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VIDBE-Q Volume 63 Issue 3
Begin the New School Year with New Intervention Strategies
Kathy Boisvert, Ph.D., TVI
Blackstone-Millville Regional School District
Integrated Early Childhood Teacher
kboisvert@bmrsd.net
As we begin to plan for the new school year, it is always helpful to feel
rejuvenated. This article is going to highlight some strategies that may prove beneficial
in inspiring educators in creating more engaging tactile representations for our students
with visual impairments.
After 20 years in education and more than 9 years as a Teacher of the Visually
Impaired, I have worked with children whose ages ranged from preschool to grade 5.
Over the years, I have found some unique techniques that have allowed me to create
informative and engaging tactile representations for individuals with visual impairments.
I believe that we must remember that is not just the tactile designs that we
create, but how we introduce them to our students. In the article titled, "Early Tactile
Learning," Cleveland and Sewell (2009) provide a description of tactual learning as
follows:
Tactual learning is not the same as visual learning, and it necessitates a lot more
touching than we are typically used to. Tactual learning requires that information be
gained by exploration of one aspect of an object at a time and piecing it together to
