Expanded Core Curriculum
What Does ECC Mean?
The ECC is the Expanded Core Curriculum. It comprises the nine areas that all children with visual impairments need direct instruction in above and beyond their academic curriculum. Children with typical sight pick up a lot of skills, knowledge, and experience through incidental learning. Watching dad do the laundry can be a lesson in independent living skills like how to run the washer and dryer, how to fold clothes, and where to put them away. Going to the ballet might be a lesson in recreation and leisure and could inspire a young boy to sign up for dance lessons. Children with visual impairments, whether ocular or cortical/cerebral based, miss these learning opportunities. All areas of the ECC need to be addressed from birth through grade 12 so blind and visually impaired children and students can fully experience all the joys that life has to offer.
Compensatory Skills
These are the tools visually impaired students need to learn to access their academic curriculum and demonstrate what they have learned. Does your student need to learn braille reading and writing? Maybe their desk is so unorganized they can’t find the paper they need to turn in, or maybe your PreK student is struggling to understand how a circle and ball are related.
Orientation and Mobility
Where am I? Where am I going? How do I get there safely?
Social Interaction
Getting along in a world with a lot of nonverbal communication can be challenging. We all need to learn to take turns in conversations, turn toward a speaker, use appropriate facial expressions, and listen for changes in voices that tell us how someone is feeling.
Independent living
Learning to take care of yourself is a lifelong journey from toddlers getting their shoes from the closet to teenagers learning to cook and young adults beginning to build a home and life.
Recreation and Leisure
We all want to enjoy our free time. Do you want to ski, knit, run a marathon, play dodgeball in PE, or learn to swim? Blind and visually impaired students can learn to do anything as long as they know what their choices are and are able to make appropriate modifications.
Career Education
What do you want to be when you grow up? If you haven’t seen someone doing a job it may be hard to imagine what the options are. What is an astronaut? What does a farmer do? What’s a microbiologist? These can be challenging questions if you don’t understand the night sky, haven’t seen a wheat field, or been able to look through a microscope.
Assistive technology
There are so many fun tools for blind and visually impaired people; everything from slant boards to refreshable braille displays, smart canes, and connected glasses with human support. Let’s find the best tools to help your student learn and teach them to use those tools with confidence.
Sensory Efficiency
Vision isn’t our only sense. It’s important to develop other senses to support learning. “I know I’m near the cafeteria because I can smell the pizza.” “I know it’s not safe to cross the street because I hear a car coming.”
Self-determination
Everyone needs to be their own, best, advocate. Blind and visually impaired students should know about their visual impairment and how to explain it to others. They also need to know how to ask for help when they need it in class and in the community.
Knowledge
What does our logo mean?
In Braille, when a letter of the alphabet isn't touching another letter or contraction, it is "standing alone" and has it's own meaning. The letter K, standing alone, means Knowledge. TeachECC is built on the foundation that we give our children and students the knowledge they need to stand on their own with the confidence to succeed wherever life takes them.