[nabs-l] Learning to learn faster

Mohamed malhajamy at gmail.com
Tue Feb 25 01:08:58 UTC 2014


Me, personally, I use a mix of everything.  I use braille on my 
BrailleNote to keep up with schoolwork.  Now, my teachers are 
sending me most things electronicly.  I don't really find hard 
copy a good option, because I always find myself losing 
assignments somewhere.  So, my teachers are switching to sending 
me things by email.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jamie Principato <blackbyrdfly at gmail.com
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 18:02:18 -0700
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Learning to learn faster

How many hours a night must you spend reading in order to keep up 
with and be successful in your classes? Are you using Braille or 
a screen reader? I'd love to hear everyone weigh in on this.  If 
you don't read for class every night, how many hours a week?

Jamie

Sent from my iPhone

 On Feb 24, 2014, at 5:34 PM, Arielle Silverman 
<arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:

 I find it easier to skim in Braille than in audio or E-text.  
You can
 skim in Braille by looking for indented text, sliding your 
fingers
 down the leftmost edge of the page looking for spaces where the 
text
 is indented or centered to indicate a new paragraph or section
 heading, or of course, flip to the next physical page.
 Also, I'm not sure speed is  the end goal, at least not all the 
time.
 I think a better goal is to achieve a good speed-to-accuracy 
ratio.
 That is, you want to understand as much  as possible in as 
little time
 as possible.  Anyone can put their screen reader on 500 words a 
minute
 and just breeze through, but if you comprehended less than half 
what
 was spoken, that's not useful at all.  Similarly, carefully 
reading in
 Braille at 100 words per minute but understanding everything you 
read,
 and remembering it later so you don't have to re-read right 
before the
 test, is valuable.
 I'm one of those Braille readers who reads very quickly, and 
I've
 often found, especially as an adult reading denser material and 
having
 less practice with Braille, that I have to force myself to slow 
down
 or I start missing stuff.

 Arielle

 On 2/24/14, Carly Mihalakis <carlymih at comcast.net> wrote:
 Good afternoon, Sophie,

         Growing up,I admit, I took braille very much for 
granted,
 couldn't fathom those blinks I heard about who, didn't read 
braille.
 Served the Federation's summer program as the braille 
instructor, was
 a devotee of this page slate I have.  Was beginning to learn 
Grade 3,
 the whole bit.  I forgot, in studying Japanese language, I, with 
the
 help of a key my Dad found for me On-line, began teaching myself
 nihongo tenji (Japanese braille) Then, at age 19, I was hit by a 
car
 which caused severe brain damage, a symptom of which has been 
acute
 tactile appraxia which for me, refers to an inability of hand to
 perceive that which is sent to it via the brain.  thus reducing
 braille reading pretty much to a very rich and stimulating  pipe
 dream.  And, It isn't about the spacing of the dots, like you 
see with
 neuropathy people, as if anything was produced in jumbo braille,
 anyway.  I just don't perceive what my finger feels!
 But, I say aoll this to make the point of my also not retaining,
 during the time i did use hard copy braille as well as a Braille
 Light 40 purchased by the school district and, having no 
alternative,
 I have forced myself to learn audotorally on the comput as well 
as
 talking books....  so, it can be possible in case, got help you, 
you
 find yourself in this way.
 for today, Car
 408-209-3239

 Courtney, I have to disagree with you on braille textbooks.  I
 actually find them more useful than audio textbooks.  Granted, 
I'm in
 high school, so I'm probably not moving at as fast a pace as 
college
 students, but still.  If you read a braille book in an electric 
format
 with a notetaker (I use a braillenote apex), you can use the 
Find
 command to search for important keywords if you're trying to 
look up
 something quickly.  You can also move by paragraph and by page 
if you
 wish to skip irrelevant material.  For me at least, I comprehend 
more
 when I read braille.  I do okay with audio, but when I read it 
with my
 fingers, I tend to absorb more of the information, whereas when 
I'm
 listening to it, I occasionally zone out and miss something.  
This is
 more important for some classes than others, but reading braille
 tells us how to spell things.  Braille also allows us to see 
what's
 underlined or italicized, which may be important for some 
lessons.
 These are just my thoughts.  Have a great day!

 Sincerely,
 Sophie

 ----- Original Message -----
 From: Courtney Stover <liamskitten at gmail.com
 To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
 Date sent: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 14:20:35 -0600
 Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Learning to learn faster

 Antonio,

 I'll return with more thoughts later tonight when I've properly 
read
 the article, but I thought I'd answer your questions, because 
they
 interest me on a philosophical level.

 This is one of the ways that, frankly, my life experience simply
 hasn't jived with NFB philosophy.  NFB philosophy emphasizes the
 importance of fast Braille reading, which I agree with; practice
 absolutely must be maintained.  However, they also seem to 
strongly
 insist on Braille textbooks, which I don't get behind so much.
 Doing
 college-level reading; I have never had to consume material as 
quickly
 as I am right now.  And, at least for me, reading textbooks in 
Braille
 is simply impractical, even if that Braille has shifted to 
electronic
 instead of hardcopy.  I can read loads faster, even with 
something
 like RFBD and the Bookmarks function on my player to find 
important
 material again, than I ever thought about with Braille, 
particularly
 because I can quickly skim over superfluous material like map
 descriptions, vocabulary I already remember, or excerpts from 
outside
 documents that are meant to enhance the readings, which are 
always
 located at the end of the page, by simply going to the next one 
with
 the press of a button.  With books read by a screen reader,
 particularly if they're from somewhere like Bookshare and have 
Daisy
 navigation, this is even more true.

 I think your point is very true, about Braille readers only 
reading at
 the pace of sighted ones.  I went in recently to take a test in
 Braille (the one reason I keep my Braille skills sharp; my test
 performance plummets when I have to have a reader), and was 
noted as
 one of the fastest Braille readers the proctor had ever seen.
 However, someone was taking the same test with a screen reader, 
and
 was finished in half the time I was.  So, learning to take tests 
with
 screen and human readers is something I wish to become 
proficient at.
 After all, I may have Braille accommodation now, but I doubt a
 workplace, such as a call center, that has a training process 
before
 proper work begins, is going to allow me to have a Braille 
display.

 Now, this says nothing about leisure activities, in which I 
vastly
 prefer Braille to audio, save in rare cases.  If I'm going to 
read a
 book, I want to actually be reading it.  Also, any proofing task 
would
 be made immensely more difficult without the use of Braille.

 I hope this at least provides an interesting perspective on your
 questions, as you certainly provided a very interesting article 
I'm
 looking forward to diving in to.
 Warmly,
 Courtney

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