Students who are blind or visually impaired benefit from practicing creating and following tactile patterns. This might be rough, rough, smooth or big, little, little, big, little, little. This is important for the development of cognitive concepts, as well as tactile discrimination.
It’s a pattern activity. There are many variations to this activity, but this version is a popular one with my students. This wasn’t something I came up with on my own, but possibly got the idea from earlier postings from the Paths to Literacy site, such as these two examples:
Recognizing and Extending Patterns with Shapes
Tactile Activities for Pre-Braille Learners
Materials
- clipboard
- cardboard cards
- velcro (dots and strips)
- glue
- small items, such as shapes, buttons, coins, etc. that can be attached to the cards
Procedure
- I started with a clipboard, to which I attached different matching pattern cards.
- The instructor can put one of the tactile cards on the velcro strip attached to the top of the clipboard.
- The student then finds the matching card from two or three choices of cards and attaches it to the bottom velcro strip.
