[Ohio-Talk] Article in the Sunday Times

[Barbara Pierce]

This is great advertising for Braille.

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.

Barbara Pierce, President Emerita
National Federation of the Blind of Ohio
Barbara.pierce9366 at gmail.com
440-774-8077
 

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