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Reading aloud – the road to braille and tactile literacy.
Focus Area: Early Intervention
Topic: Families
Kerstin Dominkoviæ
Lecturer
Kerstin Fellenius
Senior lecturer
Department of Human Development, Learning and Special Education
Stockholm Institute of Education
P.O. Box 47 308
100 74 Stockholm
Sweden
At the Stockholm Institute of Education we have a long-term program of education in and studies of children’s language development, and of factors that can be significant for further development of their spoken and written language skills. The studies have focused on examining the causes of reading and writing difficulties (Dominkoviæ, 1996), and on reading and reading acquisition for children/pupils with visual impairments (Fellenius, 1999). Research in both of these areas has been based on an interactive perspective with a comprehensive view of the individual and the environment (Kylén, 1986).
The importance of reading aloud in the child’s introduction to written language has been demonstrated by several researchers (Hagtvet, 1990; Liberg, 1993; Snow et al., 1998). The Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille (TPB) is producing tactile picture books in braille with regard to reading aloud to children with visual impairments. No evaluation has been done of how they are used in reading situations focusing the interaction between the adult and the child (Eriksson, 1997, 1998; Eriksson & Strucel, 1997). Thus this pilot study was driven during the fall of 2001 to investigate what happens in a reading-aloud situation where a mother reads a tactile picture book with her blind 4-year-old daughter. This project was funded primarily by TPB.
There is strong evidence that children who early get into touch with books via adults´ reading-aloud develop behavior and attitudes that promote ”literacy”. Literacy can be described as an interest in the written language, including language forms, content, and media (Snow et al.1998). In reading aloud, a child and an adult share a language experience in permanent (written) form (Ögren 2000), and through the interaction the child learns how books function, that text has meaning, that text and speech have a special relationship, that book language differs from spoken language, and that books are enjoyable (Schickedanz 1986). According to High et al. (2000) reading aloud has a positive effect on language development. Children’s knowledge of words and their ability to understand more complex grammatical structure develop (Meyer and Wardrop 1994). An expanded language also leads to an expanded world of thoughts (Ögren 2000). Høien and Lundberg (1999) state that printed language’s communication form forces the listener to imagine situations beyond ”here and now”, and that this develops thinking that is independent of text. The picture in a picture book also functions as a visual language beyond the spoken and written language, and can be said to fulfill a complementary function. It can also offer an opportunity for a pause in reading, during which the contents can be explained or repeated (Ögren, 2000).
Some studies show that a positive contact with written language at an early age also affects future reading skills. Narrative ability and certain other forms of literacy develop, according to Temple and Tabors (1996), through book-reading at home. Narrative ability also proves later to be strongly related to children’s reading skills in first grade. Snow et al. (1998) state that there is also a motivational aspect, since research indicates that early contact with books can be related to children’s desire to learn to read.
There is limited research that shows corresponding effects of reading aloud for the braille learner (Miller, 1985). All who have worked with blind children and learning to read braille have been aware of the great difference between these children’s meetings with written language and those of sighted children, and of the consequences. This awareness has resulted in recommendations to families to read to their children during their pre-school years from interfoliated storybooks (books with inserted transparent plastic pages of braille text). The aim is to allow the child’s fingers to meet his/her future written word as spontaneously and as early as possible. Thus parents are given similar opportunities for dialogues about the book and its elements, and about the structure and function of written language. The hope is that the blind child’s curiosity will be aroused, and that he/she will begin to ask questions about letters and words. We do not know how much the interfoliated books mean to the child’s understanding of what reading involves and to the development of braille reading skills. Nor do we know anything about the significance to the child’s speech development of the interaction between the blind child and the adult in a reading-aloud situation where the book contains tactile pictures as well as braille text.
There are, however, quite a lot of research studies about the blind child’s general speech development in interaction with adults. The studies show differences in the dialogue’s communication patterns in comparison to those of sighted children (Andersen et al., 1993). The adult tends to reinforce and limit the language to the blind child’s concrete reality (context-dependent speech) This can lead to the child’s not increasing his/her ability to associate with earlier experiences, or to categorize and generalize concepts in a more context-independent situation. The adult’s language contains more names of objects, questions, suggestions, and answers when compared to dialogues with sighted children (Andersen et al. 1993). The blind children receive fewer descriptions, interpretations, associations, and explanations of surrounding events. The adults tend not to notice the child’s focus of interest to support relevant comments. It is difficult to create topics of conversation and to maintain a dialogue based on common interests. The adults’ conversational strategies seem, paradoxically, to hinder rather than develop the child’s conversational experience. The children thus assume a passive, answering role (Webster & Roe, 1998).
From a socio-constructivist perspective, the social interaction between the child and his/her environment are crucial to the child’s cognitive, social, and linguistic development. This perspective is not focused on the individual child’s development level specifically, but rather on the strategies used by adults to help the child develop his/her understanding (Webster & Roe, 1998). Can the book in a reading-aloud situation be a tool to help the adult mediate the world to the child in a way that binds present concepts to other reference points, increasing the child’s own ability to make constructions? Can the adult help to build bridges between the child’s internal and external worlds with the aid of the tactile book? These are questions that we have asked in this pilot study. We have also considered the design of the tactile picture, as well as its effect on the dialogue.
A tactile picture book is usually a transfer of text and pictures from a regular printed book. There is a close connection between text and pictures in all books. It is primarily the text that determines what in the original picture will be transferred to the tactile picture page.
What distinguish one object from another is its shape, size, material, and color. The shape is usually the most characteristic of an object. Material and color play subordinate roles. This is true whether the object is seen or touched. The fact that all of the picture’s details cannot be transferred depends on the limitations that exist for tactile perception as compared to the visual. Contours are among the most important signals helping a person to orient him/herself in his/her surroundings. The contours create an object’s shape. It appears that the brain develops refined capacities to interpret and understand these signals (Sandström, 1997). In a relief picture more or less the same rules apply for what one seeks primarily in the picture, specifically edges and lines. The blind child can recognize the shape as a representation of an object of which he/she has prior experience, but the opposite can also happen.
In order to study how reading aloud with a blind child can be done, we used a video camera. This method offers the possibility of carefully studying the interaction afterwards. We got into touch with a family through the Resource Centre Vision in Stockholm (formerly the Tomteboda School Resource Centre, TRC). The girl, whom we call Anna, was about 4;6 years old at the time of the filming. Anna’s mother read aloud to her.
The book chosen was Historien om någon (Möller-Nielsen, 1982). It is a story about everyday life (Nikolajeva, 2000) – about a cat that pulls over a table and gets a ball of red yarn. The yarn runs across all the pages right to the end of the book. The reader does not find out until the end of the book who caused this incident and a number of others that take place in the house where the yarn runs through various rooms.
The tactile pictures are made in relief in different materials that are chosen to give sensory perception similar to the pictures’ visual perception. The pictures have partially kept the style of the original book, although they are simplified. They are primarily designed to resemble the original pictures, and not the actual objects in the physical world. The text is in large inkprint and in transparent braille printing on silkscreen.
For our presentation we chose to report on the mother-child-book interaction that gives rise to communication.
We divided the reading-aloud behavior of the mother into two main categories. The first is dialogue behavior, which includes the mother´s sensitivity to Anna’s actions, her manner of asking questions, and her emotional involvement in the reading. The second is a pedagogical/educational approach, seen as explanations, clarifications, and expansions.
We observe that the mother encourages curiosity about the book, and often reinforces Anna’s comments with a ”Yes” or, more frequently, ”Mhm”. She offers Anna the opportunity to decide if it is time to turn the page, and readily accepts Anna’s initiatives. She asks open questions, and repeats Anna’s own question words. The mother reads in a distinct ”reading voice” in which she emphasizes certain words and uses a special tone. In conversation she uses a totally different ”everyday voice”.
The mother often draws Anna’s attention to something, and she does this in varying ways. Sometimes she moves Anna’s hand to an object in the book and asks questions about what Anna thinks it is, but other times she asks questions without touching Anna’s hands. The mother also uses directional words to orient Anna, and sometimes the mother tells what she herself sees in the picture.
The mother uses synonyms for certain words in the book, and tries to explain linguistic concepts of which Anna seems uncertain. She also gives Anna more information about details in the book from the pictures, and associates some of the details with Anna’s earlier experiences.
We can also observe two main kinds of behavior in the child; we call these dialogue behavior and learning.
Anna often shows that she is listening actively by saying ”Mhm” and ”Yes” after her mother’s utterances in the dialogue. She frequently repeats the mother’s words verbatim, and with the same intonation. Anna also shows that she is active by controlling the page turning in the book. Occasionally she indicates that she wants to stay on one page and talk about it more although the mother makes moves to go on, and the mother accepts this. Her concentration is seen in her keeping several things in her head at once – the picture she is touching, how she should interpret it, and what the story is about.
Anna asks many questions during the reading. Many are about the picture she touches – about whether she interprets correctly with her hands. Anna wants confirmation from her mother that her picture interpretation agrees with the picture’s contents. At first Anna pays great attention to the red yarn. After half of the book is read, she has understood the yarn’s function and uses it as a reference in seeking individual objects.
Anna shows sometimes that she understands the idea of a picture by telling how she apprehends it. She also uses synonyms to express that she understands the book’s contents. She listens very carefully to the mother’s reading, and remarks about what might not agree with her conceptual knowledge. Anna also shows her interest in braille by pseudo-reading a word on the book’s cover.
This pilot study shows that reading aloud from a tactile picture book is very important in creating a ”normal” reading situation, i.e. an interactive situation in which the child gets the opportunity to develop socially, cognitively, emotionally, and linguistically. Many of the conditions that literacy research term significant for attaining ”literacy” have been fulfilled in the reading-aloud situation for the future braille reader. Since the book has tactile pictures, large print, and braille, the mother and child can simultaneously read the text and “look” at the pictures together. The red yarn in relief that runs through the book, both literally and in the sense of providing a ”common thread” makes a natural reference for the girl’s independent looking at the pictures. The yarn allows her to orient herself quickly on the text and the picture page. Some of the book’s picture elements appear on several subsequent pages. Anna finds these quickly by following the yarn.
One basic requirement for all language acquisition and communication is the ability to share attention with someone else. Sharing attention is often accomplished by seeing people through observing the same thing and exchanging looks. This occurs very early in a child’s development (Bloom, 2000). Here the conditions for sighted and visual impaired people are unequal. Research has shown that when a blind child’s parents can read other signals of the child than the direction of gaze in order to find a common focus for interaction and communication, the child’s language development benefits (Junefeldt, 1997; Mills, 1993). The tactile picture book has naturally created a common focus in this study for the mother and child. In order to direct a blind child’s attention to an object, one must actively show it; the mother also does this naturally in our study, with the aid of the tactile picture book. An adult can read a story for a sighted child without explaining the pictures that represent reality. The child can also look at the book by him/herself and probably understand the picture without explanations. The act of reading for a blind child must take a different form. The child needs help to find the various details of the picture, as well as help with interpreting the totality.
This pilot study contains many more elements worthy of discussion than what we have been able to report here. These include, for example, the blind child’s concept formation and understanding of his/her surroundings with the help of the tactile picture. The significance of the child’s decoding strategies for pictures, letters, and text with the hands and fingers is also of great interest for his/her reading skills acquisition; these are aspects on which we plan to continue research.
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