The Beasley Family

Archive for February, 2008

Littleton Independent Saturday, February 16, 2008
Visually impaired students see no limits
Holly Cook, Staff Writer

Kyle Beasley started preschool eight days ago with a new pair of red sunglasses and a miniature cane to help him find his way around.

Kyle, a 3-year-old at Centennial Academy Elementary School in Littleton, has a low-vision problem and will continue to lose his vision as he gets older. But that doesn’t stop him from doing anything.

During play time, he puts plastic eggs into the oven, he pulls oversized cowboy boots on and off his feet and he explores his surroundings like every other preschooler in the room. But during his one-on-one time with Nancy Cozart, a teacher of students with visual impairment, Kyle begins to learn the Braille alphabet.

“This is the letter of the day, Kyle,” Cozart says. “It’s a ‘Y.’” Cozart sits cross-legged on the floor and shows Kyle how to form a Braille “Y” using giant, laminated dots on a Velcro board. Kyle counts the dots and places them in the correct order with Cozart’s help.

“We learned a Y,” Kyle said jumping up from his seat. “K-Y-L-E,” he spells out loud for Cozart.

Down the hall in Tina Oteka’s third-grade class, Juliana Trunfio studies math using a closed-circuit TV and a Braille math book. Cozart sits close by with a small white board so Juliana can see what Oteka writes on the board.

Occasionally, Juliana leans over her Braille writer to ask a classmate to read her a definition from the text book. As she does, Juliana hammers out the words on her writer. Back and forth Juliana travels from her desk to the closed-circuit TV keeping up with Oteka’s math lesson. Juliana became legally blind when she was 5 and has been in the care of the vision impairment team in Littleton Public Schools ever since.

“We blanketed Juliana from the very start,” Cozart said. Cozart recalls helping Juliana read Braille as a kindergartner. “I would sit directly behind her holding her elbows so she would use her fingers correctly,” Cozart said. “She rejected me at first because she wanted to be like everyone else,” she said. But as a third-grader, like Kyle, Juliana’s limited vision does not limit her. Cozart now plays a smaller role in Juliana’s academic life.

“She’s pretty independent with literary braille now,” Cozart said. “We’re really working on her math and science.” Juliana took third place at the National Braille Challenge last year.

There is a small team that makes up the Visual Impairment department in Littleton Public Schools. Only four women serve about 35 impaired students with about 10 of those as primary vision learners.

Cozart came to the district in 1990 after teaching in Wisconsin. She spends the majority of her day traveling back and forth between schools in Littleton and Englewood aiding Kyle, Juliana and Tyler Tunstead, a fifth-grader at Clayton Elementary, in class and during one-on-one sessions.

Visual Impairment team member Sharon Benn is the Braille transcriber for visually impaired students in the district. She takes all reading materials and worksheets and transcribes them into Braille for the students.

“These kids have all the same materials the other kids have,” Benn said. When Benn came on as part of the team she knew nothing about Braille or how to read it. Now, she is certified in both Literary and Nemeth Braille Code. Nemeth code is used for math and science.

“It’s rare to find a person in a school district who has both certifications,” Cozart said.

Sitting next to Benn in their small office at Centennial Academy is Tracey Jones. Jones is a paraprofessional who helps blind students with technology in their classrooms. ZoomText is a piece of software that magnifies print on a computer screen so students can engage in keyboarding. The software also comes with auditory help so students can hear the letters they are typing.

Jones also is proficient with another piece of software called BrailleNote. BrailleNote uses technology so that blind students can type papers in Braille but print them in the English alphabet so teachers can grade the work.

At Heritage High School, another member of the team sits in chemistry class with ninth-grader Carissa Ortega. On the same day, teacher Nancy Knight travels to Littleton Academy to give fifth-grader Ashley Graumann her new monocular. Ashley, who sits in the back of the classroom with a closed-circuit TV, is overjoyed with her new tool.

“I’ve always had to be in the front or the back of my class with my CCTV,” she said. “Now I can sit anywhere I want.” The monocular is essentially half a pair of binoculars that allows Graumann to view the chalkboard at a closer distance.

“I’m so excited,” Ashley said about her monocular. “Usually by the time I’d get my CCTV adjusted my teacher is done talking.”

Back at Heritage High School, Knight sits next to Carissa Ortega in chemistry class surrounded by a group of loud, unattentive high school freshmen.

Carissa quitely works on her homework with a pair of maroon, rhinestone glasses on her nose. The lenses are thick, helping to magnify her work. On top of her papers rests a second magnifying tool.

“Chemistry is only hard because there is so much information on the board,” Carissa said.

Carissa, like Kyle, has progressively lost her vision since the age of 4. She is losing her peripheral vision and sees black, blind spots at the center of most everything she looks at. But Carissa runs cross country, plays the violin, does track and field, and was recently cast in Heritage’s stage version of “Anything Goes.”

Amid all of that, Carissa’s life goal is simple. “I want to be successful,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. After class, Carissa slips her “XOXO” handbag over her wrist, slings her backpack onto her shoulders and makes her way through the school and down the stairs for homework using ZoomText and a miniature closed-circuit TV.