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Second Stage Reading Scheme

This reading scheme is intended for pupils who have mastered 'Braille for Infants'. It aims to gradually develop the child's knowledge of contractions and wordsigns, while simultaneously developing their phonetic skills.

In order to create a natural flow to the stories, it has been necessary to use a fairly large vocabulary. It will not always be essential that the child becomes word perfect in all the vocabulary used. The essential aim of the scheme is to develop the child's knowledge of the Braille code, their phonetic skills and their enjoyment of reading. the child's phonetic skills can be further developed by creating additional material centred on the sounds used in the stories. e.g.

Children will also need practice in developing their sound blending skills. The practice pages at the beginning of the books are intended to highlight the sound blending skills the child needs to develop for the vocabulary in the story.

It is important that the child's writing skills are developed alongside their reading skills.

The scheme is divided into twelve series. the theme of each series is aimed to be of topical interest to young children.

Each series introduces a group of signs and contractions. There are six short story books in each series. the sixth story does not use any new vocabulary. it is intended to be used to give additional practice before continuing with the next series.

In each story within a series, the same contractions are repeated. they are introduced first in their simple form and then in their varying forms e.g.

The books contain a practice page, a story, a fun page and an illustration.

the fun page is intended to stimulate the child's interest and understanding of the story. It is hoped to provide additional practice in writing.

It is important to encourage the children to write complete sentences, where appropriate, for their answers to questions.

The children might like to 'copy' the hidden word fun pages and then choose their own hidden words. By participating in this activity, a child is gaining strength in use of all fingers in the 'for' cells.