1. Was it hard for you to learn Braille?
2. Do you teach a lot of people?
3. Do you think it’s easy for the blind to learn Braille?
4. Are there a lot of different ages of people you teach or are they mainly from one age group?
5. How long have you been teaching the blind?
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3 comments:
1. It was very difficult for me to learn Braille. During the course, we had to type 30 sentences each week without errors. A Perkins Brailler that you use to type Braille on is nothing like a computer keyboard where you can back up and erase if you make a mistake. It sort of reminds me of the old type writers that people had used in the past. It was very frustrating at the time. Although now that I am using it with students, I find it much easier.
2. Right now I work with approximately 30 students of various age groups. Some of the students I see on a weekly basis, other students I may only see once or twice a month. It depends on how much instruction they need.
3. Braille is a very difficult “code” to learn. It is harder to learn Braille than it is to learn to read print. Braille has its own unique code that is completely different than print. The words and letters are composed of a series of dots or bumps. It is easier for a person who may have a visual impairment to read Braille, than a sighted person such as myself. We rely too much on our vision, that our brain does not allow us to use our sense of touch to learn as a person with a visual impairment would. I read Braille by “looking” at the way the dots are formed on the page. A person who is blind would read Braille by the way the dots “feel” on the page.
4. I work with students that may be in the Infant Program (birth to age 3), students who may attend a preschool or who attend an Elementary, Middle or High School. I have the opportunity to work with a wide variety of age groups.
5. I have been working in the Infant Program (birth to age 3) for 8 years now. So I have had prior experience working with children with visual impairments in that age range. Just recently, I started working with the older children upon receiving my certification of Teacher of the Visually Impaired.
I have another question referring to what you said about you teaching children from birth. How do you teach a child from birth braille? Do you teach it braille, or do you work on other things?
Amanda R.
When I am working with a young child and I know that they may need or will need Braille instruction as they grow, there are a few things that I do with them to help prepare them. I primarily work with the infant or toddler on using their hands to explore a wide variety of objects and textures. I like to have them play in different pastas, rice, beans- as the child gets older you can hide small objects within the beans to encourage them to search with their hands to find it. I like to work with play-doh a lot- rolling it, pressing in on it with their fingers…etc. We call all these activities that lead up to Braille instruction- Pre-Braille activities. You are not actually working on the Braille code, but the essential skill that is needed to read Braille, is the tactual awareness of what is under your fingers. So any activity that you can incorporate a different texture into, objects of different shapes, sizes- is a great start for these youngsters. Also at this young age- you can start the use of pegs and pegboards, which is one of the skills we teach to learn the Braille code.
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