You may find some of these ideas useful for developing an approach that children with learning difficulties will find meaningful, manageable and enjoyable. The focus here is on children whose progress in reading and writing is affected by the presence of additional needs rather than on children who have complex needs and are at the emergent stage of literacy.
Many children with additional needs may have gaps in concepts and vocabulary that limit their ability to benefit from language-centred approaches.
In these circumstances teachers will often default to a skills-based approach that emphasises decoding and repetitive rote learning. The frustrations that repeated rote learning often brings mean that both children and teachers may become demotivated. Eventually teachers may decide to reduce instruction in literacy in favour of other activities. The difficulty with this is that braille users with additional needs actually require increased exposure to literacy activities compared to other children in order to progress.
Teaching literacy through braille to learners who have additional need involves the application of much of the same knowledge, understanding and skills required to teach any child who uses braille. The main differences will lie in the teaching style the teacher adopts and the learning strategies the teacher employs. The key to success with many children who have additional needs is to develop a functional and personalised approach to braille reading and writing.
A functional approach seeks to make reading and writing meaningful to the child, building on the child's own vocabulary, interests and experiences. It seeks to link literacy to curriculum areas such as independence and vocational skills.
An excellent resource for this area is Diane Wormsley's book 'Braille Literacy - a functional Approach' AFB (2004). Wormsley identifies a 12 step strategy for developing functional literacy which includes:
The Paths to Literacy website offers useful guidelines for building fluency and comprehension in slow readers and for improving their writing skills. It also includes some ideas from working teachers for helping struggling readers and for improving their writing skills (just put the relevant terms eg 'Fluency' into the search box).
If you would like to develop a more in-depth understanding of supporting braille users with additional needs and other aspects of teaching literacy through braille, you may wish to consider applying for a place on the VIEW course; 'Effective Teaching of Literacy through Braille'.