Role of early intervention in acquisition of pre-reading skills of children with visual impairment

Abstract

Emergent literacy consists of the skills, knowledge, and attitudes toward literacy, that are developmental precursors to reading and writing. We could consider emergent literacy a foundation of literacy, or set of pre-reading skills, that a child gains from birth until formal instruction in reading and writing. Pre-reading skills represent the basic knowledge about literacy, which includes general knowledge and concepts, language skills and perceptual-motor skills. Typically developed children learn these skills naturally, during the childhood, from birth until the beginning of formal instruction in reading and writing, at home and from the environment. Children with visual impairment (both blind and low vision) cannot attain prereading skills without instruction. Visual impairment limits a child’s incidental learning and decreases opportunities for gaining access to experiences. Infants and toddlers with visual impairments require lots of interactions and early life experience that supports their oral language development, perceptual-motor development, awareness of print or Braille and opportunities to explore writing. Pre-reading activities for visually impaired children need to be organized within early intervention. Professional support and structured activities play a key role in facilitating interactions of visually impaired children with the environment and directly providing them with different experiences. The support must be directed towards gaining meaningful language, literacy concepts and perceptual-motor skills that directly enable acquisition of literacy, either print or Braille. Early structured intervention and a team approach, with the aim of supporting prereading activities, can be important predictor of successful reading competence of blind or low vision child later in the school.