[NFB_of_Georgia] Fwd: [State-Affiliate-Leadership-List] Braille Literacy

[Dorothy Griffin]

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Date: Mon, Dec 2, 2019 at 7:23 PM
Subject: [State-Affiliate-Leadership-List] Braille Literacy
To: Danielsen, Chris <CDanielsen at nfb.org>, NCB Staff <NCBStaff at nfb.org>,
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>From the New York Times Magazine, Sunday, December 1, 2019



How to Teach A Child Braille

By Malia Wollan



'Encourage exploration with the hands,' says Jackie Anderson, who taught
blind students in Cobb County, Ga., for a decade and helped develop the
National Federation of the Blind's nationwide summer program for blind
children. Advocates point to what they call a Braille literacy crisis in
America, despite research showing that visually impaired people have better
employment and educational outcomes if they read and write Braille. To
decode Braille's little bumps, you need highly sensitized fingertips. Help
toddlers hone their tactile awareness by burying little objects like
marbles, toy cars and small figurines in a sand dish or bowl of rice. Tell
the child to find and match them. A Braille cell consists of three dots in
each of two columns that can be raised in different patterns. Anderson
likes to introduce young children to the concept using muffin tins and
tennis balls. If you can see and your child can't, you also need to learn
Braille. 'Give me 30 minutes, and I can teach you to decipher the code,'
says Anderson, who was born blind and has a teenage daughter who has been
blind since birth. Let a child run his or her hands over picture books with
Braille as you read aloud. Find a way to write on paper either with an
embossing machine (expensive) or a Braille slate and stylus (cheap). Get a
Braille labeler, and label everything so that a child can move through an
indoor space and understand that these raised bumps describe and name the
textures and shapes under their hands.. Instruct children to tuck their
thumbs and use eight fingertips on a line of Braille cells. Hands move left
to right along a line. Beginners should track the same line back before
dropping both hands to the next line. 'No scrubbing allowed,' Anderson
says, describing the up-and-down scratching to decode an unrecognized cell.
Teach them to keep moving, and if needed, shift both hands back and try
again. Remember, literacy is its own kind of freedom. One of Anderson's
fondest memories is a rainy afternoon at her school for the blind in
Jamaica, when she was allowed to spend hours reading whatever she wanted in
the library. 'They found me asleep,' she says, 'with a pile of books around
me.







JD Townsend

Helping the light dependent to see
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-- 
Dorothy Griffin - President
National Federation of the Blind of Georgia
dgriffin at nfbga.org
770-374-4832

The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the
characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the
expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles
between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want;
blindness is not what holds you back.