VIDBE-Q
Volume 62 Issue 2
the concrete experience to help them understand the same concepts as their sighted peers in the classroom
setting. Math vocabulary (like seriate, compare and match) can be taught with geometric shapes of different
sizes, shapes and textures, which allows students to "more easily remember what they did and explain
concepts" (Brawand & Johnson, 2016, para. 2).
Active Engagement
Roseberry-McKibbin (2014) notes that for students who are at risk for learning difficulties, it is
imperative to provide multiple exposures to words while actively engaging them in the process. While holding
a bugle provides information about shape, texture, size, and weight, the recording provides an additional layer
of what the bugle sounds like. Allowing a student to actively engage with the bugle lets him or her experience
how difficult a bugle is to play and how it would take considerable practice to be able to play a song. The
student is unlikely to forget the experience, nor the learning that went along with it. Thus, experience of the
active engagement helps solidify the concepts and vocabulary being taught. Kashdan and Barnes (as cited
in Kocyigit & Artar, 2015) state that students who are blind and visually impaired benefit from combining
vocabulary and activity because it enables them to learn by associating language with body movement and
experience.
One way to help students actively engage with language, according to Biemiller (2003), is to connect
new learning with prior knowledge. One way that we have done so is through purposefully incorporating Tier
2 vocabulary into everyday learning and activities. Tier 1 words are those that most students pick up
incidentally. Tier 2 vocabulary are high frequency words used in many domains and contexts. Tier 3 words
require explicit direct instruction and are tied to specific domains and contexts (¡Colorín colorado!, 2017). For
example, when participating in cooking activities, vocabulary can be introduced by substituting terms, like
"add a sparse amount of salt" instead of add a pinch of salt, or "equally distributing" cookies to classmates
rather than passing them out.
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