Emergent literacy of visually impaired children: the influence of home And school environment

Abstract

The term “emergent literacy’ was introduced by Marie Clay to describe the behaviors in young children when they use books and get involved in writing activities, even though the children cannot actually read and write in the conventional sense (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). Many researchers have conducted research about the emergent literacy among normal sighted children. However there is a dearth of literacy research on visually impaired children especially in Malaysia. Therefore, the main focus of this study was to look at the literacy practices in the home and school and whether practices of early socialization at home prepares students for school based literacies by looking at the following research questions: (1) What are the literacy events that occur in the process of reading and writing among the visually impaired children at home, before formal schooling? (2) What are the literacy events that occur in the process of reading and writing among the visually impaired children in school? (3) To what extent is there a match or mismatch in the literacy development of visually impaired children at home and in school? This research involves case studies of three visually impaired children as they make the transition from home to school. The main sources of data were observations at home and in school, semi-structured interviews with the parents and teachers of the