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VIDBE - Q Volume 62 Issue 4
Adapting a General Education Literacy Curriculum
Susan Pope
Doctoral Student
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
brlrox1231@gmail.com
One role of a teacher of students with visual impairments (TVI) is to assist in
facilitating learning for students with visual impairments (VI). The TVI is part of a team
t hat also involves the student with VI, parents and family, and other educators and service
providers to coordinate appropriate access to the general education curriculum. An area
that we often focus on is access to the reading curriculum, because reading i s critical to
student success (Graham & Hebert, 2011). But, teaching students how to write can
improve their overall reading performance, and increasing how much students write can
improve reading comprehension (Graham & Hebert, 2011). While reading and wr iting
often go hand in hand, there has been, in general, less research in and less written about
how we provide access to the writing curriculum. Therefore, we need to make sure
students with VI have the same opportunities to write as their peers. For thi s to happen,
the team needs to collaborate and provide appropriate accommodations to the general
education writing curriculum.
To explain different ways to provide access, I will be using examples from the
Wonders (2017), curriculum, a commonly used curr iculum in grades K - 6. Examples
used come from Grade 1 and Grade 4 Work Station Activity Cards, available from the