This year I have been given the pleasure of working with a student with a visual impairment. I struggled with how to get him more involved during our reading instruction time. My speech path helped me come up with this story box idea. For our October book I choose to make the story box for There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves. All my students love books that have a repeating pattern. This student loved it too.
We are blessed to have a specialist come in twice weekly that only works with our students in the district who have visual impairments. She was nice enough to braille all the words in the book for us. She gave me a cheat sheet thankfully! My student doesn't read the braille but we want him exposed to it and he enjoys having me move his finger across the works as I read. In the box, I got every object from the book that she swallows. As we came to the object I got it out of the box for him to touch. He loved that at the end he had all the objects to hold. His favorite was the pipe!
I plan to make more of these boxes as we go through the year. They are not only good for this student but for all my students. Let us know if you have ever made any story boxes!
