3 CVI-friendly Winter Literacy Activities

Seasons are my favorite themes to teach new vocabulary. This is because seasons last much longer than holidays, thus giving students plenty of time to learn new vocabulary and then practice applying the vocabulary to a variety of activities. With winter right around the corner, I am sharing 3+ CVI-friendly winter literacy activities to use in your classroom, therapy room, or home.

CVI-Friendly Winter Literacy Activities #1: Adapted Books

Adapted Books are an excellent way to introduce reading activities to students with cortical visual impairment. Some students may be identifying or scanning for images. Other students might be working on reading vocabulary words. While other children are working on reading simple sentences. Teaching or reviewing common winter vocabulary can help students generalize the information to these items when they see or interact with them throughout their day. 

I have created two types of adapted books for students with CVI. The first set of adapted books utilizes clipart images, while the second set utilizes photographs. Depending on which phase your child/student is at, each of these sets can be beneficial for introducing reading activities, as well as reinforcing current reading skills. Both adapted book sets include a solid black background, with high contrast brightly colored images. 

Click here to check out the Winter Adapted Books with Photographs.

Click here to check out the Winter Adapted Books with Clipart Images.

Each adapted book set comes with interactive pieces for level 5, as well as vocabulary cards. The interactive pieces or the vocabulary cards make an excellent addition to a sensory bin to help make the reading activity even more engaging and fun!

Activity #2: Beginning Letters

For students who are ready to work on phonics activities, beginning letters are a great place to start! Beginning letter sounds help students understand that letters make sounds and that words are made up of different letters and sounds. 

I created activities to help with beginning letter lessons in your classroom. These adapted books and task cards make the perfect addition to a reading center or small group lesson!

The adapted books are perfect for students being introduced to beginning letters, as well as those benefitting from larger images. Bubbled font and enlarged font interactive pieces are included in this resource. Click here to check out the Beginning Letter Adapted Books. 

The task cards are perfect for students practicing beginning letters with help or independently. They make a fun sensory bin activity! Bubbled font and enlarged font interactive pieces are also included in this resource. Click here to check out the Beginning Letter Task Cards. 

Some of my favorite CVI-friendly materials to make beginning letters even more fun are:

Transparent Letters: These are perfect for work on a light table/tablet!

Tactile Liquid Letters: These also work great on a light table, but have a bonus sensory component!

Winter Literacy Activity #3: Vocabulary

Seasons are the perfect time to introduce new vocabulary to students. Each season, children interact with new items and participate in new activities. Teaching seasonal words can help students become more familiar with these activities and items. 

I created this Winter Vocabulary Set with photographs as a way to help students become familiar with items they may see in their environment, in seasonal books, classroom activities, and more! Click here to check out the Winter Vocabulary Set.

Looking for other winter activities? Check out the following blog posts:

4 Easy and Engaging Winter Activities for Kids with CVI 

Five Winter Craft Ideas for Students with Cortical Visual Impairment

CVI and Arctic Animals (and a freebie!)

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