Reading braille

Teaching Braille Reading |
This chapter is intended to discuss the unique learning needs braille readers face as they learn to read. The braille reading teacher will benefit from considering these needs and identifying methods and techniques useful to address them.What makes a good braille reader? That question has been asked by every teacher that has worked with children with blindness. Whatabout the child who has low vision now, but may lose it at anytime? What do I (the teacher) need to look for, when do I start, and how do I proceed? These questions have different answers depending on the student for whom the questions are asked. So, what does the braille teacher do? The following discussion is meant to give the reader a range of ideas and suggestions. Rules of thumb are offeredfor the teacher's wise use. Observation, gut feel, intuitive teacher magic, and other tricks of the trade should be employed minute by minute when the actual act of "teaching" is happening. The child's motivation, family attitude (whether braille is "a wonderful tool to open doors" or "something that tells everyone this child is blind"), teacher's attitude toward braille, physical and/or cognitivedelays or deficits, are just a few of the "other" attributes for consideration. Luckily good teachers recognize that each child is unique. Consistency, encouragement, patience, hope, confidence, optimism, and other teacher and family traits and behaviors often make the difference between success and failure.The following three groups represent the categories of students who will need to learnbraille: 1. The beginning reader who is blind 2. The reader who will use both braille and print 3. The reader who has learned to read using print who now needs to read using brailleThe beginning braille reader, like all beginning readers, must acquire the readiness skills associated with the actual reading process. An important prerequisite that all readers must have to be efficient and read withcomprehension is a rich background of concrete experiences involving many objects, people, places, activities, and cause and effect relationships. In addition, the child must have receptive and expressive vocabulary that corresponds to his experiences. Each individual child must develop auditory skills of identification, closure, sequence, memory for stories, and discrimination. The young readermust be able to concentrate, exert self control, and follow directions. Another important readiness factor is motivation. Once the student has experiences and language sufficient to read, he can begin a more structured reading program. There are many effective teaching programs used to provide reading instruction. Each child will have his or her own unique set of experiences.The teacher will findthat the number and quality of concrete experiences will vary from child to child. One should never assume that basic information is correctly understood until the child can demonstrate that he or she does understand. While both sighted and blind children require language concepts, it is more time consuming to provide the experience required to teach the concepts to the student without vision. Itis important to provide experiences in a natural environment. The child who has been read to, seen braille labels, and experienced braille books is more apt to understand.The children that have already learned to read print have mastered the "reading process" skills, however, they must develop the skills associated with reading using their fingers. All students learning to use braille must acquirethe following: * Tactual Discrimination--The ability to discriminate discrete tactual differences is essential to efficient braille reading. The noticeable shape or arrangement of dots is the most critical variable in braille reading. Do not teach the child by teaching the dot numbers. This may be helpful to the person who reads braille with his eyes, but not for the tactile reader. Also,...