What is the world like when you can't see, or when your vision is impaired? Learn about how Lisa communicates with the world around her with Taking Visual Impairment to School by Rita Whitman Steingold. Learners answer discussion questions and consider ways they could make their own classroom more accessible to their peers who have visual impairments.

Concepts

disabilities, blindness, vision, kindness, empathy, friendship, accepting others, braille, communication

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Additional Tags

english language arts

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Instructional Ideas

• Send the bonus activity home for kids to complete with parents
• Have kids discuss what they know about visual impairments, blindness, Braille, or other aspects of the story
• If there is a child in your class with a visual impairment, consider discussing his or her process of communicating with the world, and how it is similar or different from Lisa's process

Classroom Considerations

• Discussion questions are comprehension level; you'll need to delve deeper for literary analysis or synthesis

Pros

• Provides links to auxiliary resources and research opportunities
• Encourages individuals to talk about people who are different than they are, and to look at the ways the world is accessible to them (or could be more accessible)

Cons

• Lesson references a quiz at the end of the book, which may or may not be available on any copy you are able to find

Common Core

RL.K.1 RL.K.3 RL.1.1 RL.1.3 RL.2.1 RL.2.3 RL.3.1 RL.3.3