help the student access the core and the Expanded Core Curriculum. And they typically include study and organizational skills, communication modes, speaking and listening skills, concept development, and the adaptations necessary for accessing all areas of the standards-based curriculum. Today I'm going to really be focusing on this last one. And I'm talking about -- today I'm talking about students with low vision, specifically. And I'm also talking about those students with low vision who are functioning within the standards-based curriculum, either on grade level or a couple of grade levels shy of that. So what Kitra did was she kind of summarized access and she summarized it in three distinct ways. Actually, more. But for today I'm only doing three. If you want to come to the low vision conference that Kate mentioned, I'm going into a more complete -- I'm redoing this but it's going to be longer. I'll have more time and I'll include some other areas but for today I'm talking about making the learning environment accessible and providing accessible learning materials. And then also teaching access skills. So in my mind, compensatory access is a really, really crucial role of a VI professional. It is our job to help you wrap your head around breaking down that. You're going to need to get really good at looking at the environments in which our students work in, what materials -- what the materials, the classroom teachers are using, and knowing about how to make those materials accessible, as well as what materials are out there that are made especially for students with visual impairments. And then teaching the access skills to the student. This is where you're going to be teaching them what the student needs to do to be able to work within those environments at school. So the first one, making learning environments accessible. What I have here is a very, very busy picture of a kindergarten classroom. So I want you to picture this. Now, as a VI teacher, when I walk into this setting -- and I have before -- my mind starts to reel. I look at all of the richness on here and I know there is something that I'm going to need to do. So that's just an example of one of those learning environments. We're going to talk about more. So I want you to picture in your mind the layout of the school settings that you work in or your children have been in, your own personal children have gone through, or those that you have gone through yourself. And just picture those settings. I showed you a picture of the kindergarten class. The -- I want you to picture a first or second-grade classroom. Those get a little bit different. The materials get a little bit different as the student moves from first to second grade or kindergarten and then first and then second grade. And then an eighth-grade science lab or history class. That's very different. And a high school learning media center. We used to call that a library. How libraries are laid out and how are your students going to access the library. And then a cafeteria. And the gym and playground. Those are, you know, the way most schools are laid out. The building is laid out. There are certainly other kinds of rooms. There's computer lab, et cetera, that each school has. And if your student is moving through those different settings within the school building, it's going to be your job to preview those settings and figure out how to make everything in them accessible. In collaboration with the classroom teacher or whoever runs that room. So let's look at this is a first-grade classroom and I want you to notice some things in this classroom. There is at the -- I don't know if you can see my cursor. Can you see my cursor moving? Maybe not. 

>>Kate: Yeah, we can see it. 

>>Chrissy: So across the top is the classic number line. And then there are -- typically there's an alphabet somewhere along here. I think these are -- I don't know what those are but there are little words and pictures. There's a calendar center, which is very typical of a first grade and kindergarten classroom. Many teachers will start their day right here at this calendar section and so you've got the days of the week. You've got the month. You've got little pictures of things going on during the day. They're all laminated so they reflect light, which can be difficult to navigate. If your student is sitting back here in this red chair, your student with low vision, how are they going to -- you know, this is almost ten feet, probably, from there to there. How are they going to be able to follow along? This is a situation where you might look at the beginning of the school year where your student is sitting and if a lot happens here, you might want to seat your student right here. You might want to have them learn how to use a monocular. I do monocular training starting before kindergarten, actually, so that by the time they get here in this setting they know how to at least spot and track. So if the classroom teacher -- if the student can't see this red chair in the back, this red chair in the middle and they can't really access it with a monocular or some other kind of device, then what I like to do is take as much of this as I can and make it in a notebook. And I'll talk about some adaptations in a minute. So another setting. This was a high school science room in Round Rock, Texas. I was observing a student in this classroom so the teacher let me take pictures. There was a lot of sophisticated equipment that I certainly didn't know about. Let me show you some of what I'm talking about. Here is a beaker right here. This is a probe that I believe measures temperature. This in the lower left corner is a scale. It's a digital scale, which actually has a pretty nice readout. You notice there are bags of chips over here. They were doing an experiment with this thing. They lighted the chips on fire. That probe was going into some other device and they were measuring the temperature at which different chips burned. Okay. So you've got your student with low vision and he is running this experiment -- this wasn't being demonstrated. He is doing this experiment. And what do students with low vision do? They get really close to things. So you've got a student with low vision whose face is up against this flame. Okay? So it's a good idea that you work with the teacher, science teacher ahead of time. You know what's coming up. You know what equipment is being used. You make sure that the student can see it and can see it safely. So this student that I was observing this day had enough vision to be back a safe distance. He also had a partner. And that's not uncommon in labs where they have a lab partner. But I want my student to be independent and I want my student maybe some day to be a scientist so I have to figure out how do I make all of this safe and accessible in the science room. This is a cafeteria in a high school building. So what I notice here, if I were, you know, had a student going through this, one of the things I would notice is that there are banks of lights on the ceiling. The floor is white. There is more light coming in from these windows. The walls are almost white. The trays are white. The floor, everything's white. And there's a lot of reflective quality here. So if I have a student with albinism, they're going to have some problems in this room. And so I need to figure out -- it would be very, very difficult for me to go to the school principal and say we're going to have to change up this cafeteria. That's not going to happen but I just know I will need to work with the student and the O&M specialist also will need to work with the student on how do you navigate this room. And it could be you put something on the floor that helps them navigate to the tables that they can follow on the floor. I see a green stripe here. It could be that you do another piece of tape. So I think one of the things I know about VI teachers and COMS is they can get very, very, very creative in the adaptations that they think of for students. There's not a whole lot written down -- well, there are some things now. But sometimes you just have to have fun with figuring it out and also ask the student. This is a picture of a boy and he has a laptop with a camera projected -- or looking at the teacher, who is teaching. So this is just a classic way, I think, of adapting the environment by bringing things at a distance closer to this student. So this student looks like he's in high school. And so it's a perfect piece of equipment to help him access the environment. So what I would like you to do is write in the chat -- and so you're going to write in the chat -- the way we're going to do this, because there are going to be three or four opportunities for you to write in the chat. And Kate is the chat moderator so she's going to let me know what you're writing. But please tell me what's an example of an adaptation you've made to a learning environment. So just think -- right now we're just talking about a learning environment for one of your students with low vision. 

>>Kate: So Ragan says cut the glare from windows by asking him to close blinds. 

>>Chrissy: Thank you. So glare is a big issue. You can also turn the student so that he's not facing the window, that his back is to the window. I know I have a real hard time, if somebody is standing in front of a window and I'm looking at them, they're almost a washout for me. So, yeah. Positioning. 

>>Kate: Veronica says reduce the wall clutter. I'm a fan of that one. 

>>Chrissy: How would you do that? Tell me how you would do that. 

>>Kate: Veronica, if you want to put that in the chat. In the meantime, Amanda says tactile high contrast tape outlining a cubby. 

>>Chrissy: That's nice. 

>>Kate: Yeah. Linda Jordan -- let's see. Sorry. My chat moved. Ask teacher not to stand in front of the windows during instruction. That's a good one. Oh, Dorothy said for a student with albinism, I suggested to one school to place blue filters over the ceiling lights. 

>>Chrissy: Ah. I have filters over my ceiling lights in my office. It makes a big difference. 

>>Kate: Emily says Zoom meeting opened up to show the board while math problems were being solved. Kind of like that photo you showed, I think. 

>>Chrissy: Yeah. 

>>Kate: Veronica, in answering the wall clutter. She said to minimize posters and decorations. 

>>Chrissy: Oh, okay. Okay. 

>>Kate: Rita said she added color to steps for travel and adding black backgrounds, where possible. Ragan, if a student cannot reposition themselves, some teachers will cover light fixtures with translucent materials to help diffuse the light intensity. And Callie said add tactile markers to help students find classrooms. 

>>Chrissy: Has anybody experimented with, you know, for the equipment that's inside that learning environment, like a beaker or something like that. Have you done anything to that? 

>>Kate: Nothing in chat yet. Oh, APH tape is very handy for glassware, says Ragan. 

>>Chrissy: Oh, that's a good idea. 

>>Kate: Large print room numbers above the classroom doors to help high school and middle school students find the classrooms. 

>>Chrissy: Thank you. Thank you very much. So I will move on a little bit. Thank you, all of the people who wrote in. I really appreciate that. 

>>Kate: Chrissy, just one thing that Dorothy put in chat that I think would be good to address. Dorothy says I'm not sure if anyone runs into this problem, but I adapt the environment or suggest to teachers how to and then the following week it's back to the same. 

>>Chrissy: Huh. You mean you did this nice little adaptation and then they took it away? 

>>Kate: Yes, she says in chat. 

>>Chrissy: Oh, Hmm. Well, I think I would -- you know, I think I might pull the teacher and the student together and say, you know, we tried this. Student Jeffrey, did that help you? And let Jeffrey weigh in on that. And then see what the teacher has to say about that. So maybe if it's coming from the student it might carry a little bit more weight because how are you going to say no to the kid? Okay. So I'm going to move on. So not quite. So basically what we're talking about here is the importance of going into each environment to see what the room setup is, where the information is posted. Where the student is seated, lighting, and how the class flows. That's something I didn't really mention but how the class flows is how are they using those different stations in the classroom, especially if they're younger kids. And, actually, that worked for that science lab as well. The students were in one place for instruction that was beginning, then they moved to different parts of the room, depending on what equipment they had to use. So it might be that if the student does not have enough vision to really navigate that learning environment, that might be a skill that you or the O&M -- well, the VI professional is going to work on. So and then you want to make sure the rooms are navigable and safe and the student knows where things are located. There are some resources for adapting learning environments. There's a lot of resources. But what I did was pick the ones that were my favorites. So I think probably many of you have had some form of experience with the website, by Carmen Willing, called teaching students with visual impairments. So she has something called environmental adaptations. So I'm going to -- let's see. I've got it up here. When you go to her website -- when you go to that link, you get to this and it has adaptations. And she has adaptations, not just for the school building, but for home. And then she has each one of these links is going to take you to ideas for how to do environmental adaptations. So school campus, classroom design tips, labeling systems, adjusting lighting, playground adaptations, sensory areas and rooms. So then she also goes on to core curriculum adaptations, which is getting into subjects, so I'm not going to do that yet. Whoops. Let me get rid of this. Made it really long. Sorry about that. So another one is Perkins tips for modifying the learning environment. Go to that. So Perkins has all this stuff on illumination and it's got ideas, adaptation of materials, which I'm not going to go into because I'm just talking about the environment right now. Sorry about this. This is a little bit clunky. This keeps wanting to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Okay. Then there's paths to literacy classroom adaptations for students with low vision. And I think probably a lot of people know about paths to literacy. But you come up with this adorable kid, picture of this kid. And you have classroom adaptations for students with low vision. And then they go on to subtopics, color and contrast, size and distance. They get into pretty much detail here, which I really like. Okay. So that was making the learning environment accessible. The second area was providing accessible learning materials. And, you know, you're going to be thinking APH here but there are certainly a lot of commercial products that provide accessible learning materials. So this is a student -- picture a student using base 10 math manipulatives. There are all kinds of things, math manipulatives to help you, but this base 10 is kind of cute. And if you want to Google it, just look up "base 10 math manipulatives." So examples of accessible materials are adapted measuring devices, clock, number line, graph paper, games, alphabet strips, calendars, periodic table of elements. All of these things are going to be on the APH website. Or they're available -- most of them are available through quota when we start the year again. Hopefully we'll have those funds in Texas. And then another thing that I think as a TVI you need to watch in regards to an accessible material is the quality of print handouts that the teacher is handing out. If they're handing out maps, charts, and graphs on paper, is it high quality or is it something that was poorly copied. I think, you know, a lot of stuff is online now and it's not as big of an issue. But if the teacher is handing out things, you want to look at that. Periodically I would go through my students' work and I would look at the quality of the print and try to figure out, you know, what happened here. If the student made a poor grade, I wanted to make sure that it wasn't due to the fact that the print handout was very low contrast, for example, or very busy or whatever. But you would get with your teachers ahead of time and say show me what you're using and let's look and see that it is accessible to the student with low vision. We talked about math concept manipulatives with that base 10, you know, there's -- well, the base 10 is going to be for place value and numeration. Real items versus plastic representations. This is really important for the younger children, early childhood. First, second, grade -- well, not quite so much second grade but, you know, when I had students in early childhood, I would go into the little kitchen areas that the class had. They often have a little food section and the food is all plastic. And if the student knows what that is, I would do a really quick little assessment. What's this? What's this? This is a strawberry. This is a banana. Or whatever. But if they don't have any experience with that food -- and many of our kids don't because that can be incidental learning, going through the grocery store. If they haven't had a personal interaction with that, that plastic representation may mean nothing to them. It may be that you can't put real food in the classroom but you can work with the student on teaching them what those things really represent by bringing in real food for a lesson. So then another idea for -- another example for accessible materials would be models of abstract concepts. So there are models of the solar system. There's electric currents, 3D shapes, geo board, et cetera. And, again, APH has many of these. Let me take a sip. So I wanted to show you this picture of a student that is studying a map for travel. She's going to travel. And I want you to notice that she has a magnifier in her hand but she also has a tactile map with some visual cues on it as well. So this -- sometimes the student with very low vision may need to have a little tactile backup for a complex concept like this. Here is a student who is counting money with adapted materials and real coins. I took this picture at TSBVI. The student had very low vision and he has this nice setup learning station where he has that APH tray, work play tray, I think it's called, with a divider in it. Instead of using plastic money, he's using real money, real coins. Then he has an adapted calculator and then he has this board that the teacher has written -- I believe she's written an amount of money she wants him to count out. So everything is right there and it's easily accessible to him. Nice accessible materials. There are kits from APH. This one is called the sense of science. And there's a teacher here with elements of this kit. This student looks like he's studying leaves. And so the leaf patterns are demonstrated for him. You can -- if you know that this science lesson is coming up within a classroom, this is something you can give to the teacher, spend a few minutes saying, look at this. Here's a kit. You can use it with the whole class. But be sure and use it with the student with low vision, because it will help him learn these. And if the teacher isn't going to buy into that, if you can tell they're not really going to use it, then it's something you can supplement for the student. You can do a pre-lesson with the student or a post-lesson with the student, just to make sure that he picked up the concept. So what you can do to address accessible materials. Talk with the teacher to find out what content is being covered. I think when I was a new teacher, it took me a little while, a few years, to figure out this is the content that's being covered in first grade. This is the content that's being covered in second grade, et cetera. But you can also -- in Texas you can look at the Texas essential knowledge of skills, the TEKS, and see what's coming up for any grade level. I think each state has their own standard state curriculum. But it's nice to talk to teachers and say tell me what you're going to be covering in here. And we can collaborate and I can provide you with some materials. I think, you know, when I talked with teachers, I used to assume that that conversation would be collaborative. Sometimes I hear that new teachers are going in and saying you have to do this this way. And that's not going to get you very far. I think you have to go in with a collaborative intent and with ideas and suggestions for making the lesson accessible through the materials or whatever adaptations you're going to be recommending. So you can issue the adapted materials to the teacher. You can observe the setting to see which materials are routinely used. You can add adaptations to materials, like bolder lines on measuring devices. Some of the things that came up in the chat a few minutes ago. You can give the student a tab binder with desk copies of learning materials posted on the walls. Like the calendar, parts of speech, the periodic table of elements. Some of those things can be, you know, made accessible in a notebook. You can even take a picture of it and create a digital kind of folder for the student where they can look at what's up there up close, for that kind of situation. I talked about a number line and alphabet on the student's desk. You can provide bold line pens, paper, pencils, bold lined graph paper, if needed. I did not have great success with giving the bold line stuff to kids. So what I would -- because they rejected it. They did not want to be identified as having low vision or visually impaired. Thank you very much, I'm not going to use that stuff. So in my LMA, when I wanted to look at can they access commercial products, can they read back pencil markings? Can they use regular-lined paper and graph paper? If they could, great. We're golden. If they could not, that is when I would want to introduce the accessible material for them. Then you're going to be teaching accessibility features on electronic devices, which kind of flows over into assistive technology. But it is certainly here with accessible materials as well. Okay. Now it's your turn. Do you have an example of a learning material you adapted? Or you can write what's one of your favorite resources for helping you adapt materials? I'd like to see that as well. So I'll give you a couple of minutes to write in the chat. 

>>Kate: While we're waiting, Chrissy, I put this in chat but it's such a good reminder when you were talking about having real objects. Because I think sometimes for our kiddos with low vision, we forget that. We take it for granted that, well, they can see a picture so they're going to understand the concept. 

>>Chrissy: Right. 

>>Kate: I'm glad that you talked about it because concept development is such a big part of these compensatory access skills. 

>>Chrissy: That's right. Do we have anything here? 

>>Kate: Not anything yet. Oh, wait. Let's see. Ragan. Tactile drawing tools for quick charts and grids, color coding material and bold lining. 

>>Chrissy: Okay. Thank you. 

>>Kate: Shelly said taking a Dr. Seuss book and adding Braille for students. Maybe it was a dual media user. Linda Jordan said symbol calendar system. Lisa. For a class schedule I added real objects. 

>>Chrissy: Ooh, cool! Okay. Well, I'm going to move on, because I just looked at my watch. And I'm running short. So I'm going to go. Thank you for adding that in the chat box. If you added any resources, y'all be sure to look in the chat for links to those -- not just links but a mention of those resources. So great places to find ideas for adapted materials. We talked about APH. They have a big section called educational resources for the core curriculum. Paths to literacy has a large section on adapting materials. Perkins learning has this really, really cool accessible science webpage devoted just to science. And then teaching students with visual impairments has a really robust page also of social studies adaptations. The third area that we -- we talked about environments. We talked about materials and now I'm going to talk about access skills. So that's working with the student on accessing their environment. This is a picture of me working with a student during a short-term programs class that I did with CindyBackover and this student is learning how to use it and I'm actually evaluating him on the Jerry Johns. But there was a little bit of instruction that had to go on with this CCTV. Examples. Oh, my gosh, there's a lot of access skills that are going to require direct instruction with a student. Some of the things -- I'm sure you've thought about these things -- but organization of stuff. You know, those young children are, at least my students, were pretty disorganized. They couldn't find the paper they were supposed to turn in, the work they were supposed to be working on, that book, or whatever. And so I would look at what the organizational system was that the classroom teacher wanted those early learners to be using. And try to mirror that. But if there was no real overt organizational system, I would teach the student some tips on how to stay organized. You know, there's the backpack. You open it up and there's just paper crammed in there. So maybe notebooks -- I mean, pocket folders or something in there to help them catalog the papers they need. Homework, stuff I'm working on, stuff that's graded that needs to go home and get out here. Study skills. I would do direct instruction on note taking techniques. Make sure that they understand what the research assignments are and how to navigate the web to do research. How to study for tests efficiently and organizing information. I just noticed, I think it was APH, came out with one of their classes on note taking techniques. It's a thing and something that I think our kids need help with, especially to create readback -- notes that are in a readback format. Screen readers, optical devices, computer settings and shortcuts, accessibility options for tablets and computers. Scientific calculators. Auditory skills and equipment. And then the -- I put self-determination skills here because I want the student to be able to tell people what adaptations are needed. So that's a unit you do with the student. You've got all these adaptations that you are teaching them that they will need to use. Let's help them create something to tell other people about how they're going to access. You know, I know I want to just tell a quick story about a student who had graduated from college. A student of mine. And she called me and said she was interviewing for a position. And I said, well, let me ask you something. Do you let the person know that you have a visual impairment? And she said, no. I mean, they can tell by looking at me. And I said, well, so what do you think they're thinking when you're sitting across the desk from them and they're interviewing you? And she said they're thinking I don't know how to access anything. That I won't know how to do the work. And I said that's right. They won't, unless you tell them. So you need to be straightforward about your access skills and what it is you can do. You can do Excel. You can do Word documents. You have the equipment to modify, as needed, et cetera. So I do feel it's really important that self-determination skills and self-advocacy, that your students know specifically what's going on behind the scenes and how to communicate their access needs to other people. Actually, we're doing a little bit better now. So what you can do to address teaching access skills is familiarize yourself with sources for teaching access skills. And there were things listed in the handout for this session. Assess your students in the areas mentioned and design lessons to address the gaps. And observe. Again, be real clear with teachers at the beginning of the school year on why you need to observe and then let them know, as the occasion comes up, that you will be observing. When you observe -- or when I observed, I didn't interact with the student. I kept a really low profile. I could step into a classroom and within 15 minutes I could kind of figure out what was going on. If I had taught a skill to a student, I might catch up later and go in and see were they using that skill. Were they using that piece of equipment. But if you go in unannounced or the teacher doesn't understand at the very beginning of the school year what you're about, it can get a little dodgey. Let's see, resources for direct instruction of access skills. I listed -- I never met anybody that has actually used this resource, the learning to listen and listening to learn book. I really like it. I thought it was the bees knees when it came out because listening skills are difficult to teach, if you don't understand what you're doing. And this book did a really nice job of dividing listening skills into grade level categories. Elementary school, middle school, high school, and it listed the listening skills, which can get very sophisticated, and then it also gave you lesson ideas and what to do with kids. Now these books that are on APH, really you're getting them on Amazon. So it's still available. Look it up if you find yourself in a position to work on listening skills with students. And these kids with low vision, they can use their vision. You know, they may be able to read 300 words per minute but they can't do it for very long. They might need to have a backup system with sophisticated listening skills. Then looking to learn has been out for a while. And there are two chapters in this boom on teaching magnifiers and monoculars. You can also find things online and on the TSBVI website on how to teach those skills. The RECC, or the resources for the Expanded Core Curriculum, I'm going to go ahead and go to that. It has been on the TSBVI website for years and years and years and periodically it is updated. It hasn't been updated in a while so some of these links are not working -- some of them are. I want to show you how this works. You can see ECC along here. So if you're doing something in social studies, I can check social studies. This is the type of media. So there's articles, books, apps, kits, websites, Word or PDF file. And then if I just do "submit," those resources are going to come up. And you can click on them and they will either open or they won't open. But the RECC is kind of an interesting thing to be looking at. The ECC Essentials book. Again, available on Amazon. It's the yellow book, kind of thick. It has all areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum and it is a nice book. It gives you some information, some background information on each area of the ECC. And it gives you lesson ideas and it gives you some assessment. Then there's teaching visually impaired website, again, on compensatory skills. [ Sneezing ] How much time do I have? Oh, I'm doing good. Let me get that up. So when we go here -- and so here's compensatory access here. That's where this link takes you to. And then there's all of these tools and resources that she has on that. And it keeps going. Communication modes, assistive technology, sensory efficiency, et cetera. Independent living. So many areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum. So, oh, gosh. I feel like I -- an hour is not very much time, is it? Not for me. But let me know what your success stories are. I mean, I don't know about now but this whole compensatory access idea, before it had a name, that's what hooked me into teaching this population of students. I loved the creativity in it. I loved working with other people, collaborating with other people. You know, brainstorming with people, including the kids and their families. So tell me a success story -- or write it in the chat. I wish we could talk. But what compensatory access skills have you worked on with your students with low vision -- remember, we're talking about low vision -- that made them stronger learners. Start writing. Is anybody writing, Kate? 

>>Kate: Oh, Linda Brown said RECC... like the resource. Linda, are you saying you use the RECC? We'll see. 

>>Chrissy: I'm going to go ahead and talk. I think one of the most rewarding things for me teaching skills -- and I started early on. If I had the good fortune of my first year of itinerant teaching, my partner teacher had low vision herself. And my first day of work she had ordered a bunch of monoculars -- this was before the day of low vision specialists, so this goes way back. But she had an array of optical devices on the table. We called them low vision aids back then. She said I don't know what these are but they look interesting. I went forth and taught children how to access print and access materials at a distance using those optical devices. And I have to say that has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my career, because it really did open the world to a lot of kids. 

>>Kate: A few things came in. Margaret said monocular training from learning to listen. Kind of what you were just talking about. Britney says learning their tools and when and why to use them. And that's so good, Britney. It's not just the how. 

>>Chrissy: Yeah. 

>>Kate: Ragan, teaching programs like how to use the customization tools on book share, et cetera. And then she said a success story is having the kid tell you I got this. 

>>Chrissy: That's great. 

>>Kate: Yeah. Dorothy said my third-grade student is speaking out more about what he needs and what works for him and he tells me. Great self-advocacy. We don't have the eyes of these kiddos. We really need to listen to what they are telling us works. 

>>Chrissy: Thank you for saying that. 

>>Kate: I think we have time for this last one. Simple adaptation to PE games to allow low vision students to participate as independently as possible. Having classmates say they like some of the adaptations too. Universal design for universal access. 

>>Chrissy: Y'all are so good. That's great! Thank you. Well, as Kate said, I think that was the last one we had -- that's all the time we have for that. So I really want to thank you for tuning in. And I hope this has been a help for you today.