[BlindMath] Relating math and braille for sighted children

[Susan Jolly]

If you are a braille  user helping a sighted child with math, you might remember  that there are many interesting math subjects that can be illustrated  with braille. Using permutations and combinations, one can determine how many braille cells there are with or without counting the one with no dots and how many braille cells with a given number of dots.

There are also various ways to relate braille cells to binary numbers.

My father invented a way of representing braille  that he called Numbrl in which each column of three dots was numbered 1 , 2, 4  rather than numbering the dots  in the standard  1-6 way.  This means that any dot pattern can be represented by a atwo digit “double octal “numeral such as 52 for dots 1,3,5.

The following is a link to a description of Numbrl  and includes a photo of a Perkins brailler where  the keys have been labeled with the  Numbrl 
system to show the mirror image of the left and right hand keys  as  they are used. My father was able to teach sighted children to type braille  this way.

https://www.dotlessbraille.org/basicNUMBRL.htm

Best wishes, Susan Jolly