Promoting Literacy through Experiential Learning about Fall

It’s all about the experience! We have been using experiences to teach concepts or new ideas and vocabulary.

It is so important, especially for our children with vision impairments, to have real-life tangible experiences! I have a son named Liam. He is a second grader in a mainstream classroom, and he happens to be deafblind and a braille reader. I was thinking about the word “FALL” recently (Fall as in the season). If he were to come across that word in a book or if it came up in conversation, I wanted to make sure he knew what the word meant. My son doesn’t learn incidentally as his peers who have typical vision and hearing might. For example: his little brother may hear about the word “Fall” from one of his cartoons, hearing other people talk about it, seeing fall decorations at a store, etc. With children who are deafblind especially, concepts need to be purposefully taught through experience and touch. I wanted to really focus on that word with Liam and give him many opportunities for experiences that connect with the word FALL.

two boys lying on the ground with fall leaves — *Two brothers lying on the ground with fall leaves*

Some examples of “Fall” type experiences we have done this year so far:

going to the fall festival at our local petting farm
buying a pumpkin
carving pumpkins
going for a walk outside
raking leaves

A boy selects a pumpkin at a farm — *Liam selects a pumpkin at a farm.*

A boy stands next to a carved pumpkin — *Liam stands next to a carved pumpkin.*

Through these experiences we now have a strong basis to begin talking about the season of Fall. Connections can be made! Leaves fall off the trees in the fall. Leaves become dry and crunchy in the fall. We wear a light coat in the fall. We get to buy pumpkins in the fall and carve them. Fall includes the months of September, October and November. So many things that may not have held meaning for my son now do because of these experiences!