Visiting Teacher

Marcus has a visiting teacher, Jackie, who comes
to see him at school every week. Jackie understands low vision and she knows about a lot of technology which can help Marcus keep up with his schoolwork.

Jackie is teaching Marcus to use his new laptop computer. As his vision gets worse he needs to know which keys to hit without using the mouse or looking at the menus on the screen.

Some of Marcus' school books get emailed to him so that he can make the writing as big as he needs on the screen.

Next term, Jackie will start teaching Marcus to use a computer program which reads the screen out loud to him. Then he will listen to his computer using headphones, while the other kids are reading silently.

At first Marcus felt a bit silly having lots of different equipment to the other kids in the class, but he is getting used to it. They always want to have a go on his laptop, but they are not allowed. Na-na!

Jackie told Marcus about the Support Skills Program at Vision Australia (www.visionaustralia.org.au). He goes there twice a term to do things like art, music, daily living skills, communication skills and physical education.