[blindkid] Question: Braille Displays or Paper Braille for Increased Reading Speed?

Darcirae Hooks draehooks at yahoo.com
Wed Jul 17 17:53:04 UTC 2013 

I was just thinking, that Caiden still has to pass National and state exams to demonstrate learning. Many of those tests have graphs and diagrams. So although he may not feel they benefit his learning bc he can pick the details out of text, he still has to master the same skills his peers are measured by. 
So it may not be beneficial to him but the national standards don't adapt for VI kids.

Darci

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 17, 2013, at 12:57, Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org> wrote:

> I just asked my 10-year-old daughter-- she says tactile diagrams aren't  very useful to her, but I have seen some of the diagrams they produce for her at school. They are crude, sloppy things most of the time. I have made some better diagrams for her when producing a sort of "twin vision" charts for presentations of hers-- things she will show to the class, so she needs to be able to identify what the rest of the kids will observe visually. She says mine are a bit better than from school, but the reason is I spend a LOT of time making them-- too much time to be reasonable for casual graphics from day-to-day.
> 
> Again, I don't have a great solution to offer. Kendra does underscore that she wants the same charts and graphics available as the rest of the kids have though, and I agree. So again, a notetaker textbook solution would need some sort of embossed "tactile addendum" to accomplish that on any level.
> 
> 
> 
> On Jul 16, 2013, at 11:43 PM, Arielle Silverman wrote:
> 
>> Agreed, if page numbers are missing and the instruction is to read
>> specific pages or paragraphs that are numbered, this is a problem.
>> although it can also be a problem with hard-copy Braille books if the
>> page numbers given are print page numbers and such numbers aren't
>> contained in the Braille book.
>> I also agree about open-book quizzes, but maintain that for homework
>> assignments and other "practice" work prior to a test, reading the
>> whole chapter is, in my experience, a more effective learning method
>> than merely skimming. Full reading takes a little more time on the
>> front end, but requires less studying and re-reading later. I advise
>> sighted students against skimming and highlighting in favor of fully
>> reading all the content presented to them. In fact, I credit my
>> inability to skim as a contributing factor to my academic success.
>> Regarding tactile diagrams, this may be a controversial statement, but
>> I personally have found almost all tactile diagrams to be either
>> superfluous or useless, and would have preferred they be either
>> omitted entirely or verbally described. It is very difficult to get
>> the required degree of detail into a tactile diagram that you can get
>> into a print one. Again this is just my opinion, and I am genuinely
>> interested to know if other blind people find tactile diagrams to be
>> worth the trouble of making them. It could also be different for folks
>> who have had useful sight at one point in their lives (I never did). I
>> also think there are a few times when tactile diagrams are beneficial,
>> for example when learning basic algebraic concepts such as slopes and
>> parabolas. But for many subjects spatial knowledge just isn't very
>> important for understanding the higher-order concepts. As a biology
>> major, I found that knowing what a cell looks like was important for
>> only a tiny fraction of the curriculum, and it was much more critical
>> for me to understand the processes involved in photosynthesis, for
>> example. Diagrams are highly valued by sighted learners because they
>> help sighted learners organize information, but I'm not convinced they
>> hold the same benefits for blind learners (particularly
>> congenitally-blind ones, who from the start are used to organizing
>> information nonvisually). Thoughts?
>> Arielle
>> 
>> On 7/16/13, Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org> wrote:
>>> I maintain that Kendra is faster at reading books on her braillenote than
>>> paper (though I would like to time this soon if she will cooperate just to
>>> confirm this with actual data), but it should be said that the Braillenote
>>> has proven somewhat disastrous with certain textbooks which have been
>>> supplied electronically and without page numbers of any kind.
>>> 
>>> When an assignment comes home that says to "read pages 87-93" and there are
>>> no page numbers chapter references, or content hints, the "find command" is
>>> entirely useless.
>>> 
>>> Then there are the issues about having no tactile diagrams or illustrations
>>> on a note taker. Maybe with a full page Braille display one day that won't
>>> be an issue, but a simple text dump of a print textbook is insufficient to
>>> produce Braille diagrams, so much of the problem is probably as much related
>>> to the porting process from print to Braille as it is to any display
>>> limitations.
>>> 
>>> We could probably quickly produce another lengthy thread about Braille text
>>> books. In our experience, certainly paper Braille texts work best, though
>>> ideally we would have paper Braille and electronic.
>>> 
>>> Our biggest Braille text issues last year were probably the no-page-number
>>> issue for e-Braille-only books, and comments in paper Braille texts like
>>> "diagram omitted". Diagram of what? (And why could such diagrams not be
>>> produced as tactile pieces, if not well described in Braille?)
>>> 
>>> The problem of open-book quizzes was also a frustrating one for us. It seems
>>> to us that reading a lengthy Braille passage (perhaps a whole chapter) for
>>> answers is somewhat different than glancing visually for a headline to zero
>>> in on the right section of a textbook so you can read just the right
>>> paragraphs. It is doable, but surely a different (and slower) testing
>>> process.
>>> 
>>> Then there is the web-based text solution that has become a new trend here--
>>> the county supplies some texts on-line only and the site is entirely
>>> inaccessible without some sighted assistance. JAWS cannot navigate these
>>> books, and the text, though self-reading (it reads aloud) can't be started
>>> reasonably by a blind user, and stops at random locations (and needs another
>>> mouse click to restart, generally mid-paragraph, in a location that, so far,
>>> is generally impossible to find with a screen reader).
>>> 
>>> I'm not clear why the county would license tens of thousands of electronic
>>> copies of various textbooks from a vendor supplying inaccessible products. I
>>> doubt the texts are even legal to sell in the configuration supplied.
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> 
>>> On Jul 16, 2013, at 8:34 PM, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Sally,
>>>> 
>>>> It surprises me that your son couldn't efficiently navigate back to
>>>> specific parts of the text on the BrailleNote. Although there is the
>>>> disadvantage of not being able to locate section headings, the
>>>> BrailleNote does have the find command, which allows one to search for
>>>> a specific word or phrase anywhere in the text. Did he try using the
>>>> Find command (space + F)? It may also be possible to replace section
>>>> headings with double paragraph breaks.
>>>> I agree with you, though, that hard-copy Braille allows us to see how
>>>> documents are formatted.
>>>> 
>>>> Arielle
>>>> 
>>>> On 7/16/13, Sarah Thomas <seacknit at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Although I think a braille display could be a faster way to absorb
>>>>> braille
>>>>> if one is an efficient user, I worry about the thought that the display
>>>>> could be thought of as a replacement for paper braille.  One important
>>>>> difference in my mind, is learning how a page is formatted.  Also,
>>>>> formatting is a means of conveying information.
>>>>> 
>>>>> When the school district my son attended learned that print could be
>>>>> converted to braille with a .doc file on the braillenote, they tried to
>>>>> give
>>>>> him 40 (print) page reading assignments with questions at the end that
>>>>> referred to specific paragraphs in the text.  It was not possible for him
>>>>> to
>>>>> navigate the assignment on the braillenote with efficiency.  As
>>>>> unfortunate
>>>>> as it is, there is not one solution to the braille reading issue.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sally Thomas
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Jul 17, 2013, at 3:29 AM, Allison Hilliker <AllisonH at benetech.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I had a question that came to my mind due in part to the fascinating
>>>>>> Braille discussion we've had on this list lately. Do you know if
>>>>>> Braille
>>>>>> format has any impact on Braille reading speeds and fluency? In other
>>>>>> words, is one more likely to increase their reading speed by using
>>>>>> hardcopy Braille as opposed to a Braille display? Or does Braille
>>>>>> reading
>>>>>> speed simply increase with practice regardless of how one gets their
>>>>>> Braille? Are your kids/students increasing reading speeds through their
>>>>>> displays or do they still use hardcopy a lot when learning?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I ask because an NFB member who is also a Braille instructor once told
>>>>>> me
>>>>>> that It is harder to increase reading speed using a Braille display
>>>>>> than
>>>>>> it is using paper Braille. Does anyone know if this is true?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Allison
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
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>>>>> 
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