Visual Aids - Do Students Need Them?
Do you provide your students with visual aids during independent writing work?
I recently asked this question to a variety of other occupational therapists, and I got mixed reviews. Some said yes, some said never, and some therapists said it actually depends on the classroom environment (ex. what signs are already available on the walls).
Personally, I always provide my students with tabletop visual aids during writing time, and here’s why:
1. Consistency
Consistency is key for our young learners. That’s why, as occupational therapists, we emphasize the importance of using consistent verbal prompts, consistent strokes, and repetitive practice when learning new skills. Unfortunately, we lose a lot of control over this once our students leave the therapy room and head back to the classroom. Providing students with a visual aid that represents letter formation that we have directly taught them in their therapy session allows us to have more control over the carryover of skills between therapy room & classroom.
2. Overload
Have you ever noticed that students are often able to produce beautiful written work in the therapy room, and then it seems to go out the window when they get back to the classroom? Yeah, we’ve all been there. If we do a little task analysis (did I just give my OT friends a little pit in your stomach? Ugh… task analysis…) you quickly realize that the physical task of writing in the therapy room is entirely different from the physical task of writing in the classroom. In the therapy room, our students are writing with a focus on the physical components. We aren’t worried about spelling, content, sentence starters, illustrations, dialogue, etc. Once they get into the classroom - the academic expectations become paramount. Now, our students are thinking about spelling, grammar, punctuation, dialogue, story timelines, illustrations, time management, screening out classroom distractions …
Need I go on? Is it any wonder that they forget to put word spaces? Or whether a letter is tall vs. small?
Think of it this way, visual aids help us to reduce the amount of brain power it takes our students to remember their handwriting rules. Using less brain power to focus on how they are writing means that they have more brain power to focus on what they are writing.
3. Proximity
Often times, I hear the argument that students don’t need a tabletop visual aid because they have access to visual aids in the classroom. Fair enough. The walls are often covered in guides for spelling, letter formation, classroom rules, sight words, schedules, etc…. the information is up there for them to use.
BUT - let’s not forget that occupational therapy students quite often have challenges with functional skills, such as: screening out visual stimuli, executive function, visual perception, near & far point copying, etc. If a student is struggling with any of the above skills areas - using a general information chart on the wall is probably not going to be enough for them. The closer (and simpler) the visual aid - the better. Putting a clean & concrete visual aid on a student’s desk helps to bridge the gap for students who have underlying challenges with attention, executive function, visual perception, and more.
Types of Visual Aids
With all of that said, how do we choose which desktop visual aids are right for our students?
Some students need visual aids that contain all of the letters in the alphabet, like the one pictured below. Visual aids like this help students to remember proper letter formation & sizing for all letters in the alphabet, and can be helpful for beginning writers in Kindergarten, 1st, & 2nd grade.
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Some students need a more focused visual aid. I often place laminated cards on students desks that contain “trouble letters” (letters that are tricky for this particular student). Some common “trouble letters” may include: b vs. d, p vs. q, diving letters, numbers 1-10, etc.
You can grab a copy of my desktop strips in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Comment below to let me know your thoughts on visual aids in the classroom!