[Home-on-the-range] February Braille Monitor - everything braille

[Cindy Ray]

Doesn't work well on Newsline in my opinion. 

On Feb 4, 2013, at 9:01 AM, Stanzel, Susan - FSA, Kansas City, MO wrote:

> I don't read it until it comes out in the DAISY format and then I put it on the Victor Stream.
> 
> Susie
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Home-on-the-range [mailto:home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cindy Ray
> Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 8:44 AM
> To: NFB of Kansas Internet Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Home-on-the-range] February Braille Monitor - everything braille
> 
> How do you all receive your Braille Monitor? Does anyone read it with the Newsline App?
> 
> Cindy Lou
> 
> On Feb 4, 2013, at 8:17 AM, Stanzel, Susan - FSA, Kansas City, MO wrote:
> 
>> Thank you so much. I am excited about reading it. I am going to take the article by Bob from Nebraska to my meeting on Friday. I think it might help some of my folks who are just beginning their blindness journey.
>> 
>> Susie
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Home-on-the-range [mailto:home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Dianne Hemphill
>> Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2013 7:35 AM
>> To: NFB of Kansas Internet Mailing List
>> Subject: [Home-on-the-range] February Braille Monitor - everything braille
>> 
>> OMG - Federationists - this month's Monitor is so exciting! Especially for those of  us who adore braille and want others to have the opportunity to learn and appreciate its usefulness...article 5 - Code Mastery and Methodology- Teaching Braille to Adults , is the most innovative and practical teaching method I've ever reviewed...it addresses the practical application of adult learning  strategy   and continues to move the SDL teaching approach forward. (Some don't realize  that SDL continually evolves  its teaching approaches to ever improve) Most teachers of braille to adult students simply employ the methods that was used on them as young student learners. The SDL approach is based on adult learning theory and thus is greater success in promoting independence  and the acquiring  and use  of blindness  skills.
>> 
>> Those of us involved in the rehab  biz, know all too well the frustration that most adult learners experience when attempting to learn braille... this new approach incorporates the many goals that should b in the teacher's mind as they begin working with the adult  student.  It moves from the separate teaching  curriculums of braille and technology classes to a combined approach called "communications". This approach makes such good sense to me, let me share  some of the components (from my braille notes) that will help you to begin understanding  the focus and practical application:
>> 
>> Goals
>> 1. decrease the frustration and stress that most blind  adult students experience when beginning to learn braille and increase enjoyment; 2. make the student's outside of class practice easy 3. show how useful braille can be 4. focus on sight words and contractions 5. leverage the "power" of technology 6. customize the materials to the students interests and primary learning method 7. combine braille and technology for increased communication capabilities and, 8. foster mastery motivation approaches
>> 
>> In practical application, it plays out like this:
>> 1. on day 1 teach first 10 letters
>> and provide all teaching materials (this is much, much more than a text book) 2.  typically within 6 weeks, the average student knows the alphabet, numbers, basic punctuation short form words and some useful contracted words. Additionally, they have begun reading both in and outside class.
>> 3. they immediately move into the rest of the contractions and the class is divided into reading, writing and drills. Outside reading materials are self selected by the student and classroom reading is both a student and instructor selection of reading materials.
>> There is much, much more to this approach, so please read and study this article, especially if you  want to more effectively  work with adult  blind braille students. Some of the approaches can be used without a great deal of outside training in this method.
>> 
>> Another exciting thing I found in Monitor miniatures  (I think it was in that section anyway- I was reading at 5 this morning and may not have this completely correct...) is a statewide braille teaching program being introduced by the NFB of West Virginia. I was excited to note that a friend of mine and former director of Blind Services for WV, Sherri Kotch, is the one that championed this with the support of the WV VR - can you  even immagine   Kansas Rehab director supporting anything for the blind in Kansas like this... anyway,  it sounds like an approach that might be one that could easily be recreated in other states, if desired... Enjoy!  ! Dianne
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