Objectives

Main Objective: Students will learn practical information about visual impairment.

Objectives Leading to the Main Objective

1. Students will learn about the uses of a seeing eye cane.
2. Students will learn positive aspects about how people function in spite of handicaps.
3. Students will learn about helping others.

Other Objectives

1. Children will read a short but challenging book.
2. Children will relate speaking vocabulary to reading vocabulary.
3. Children will improve reading vocabulary.

The book, A Lucky Pair, by Frances Dinkins Strong
This lesson plan
A seeing eye cane or a picture of one

Procedure for the Main Objective

Show children a seeing eye cane or a picture of one. Ask what it is. Some children have said it looks like a horse whip. There are some similarities in appearance. Talk about the differences in appearance. Tell children that the cane is moved from left to right as the person walks in order to keep from bumping into objects. It can help the person to know if stairs are going up or down. Ask children what else can be learned with a seeing eye cane. (avoiding puddles, walking on the sidewalk instead of the grass, etc.)

Read the story to the children. Then ask questions. You might want to present half of the book on one day and the other half on the next day. The story takes about 20 minutes to read aloud to them.

Procedure for Other Objectives

1. Tell children you will help them learn to read a short but challenging book.
2. Without showing the list to the children, make a list of words in each chapter which children might not know.
3. Talk about the challenging words in each chapter. Talk about using many words in our speaking vocabulary which aren't in our reading vocabulary.
4. Point out to the children that they can approach the words with more confidence knowing that these are in their speaking vocabularies.
5. After discussing the words, have them read the book. For some children, you might discuss and read one chapter at a time. Later have them read the 28 page book.