Encouraging Social Interaction in the Classroom
Creating opportunities for students to socially interact is important in developing strong social skills. Most children learn develop appropriate social skills by observing how others act in different environments, situations and with different types of people.
You may already create opportunities for the students in your class to develop these skills through daily small-group activities. However, your braille-reading student may still have difficulty interacting with his or her classmate as subtle social language cues will not be picked up visually. This is why it will be important for you to create opportunities for your braille-reading student to interact with others within the class.
The following are some simple ways that you can assist your braille-reading in developing social interaction skills.
- Be cognizant of the seating placement of your braille-reading student. Placing him or her away from other students may be an initially logical choice due to the amount of materials that he or she may use. However, this placement may be more socially isolating with less opportunities for social interactions to occur naturally.
- Encourage your braille-reading student to ask questions and start conversations with their classmates. Conversation starting is a skill that needs to be learned. Ask your student’s TVI to help you develop ways that you can teach conversation skills.
- Distribute specific instructions to each student when working in small groups.
- Verbalize, describe and comment on what other students are doing in the class. This will give your braille-reading student information about how they are to act in specific situations. Tell your braille-reading student when he or she is behaving inappropriately. They may not know they their behaviours are out of place. Give him or her examples of how to act in different situations.