[il-talk] Fwd: Article from Braille Monitor Articles Section 201511 01

Wed Nov 11 17:16:00 UTC 2015

We've got four students registered so far for LOL2 2016. Keep spreading the
word!

Debbie S.

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From: il-talk [mailto:il-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lin H. via
il-talk
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 7:51 AM
To: NFB of Illinois Mailing List <il-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Lin H. <iwannacu2 at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [il-talk] Fwd: Article from Braille Monitor Articles Section
201511 01

Hats off forI  BRAL!      Braille is the way to go!    Good luck to all the 
students that register!    Sincerely,    Linda

-----Original Message-----
From: Denise R Avant via il-talk
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 7:03 AM
To: NFB of Illinois Nfb-i conference call Number ; Illinois Association of
Blind Students List
Cc: Denise R Avant
Subject: [il-talk] Fwd: Article from Braille Monitor Articles Section 201511
01

Denise R. Avant
President
National Federation of the Blind of Illinois Live the life you want Sent
from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: NFB-NEWSLINE Online <nfbnewsline at nfb.org>
> Date: November 11, 2015 at 6:36:52 AM CST
> To: Denise Avant <davant1958 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Article from Braille Monitor Articles Section 2015 11 01
>
> iBRAL Is Back! by Robert Gardner From the Editor: Robert Gardner is a 
> man of tremendous accomplishment. He was trained and worked as a 
> mechanical engineer, and when he lost his vision, he simply figured 
> out on his own the alternative techniques he would need to do his job. 
> On retirement he decided that he had the time to really learn 
> blindness skills, so off to BLIND, Incorporated he went. He learned 
> Braille but soon realized that he could use the discipline of other 
> people to help him maintain and increase his speed. Readers may 
> remember an article he wrote that appeared in the October 2010 issue 
> of this magazine entitled "We Are Able. Here is what Bob has to say 
> about a reading contest for young people: iBral? No, we're not talking 
> about iPad or iTunes, we're talking about iBRAL. Say hello to the 
> Illinois Braille Readers Are Leaders, or iBRAL, contest for kids. For 
> the second year the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois 
> (NFBI) has run its own Braille reading contest for kids within the 
> state. And once again the response to our contest to promote the 
> reading of Braille by school children was fantastic. Last year 
> (2013-14), we had twenty-six applicants, and this year (2014-15), we 
> had thirty-two. These ranged from a first grader all the way to 
> students in the twelfth grade. We have been happy with the enthusiastic
response to our contest, reflecting the interest in Braille by blind and
visually impaired children in Illinois.
> It also shows how throwing in a little competition can increase that 
> interest. For example, one mother wrote on a registration form, "Thank 
> you so much for organizing this event in Illinois. The iBRAL contest 
> was the single biggest motivator for my son to really work on his Braille
skills.
> Another typical comment on a registration form was received from a 
> teacher of the visually impaired (TVI). She wrote, "This is my first 
> student to take the Braille Challenge, and we are both super excited! 
> Another TVI wrote at the end of iBRAL: "I have attached my students'
reading logs.!
  They enjoyed participating in the competition, and it definitely gave them
more incentive to keep reading. The iBRAL contest was first organized in the
fall of 2013. Patterning our contest after the former Braille Readers Are
Leaders contest run by our national center, the NFBI put together rules and
forms, which are accessible and can be found on our state's website. This
last year, the reading period for the contest ran for seven weeks, including
the Christmas school break, to allow even more time for the kids to work on
their Braille. As always the object of the competition was to read as many
pages as possible during the contest. Deborah Kent Stein of the NFBI Chicago
Chapter and editor of Future Reflections  volunteered to be the contest
coordinator. She created an email account for iBRAL, allowing electronic
submission of registration forms at the  beginning of the contest and
reading logs at the end. The email account also allowed easy communication
between Deborah and parents and/or TVI's, the people who acted as certifying
officials for the kids. Sometimes the feedback was amazing. One parent wrote
of her son, "He wanted to make sure he would do well. He just brought me his
last book to log and told me his fingers hurt. No wonder. He read five
hundred pages today alone! Sometimes the feedback was touching. For example,
a TVI wrote about one of her students, "We had a great time reading! Pierre
has just started reading Braille the last few years and is finally reading
with some fluency and reading for fun! He is seventeen years old and has
autism along with his blindness and cognitive delays. He was diligent daily
about telling people he had to read for the Braille challenge. Hope to do it

again next year! Thanks!   Cash prizes are awarded to first, second, and 
third place winners in each of the five grade levels. When Joanne Sullivan
of the National Braille Press was contacted about us purchasing gift
certificates to use as additional prizes, she subsequently told us we
wouldn't have to buy them. The N!
BP, a great supporter of Braille, would donate gift certificates to be given
to all entrants. In addition, the NFB national center has donated slates and
styluses and Braille calendars to be given to all contestants. When the
contest is over, each child receives a generous goodie package from iBRAL,
regardless of their placing in the contest. The Braille Literacy Committee
in Illinois, along with the entire state affiliate, is proud of their
accomplishments: they took the dream of having a statewide Braille reading
contest for children and made it a reality. More information about the
Illinois Braille Readers Are Leaders contest for kids can be obtained by
contacting our affiliate president, Denise Avant, at < davant1958 at gmail.com
>. We are committed to running the iBRAL contest for kids and hoping to make
it even bigger in the future. Go Braille! Go iBRAL! .
>
> This article is provided to you as a courtesy of NFB-NEWSLINE? Online 
> for your sole use. The content of this E-mail is protected under 
> copyright law, and is not to be distributed in any manner to others; 
> infringement of our non-dissemination agreement is strictly 
> prohibited. Allowing someone to have access to this material is in 
> violation of the Terms of Use agreement that you electronically signed 
> when you signed up for NFB-NEWSLINE? Online. Please do not forward 
> this E-mail or its attachments to any other person or disseminate it 
> in any manner. Thank you. The NFB-NEWSLINE? Team.
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