[NFBOH-Cleveland] Pleas Read this inspiring post about the winner of the Jennifer Baker Award!

Mon Nov 23 02:06:21 UTC 2020

Beautiful! This gives us a glimpse into what other blind students are facing. Hopefully their parents and family will be supportive and advocate on their behalf.

Cheryl E. Fields

Sent from my iPhone

> On Nov 22, 2020, at 8:07 PM, Suzanne Turner via NFBOH-Cleveland <nfboh-cleveland at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Ohio,
> 
>  
> 
> I thought I would share this post that I read. It is so inspiring and shows self-determination!
> 
>  
> 
> Suzanne
> 
> ///
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Melissa Lehman Riccobono is feeling proud with Nfb Maryland and Mark A. Riccobono.
> 
> November 9 at 9:37 PM ·
> This past Saturday, Oriana received the Jennifer Baker Award from the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland. We are very proud of her for this accomplishment. Below is the text of the speech given to introduce Oriana, which gives the background as to why she is the award recipient this year. I have also included a video of Oriana reading the speech she gave to thank the NFBMD for this award. Take a break from politics and enjoy! The Jennifer Baker award is given by the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland each year to a person who has overcome obstacles and yet become a braille reader. This award is given in honor of Jennifer Baker, who, in her short life, despite having a variety of disabilities which many people thought would prevent her from learning to read braille, became an excellent braille reader and enjoyed brailling books for children.
> 
> The recipient of this year's Jennifer Baker Award is Oriana Riccobono.
> 
> Oriana’s journey to becoming a braille reader has been a complicated one. Despite having two blind parents who understand the necessity of braille, and have advocated for her to learn braille from the time she began school at age four, Oriana’s braille instruction has been somewhat spotty. Like many blind children, Oriana has some useable vision. Because of this, she is classified as a “dual media reader”—both print and braille. On the surface, this seems like a fine approach. A dual media reader can learn print and use it when it is efficient, and also learn braille in order to use it when it is most efficient. Unfortunately, what often happens when a child is classified as a dual media reader is print is focused on most of the time during the school day, and braille is only focused on during the time the teacher of blind students works with the dual media reader. Despite many meetings, suggestions about how to incorporate braille into the classroom, and how to work on both braille reading and writing, Oriana received very little quality braille instruction which correlated directly to skills her classmates were learning in the classroom. Also, for some reason, much of her braille instruction was given outside the classroom during reading time in pre-k and kindergarten. This meant although Oriana was practicing letters in braille, and writing words in braille, she was missing out on important strategies in order to build a strong foundation in reading.
> 
> By first grade it was clear Oriana was extremely behind in her ability to read both print and braille. Even with a fantastic first grade classroom teacher, and nightly practice at home, (practice which was agonizingly slow and sometimes ended in tears) Oriana ended first grade four reading levels below where she should have been when entering second grade. She continued to struggle in second grade, but was slowly beginning to make progress. She ended second grade only one level below where she should have been, which was a fantastic gain in one year.
> 
> Third grade started out reasonably well, but in March of her third grade year, Oriana received a head and neck injury while playing a tug-of-war game on the playground with her class. She accidentally let go of the rope and fell backward, hitting her head and neck against a brick wall. This resulted in extreme pain, dizziness, fatigue, and sensitivity to light and sound for the next 10 months.
> 
> Oriana finally healed, but it took several doctors, a hospitalization, acupuncture, nerve blocks, and a chiropractor before the pain was finally under control. Because of this medical ordeal, Oriana missed much of the last quarter of her third grade year, and was on Home and Hospital for the first two quarters of her fourth grade year. She was just beginning to go to school part time when the pandemic hit, and all school was moved online.
> 
> During her time at home due to her injury, Oriana received very little braille materials, and no braille instruction. Then, when school moved online, she received no braille materials, although she did have some braille instruction virtually. Since Oriana was finally in a place where she was ready to learn everyday—her pain was much less—her parents and a family friend decided it was high time to begin practicing braille in earnest in order to make up for lost time.
> 
> Oriana has read braille for at least 30 minutes a day for the past several months. Before this time, Oriana had never finished a chapter book in braille. She has now finished five of the books in the Meet Samantha American Girl series, and may be done with the sixth book by the time of this presentation. She has been motivated by the Library for the Blind and Print Disabled Summer Reading Program, where she won prizes for reading, a family friend, Karen, promising to take her to dinner if she read all but three days over the summer, and a trip to the American Girl Store with Karen when she finishes the final Samantha American Girl book. (She also earned a Samantha American Girl doll by finishing the first book in the series.) Oriana is also motivated because she is enjoying the stories she is reading, and she is noticing that she is able to read faster and more fluently the more she practices her reading. She also enjoys reading weekly with her Aunt, Jennifer, her grandma, and she has even had the opportunity to read with our National Rep, Miss Pam, who is without a doubt one of her very favorite people!
> 
> Oriana has recently entered the Braille Readers are Leaders contest and looks forward to seeing how many braille pages she can read between December 1 and January 18. She’s hoping to win some cool prizes!
> 
> Although Oriana’s parents are still fighting ridiculously hard to insure she has hard copy and electronic braille materials daily in school, and access to the training she needs to gain the skills to work with JAWS and her braille display to read and complete school assignments, neither of these things are happening regularly yet. Despite this, Oriana is still making progress in braille everyday. She is using braille in order to read and complete math assignments, something she has never done before. Oriana realizes her vision is not the best way for her to get all of her information. She realizes there are some things which are hard to see on her computer screen, that her eyes get tired when she has to read print for too long, and that braille is the one thing which she can always feel and never makes her eyes tired. Despite all of the obstacles Oriana has faced, she is succeeding in braille, and this success will only lead to more successes for Oriana in her future.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _______________________________________________
> NFBOH-Cleveland mailing list
> NFBOH-Cleveland at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfboh-cleveland_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for NFBOH-Cleveland:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfboh-cleveland_nfbnet.org/cherylelaine1957%40gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfboh-cleveland_nfbnet.org/attachments/20201122/b1c8d74a/attachment.html>