Bringing Literacy to Life with Building on Patterns: Kindergarten

Building on Patterns: Kindergarten 2nd Edition is a literacy curriculum product that includes a teacher kit, student kit, braille books, worksheets, and learning tools. The entire Building on Patterns series focuses on areas of learning like vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, phonics, and phonemic awareness for students who are blind or low vision. These topics are designed to increase a student’s skills in language development, sound discrimination, tactual discrimination, and hands-on concept development.  

With Building on Patterns: Kindergarten, the focal point is specifically on following kindergarten curriculum and learning objectives with accessible learning tools. Each unit in the Building on Patterns: Kindergarten kit is built around a children’s book and pairing lesson, which follows along seamlessly with learning targets. For example, the “All About Me” unit is centered on the book Ruby in Her Own Time, which follows a duckling who develops at a different pace than her siblings. We All Go Traveling By teaches students about transportation and orientation, alongside shorter stories and poems such as “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”  

While the lessons in each unit do highlight a new area of learning for students, the benefits from continued braille reading help to ensure student braille literacy is at the top of the priority list. With fun and engaging stories, students are able to learn with the same classic texts, songs, and stories that their sighted peers also know and love. Centering lessons around children’s books ensures that the concepts are being presented in an entertaining and age-appropriate way. Building on Patterns: Kindergarten comes with multiple copies of each book. The teacher copy contains bright illustrations, and the student copy is a simplified braille book with the text only.  

What makes this second edition exciting is the drive to connect accessible learning directly to broad learning standards. This new edition of Building on Patterns: Kindergarten is more comprehensive in both the variety of skills covered, and in how it aligns with grade level literacy targets. “It really raises expectations for students to align with current standards,” said APH Product Manager, Sara Lee. A student’s ability to collaborate well with their sighted peers throughout their school experience can hinge on their ability to keep up with learning objectives across the board.  

Equipping teachers and students with curriculum that proves students who are blind and low vision can maintain the same speed and trajectory of learning as their sighted peers, enforces the idea that classroom collaboration between students is very attainable. Building on Patterns: Kindergarten helps to ensure that in the foundational years of building braille literacy, and reading literacy in general, students who are blind or low vision are not left behind. This kit gives them a strong platform to build from as they move forward in their education.  

With a release expected later this year, consider Building on Patterns: Kindergarten for your upcoming school year curriculum. Let these carefully crafted lessons, and timeless stories, help bring learning to life for your students!