Developmental Stages of Reading Processes in Children who are Blind and Sighted

Abstract

This article compares the development of print and braille reading in children who are blind and sighted in relation to Chall's stage model of reading development. Chall's model includes a prereading period, in which concepts are developed; middle stages, in which skills that are necessary for decoding text are developed; and later stages, which distinguish skilled readers on the basis of their highly developed schemata and cognitive skills that are necessary for effective comprehension and integration. The relevance of a developmental theory for directing training methods that facilitate braille literacy instruction is discussed.

Children Who Are Deaf/Hard of Hearing with Disabilities: Paths to Language and Literacy

“…Steinman, LeJeune, and Kimbrough [154] presented Chall's [155] reader-based, or top-down, developmental approach to print and braille literacy. Braille reading is more cognitively demanding than print reading because braille is cognitively processed one cell at a time; whereas multiple print characters can be processed at the same time [154]. Thus, it takes a significant number of years to completely master the braille literacy code, and longer for the Nemeth code for mathematics.…”

Reading Comprehension for Braille Readers

“…Reading one character at a time may increase the cognitive load of students who read braille (Steinman, LeJeune, & Kimbrough, 2006). To read a word made up of several cells, braille readers need to identify individual characters consecutively, activating individual phonemic units along the way.…”

The association between tactile, motor and cognitive capacities and braille reading performance: a scoping review of primary evidence to advance research on braille and aging

“…Many of these physiological and cognitive capacities are known to decline as part of the typical aging process [3]. While there is a broad scope of literature centered on braille literacy and childhood [2,[4][5][6], there is insufficient evidence on the extent to which age-related declines in these capacities will effect braille reading outcomes. In recent decades, a variety of instruments have been developed to measure tactile, motor and cognitive capacities in blind individuals and to explore the relationship between these measures and braille reading outcomes (for example, see [7][8][9][10]).…”