[blparent] FW: Fewer than 10 Percent of Blind Americans ReadBraille

[Veronica Smith]

Good girl! My daughter who is sight dependent will also know Braille even
though she doesn't need it. V

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of trishs
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 3:06 AM
To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blparent] FW: Fewer than 10 Percent of Blind Americans
ReadBraille

When my girls go out into the world, they will have the skill of knowing
braille.  It will open job opportunities for them in a great way!

> ----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jo Elizabeth Pinto" <jopinto at pcdesk.net
>To: "NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org Date sent: 
>Tue, 7 Apr 2009 14:07:15 -0600
>Subject: Re: [blparent] FW: Fewer than 10 Percent of Blind
Americans ReadBraille

>I think a big part of the problem is that many of the vision
teachers coming
>out of college these days aren't well educated in braille.  I see
this
>circumstance often as a proofreader, and a person can't teach
what he or she
>doesn't know well.

>Jo Elizabeth

>"Don't throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new
one holds
>water."--Swedish proverb
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Eric Calhoun" <eric at pmpmail.com
>To: <blparent at nfbnet.org
>Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 4:20 AM
>Subject: [blparent] FW: Fewer than 10 Percent of Blind Americans
Read
>Braille


>> How can you as parents change this stat?  What are your thoughts
about
>> this
>> article?

>> Eric


>> Original Message:
>> From: "bkmabma at yahoo.com" <bkmabma at yahoo.com
>> To: Eric Calhoun <eric at pmpmail.com
>> Subject: Fewer than 10 Percent of Blind Americans Read Braille
>> Date:
>> Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:32:00 -0400

>> Fewer Than 10 Percent Of Blind Americans Read Braille By THE 
>> ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 26, 2009

>> BALTIMORE (AP) -- Jordan Gilmer has a degenerative condition
that
>> eventually will leave him completely blind.  But as a child, his
teachers
>> did not
>> emphasize Braille, the system of reading in which a series of
raised dots
>> signify letters of the alphabet.

>> Instead, they insisted he use what little vision he had to read
print.  By
>> the third grade, he was falling behind in his schoolwork.

>> ''They gave him Braille instruction, but they didn't tell us how
to get
>> Braille books, and they didn't want him using it during the
day,'' said
>> Jordan's mother, Carrie Gilmer of Minneapolis.  Teachers said
Braille would
>> be ''a thing he uses way off in the far distant future, and
don't worry
>> about it.''

>> That experience is common: Fewer than 10 percent of the 1.3
million
>> legally blind people in the United States read Braille, and just
10
>> percent of
>> blind children are learning it, according to a report to be
released
>> Thursday
>> by the National Federation of the Blind.

>> By comparison, at the height of its use in the 1950s, more than
half the
>> nation's blind children were learning Braille.  Today Braille is
considered
>> by many to be too difficult, too outdated, a last resort.

>> Instead, teachers ask students to rely on audio texts,
voice-recognition
>> software or other technology.  And teachers who know Braille
often must
>> shuttle between schools, resulting in haphazard instruction, the
report
>> says.

>> "You can find good teachers of the blind in America, but you
can't find
>> good programs,'' said Marc Maurer, the group's president.  
"There is not a
>> commitment to this population that is at all significant almost 
>> anywhere."

>> Using technology as a substitute for Braille leaves blind people 
>> illiterate, the federation said, citing studies that show blind 
>> people who
know
>> Braille
>> are more likely to earn advanced degrees, find good jobs and
live
>> independently.

>> "It's really sad that so many kids are being shortchanged," said
Debby
>> Brackett of Stuart, Fla., who pressured schools to provide
capable Braille
>> teachers for her 12-year-old daughter, Winona.

>> One study found that 44 percent of participants who grew up
reading
>> Braille were unemployed, compared with 77 percent for those who
relied on
>> print.
>> Overall, blind adults face 70 percent unemployment.

>> The federation's report pulled together existing research on
Braille
>> literacy, and its authors acknowledge that not enough research
has been
>> done.  The 10 percent figure comes from federal statistics
gathered by the
>> American Printing House for the Blind, a company that develops
products
>> for the visually impaired.

>> The federation also did some original research, including a
survey of 500
>> people that found the ability to read Braille correlated with
higher
>> levels of education, a higher likelihood of employment and
higher income.

>> The report coincides with the 200th birthday of Louis Braille, 
the
>> Frenchman who invented the Braille code as a teenager.  
Resistance to his
>> system was
>> immediate; at one point, the director of Braille's school burned 
the
>> books
>> he and his classmates had transcribed.  The school did not want 
its blind
>> students becoming too independent; it made money by selling 
crafts they
>> produced.

>> The system caught on, but began declining in the 1960s along 
with the
>> widespread integration of blind children into public schools.  
It has
>> continued with the advent of technology that some believe makes 
Braille
>> obsolete.

>> "Back in about 1970 or so, I was heading to college, and 
somebody said
>> to me, 'Now that you've got the tape recorder, everything will 
be all
>> right.
>> In the early 1980s, somebody else said, 'Now that you've got a 
talking
>> computer, everything will be all right,' " said Marc Maurer, 
president of
>> the federation.

>> "They were both wrong.  And the current technology isn't going 
to make
>> everything all right unless I know how to put my hands on a page 
that has
>> words on it and read them."

>> Audio books are no substitute, said Carlton Walker, an attorney 
and the
>> mother of a legally blind girl from McConnellsburg, Pa.  Walker 
once met a
>> blind teenager who had only listened to audio books; the teen 
was shocked
>> to discover that "Once upon a time'' was four separate words.

>> Walker also had to lobby teachers to provide Braille for her 
8-year-old
>> daughter, Anna, instead of just large-print books.

>> "At 3 years old, Anna could compete with very large letters.  
When you
>> getolder, you can't compete," Walker said.  She once asked a 
teacher,
>> "What are you going to do when she's reading Dickens?' She said, 
'Well,
>> we'll
>> just go to audio then.'

>> ''If that were good enough for everybody, why do we spend 
millions of
>> dollars teaching people to read?''

>> Gilmer, now an 18-year-old aspiring lawyer, worked on his 
Braille in a
>> summer program when he was in middle school and can now read 125 
words a
>> minute, up from his previously rate, an excruciatingly slow 20 
words a
>> minute.

>> ''Just try it,'' Carrie Gilmer said.  ''Go get a paragraph, get 
a
>> stopwatch
>> and try to read 20 words a minute.  Try and read that slow and 
see how
>> frustrating it is.''

>> Fluent Braille readers can read 200 words a minute or more, the
>> federation
>> says.

>> Carrie Gilmer is president of a parents' group within the 
federation for
>> the
>> blind.  She believes poor or haphazard instruction is largely 
responsible
>> for
>> the decline in Braille literacy, but she says sometimes teachers 
push
>> Braille only to meet resistance from parents.

>> ''They're afraid of their child looking blind, not fitting in,'' 
Gilmer
>> said.

>> The report outlines ambitious goals for reversing the trend, 
including
>> lobbying all 50 states to require teachers of blind children to 
be
>> certified
>> in Braille instruction by 2015.  But its immediate goal is to 
simply make
>> people aware that there's no substitute for Braille.  It's not 
just a tool
>> to
>> help people function -- it can bring joy, Maurer said.

>> ''The concept of reading Braille for fun is a thing that lots of 
people
>> don't know,'' Maurer said.  ''And yet I do this every day.  I 
love the
>> beautiful, orderly lines of words that convey a different idea 
that can
>> stimulate me or make me excited or sad. ...  This is what we're 
trying to
>> convey.''








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