[Ohio-Talk] Braille reading speed and when you learned Braille

[Richard Payne]

I thought this was a good read on this topic it is an older article.

Braille Reading Speed

Are You Willing To Do What It Takes?

by Susan Ford and Ramona Walhof

**********

>From the Editor: Susan Ford and Ramona Walhof are sisters. As you will read,
between them they have a broad range of reading and Braille-teaching
experience. Susan now lives in Missouri and is an active and contributing
Federation leader wherever she goes. Ramona, of course, is Secretary of the
National Federation of the Blind and President of the NFB of Idaho. This is
what they say:

**********

Many Braille readers have never been encouraged to work to achieve good
speed. Slow reading is a disadvantage throughout life and causes the reader
to under-use and undervalue the reading skill. But there is no need to
continue forever as a slow reader. Some Braille readers develop a speed of
200 to 400 words per minute as small children. They will retain that speed
with little or no effort. Braille readers who could not attain good speed as
young children, however, can do so with some work, and it is certainly worth
the effort. It is also desirable for teachers of blind children to encourage
good Braille-reading speed.

Susan Ford developed good Braille reading speed as a small child and retains
it; Ramona Walhof had fair speed as a child and has had to work to improve.
Our experiences in reading Braille and teaching for years have given us some
ideas which may help others in achieving increased speed. Try these
suggestions and talk with other good Braille readers. You should experience
significant improvement.

Susan has been a rehabilitation teacher and counselor and worked with
hundreds of adult Braille students. Most were learning Braille from scratch.
Some were working to improve their skill. Some never completed standard
Braille, but many have, and they continued to improve in speed and
confidence. Susan has written drills and exercises for her students to use
when they have experienced problems with certain Braille concepts.

Ramona's teaching has been largely in training centers. She has also taught
both new Braille readers and those who were working to improve speed and
accuracy. Ramona co-authored Beginning Braille for Adults in order to assist
students to complete Grade II (standard) Braille more quickly. We both agree
that this book is good for some Braille students but not all.

1. Avoid all Braille printed on plastic pages. Plastic is somewhat better
than it was when it first appeared, but it will still discourage good speed.
As you develop more speed, it will seem worse, because your hands will cling
to the Braille as they move faster across the lines. Since Braille continues
to become easier to produce using Braille embossers driven by computers,
using plastic should not be necessary except in rare situations.

2. Keep your touch light. You can feel the dots better if your fingers are
moving lightly over the lines. To test this statement, try this: feel the
back of one hand with the fingers of your other hand. Exert some pressure
and rub your hand a little. You will feel bones and veins. Now barely brush
your fingers across the skin. You will feel the texture of the skin and
hairs. These details were hardly noticeable when you pressed down. The same
is true of Braille. You do not want to know what is underneath the page, but
what is on the surface. This requires a light touch. Many Braille readers
are heavy-handed. Experiment honestly to see whether you are.

3. Check the position of your hands to insure that you are using the most
sensitive part of your fingertips. Your hands should be curved so that the
second joints of your fingers are only a little higher than the first
joints. Your wrists should move just above the page. The most sensitive part
of your fingers is just below the tip, but not as far back as the fleshier
part right above the first joint.

4. You will read best if you follow the lines of Braille using three fingers
on each hand. The middle and third fingers help to keep your place and
increase speed, even though the forefingers are the primary reading fingers.
It is always important to use both hands, even if one is less sensitive.
Keep both forefingers on the line of Braille. Almost everyone has one
dominant hand in reading, and it is not necessarily the same one that is
dominant in other activities. It is convenient to be able to use one hand
well enough to read while writing using a slate and stylus with the other.
You can then copy brief passages from what you are reading without taking
your hand off the page. Consider this technique for copying an address or
phone number. You probably don't have much choice about which hand works
best, but you can increase the effectiveness of both hands if you work at
it.

5. When you read Braille, you want your left hand to read the beginning of
the line and your right hand to read the end. The best readers bring their
forefingers together somewhere in the middle of the line, letting the right
hand finish while the left hand returns to the left margin to locate and
begin the new line. This process increases speed because you no longer have
to pause to locate the new line. Your dominant hand will read a larger part
of the line, but the two hands read independently, and your brain puts the
words in correct order. If you have been a one-handed reader, your first
step is to make your weaker hand follow the other one until it begins to
help with the work. Make the hand you are trying to strengthen read at least
one word at the beginning or end of the line. As you become more adept at
this, what at first seemed to slow you down will help increase your speed.
When you experience success at making your slow hand read one word, begin to
require it to carry more of the load. If one hand is truly disabled, you can
still read Braille well enough to make it valuable. If one hand is merely
less sensitive than the other, make the weaker hand work, and it will get
more efficient.

6. In some ways improving Braille-reading speed is much like improving speed
reading print. We recommend that you first learn to skim. Learn to gather
the sense of a passage by reading the first lines of short paragraphs and
the first and last lines of slightly longer ones. If the paragraph is quite
long, read a few middle lines as well.

If you are reading conversation, skip or de-emphasize the "he said," "she
asked," "I explained" phrases. Don't try to skip these in the middle of a
line, but when they appear at the beginning or end and you are not reading
aloud, they are unnecessary. You will know the content, and skipping
unnecessary words is another way to permit your reading speed to increase
slightly. This is part of learning to skim rather than actually increasing
verbatim reading speed. If you expect to cover the material faster, your
hands and mind will learn to work together. All this helps your speed.
Several such techniques can add up to quite an improvement. You will learn
not to break the steady movement of your hands as you concentrate on what
matters in what you read.

7. Develop a sight vocabulary in Braille. This idea is especially helpful if
you have just completed learning Grade II Braille and need to build
confidence in your knowledge of contracted words. You can carry a packet of
three-by-five index cards with frequently used words or phrases on each. The
earliest ones you make should be no more than four symbols. With practice
you will begin to recognize the short words immediately. You can also
recognize these letter combinations as parts of longer ones. Example: the
word "and" also appears in the words "strand," "band," and "land," and so
on. The word "honest" appears at the beginning of "honestly" and at the end
of "dishonest." As you recognize sight vocabulary words more quickly, the
longer words which contain them will come more quickly as well. When a group
of twenty cards or so becomes familiar, exchange them for another set. Carry
them in your notebook or purse; study them on the way to work or school; and
make new ones when they wear out.

8. Set achievable goals for improvement. Determine how much you read every
day. Be truthful with yourself, even if you are only reading a paragraph a
day. Set as your first goal to double this amount or to increase it by 50
percent. Be absolutely faithful to your daily commitment to read Braille.
When you feel comfortable reading this new amount, increase it again and
make that your new goal.

Be sure to read every single day. Remember, it does not hurt to read more
than the minimum you have set. If one day you don't meet your commitment to
yourself, don't worry about it. Stress causes burn-out. Just begin where you
left off and continue achieving the same goal each day.

9. Begin with very short passages. It does not take long to be able to read
a selection of three or four pages in one sitting. It feels wonderful when
you can say that you have read a whole story. Such success encourages other
attempts. You need not read material written at your intellectual level.
Many of us like to read children's stories. You can easily find short
articles from magazines.

10. Make Braille convenient for yourself. Keep a Braille book beside your
bed, and tell people you have learned to read in the dark. Leave a book or
magazine near your favorite easy chair. Carry a small magazine with you.
Immerse yourself in this exposure to Braille. Keep a Braille calendar in
your pocket or purse. Begin an address and phone file. Make recipes in
Braille. Ask your friends if they can show you what crossword puzzles look
like in Braille or how to do cryptograms, etc. Try to make Braille available
to yourself in the many ways that print is available to your sighted
friends. The more you see it and find it wherever you put your hands, the
more you will read it. Reading Braille--as much and as often as possible--is
certainly the most important thing you can do to increase your reading
speed. Read, read, read!

11. One of the more effective ways to improve Braille skill is to read along
with someone else. A tape recorder will do. The aural reading should be just
a little faster than yours. Make yourself keep up. Reread the passage. The
second time you will be familiar with the material. Your speed should
increase. Keep at it till you are comfortable with the faster speed. Read
something onto a tape yourself. Compete with yourself, each time trying to
beat the original speed of your recording.

12. Subscribe to at least one Braille magazine that you enjoy. Read short
articles, and then reread them more than twice, trying to read faster each
time. Do not memorize. As the text becomes familiar, you will read much more
rapidly. Be sure to read aloud sometimes to be sure that you are not
skipping when you know the material well.

13. As you begin to see improvement in your speed, continue spending the
same amount of time reading or doing even more. Reading faster will permit
you to cover more material in the same amount of time. In school children
read many hours a day while learning to read. As adults we expect to spend
just a few minutes and accomplish as much. In the beginning at least it
won't happen. You must commit time in order to see significant improvement.

14. Avoid bad habits. Many Braille readers have developed the bad habit of
double-checking frequently in order to catch mistakes. It is important to
keep your hands moving steadily forward with very little checking back.
Avoid rubbing the Braille as you read it. Reading with someone who reads
just a little faster keeps you from looking back. If you do, you will get
behind. It is true that reading Braille requires movement, but the movement
should be mostly forward, not up and down or backwards. If you move your
hands up and down, you may move from one line to another without realizing
it.

You can read together with someone else who is working to improve his or her
speed. You can even do this on the telephone. If you respond to competition,
challenge someone to compete with you. Occasional timings are helpful, but
only to determine if your reading speed increases. Don't overdo it. Instead
of words per minute, it might be more helpful to measure pages per hour or
per week. When you have something to read in Braille, complete it in that
medium. Don't cheat and finish it on tape.

15. Take some responsibility using Braille. For instance, make a report from
Braille notes. Give a speech using Braille cards. Make a report about
something you have read in Braille. NFB Kernel Books are filled with short
and easy articles, which may also provide motivation for improving this
skill.

In this article we have not discussed writing. Whether you write with a
Braille writer or with the slate and stylus, your writing skill will
reinforce your reading skill. Much more could be said about writing--maybe
another article some day.

We would love to tell you more about some of the wonderful students we have
had. You would find their progress interesting and challenging. When you see
us, don't hesitate to ask us about them. There isn't space or time to tell
all their stories here.

Get excited about Braille. It is fun to be literate. It is normal to be able
to read at your own convenience and do it with facility. Don't deny yourself
that convenience and pleasure any longer. Believe in yourself and believe in
Braille. Remember that many adults have learned Braille from scratch and
attained good speed. It is worth the effort, and you are not too old, too
stupid, or too lazy. Try it; you'll like it!


Richard Payne,  President
National Federation of the Blind of Ohio
937/829/3368
Rchpay7 at gmail.com
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.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio-Talk <ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Cheryl Fischer
via Ohio-Talk
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2023 4:11 AM
To: 'NFB of Ohio Announcement List' <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: c16a19f at sbcglobal.net
Subject: Re: [Ohio-Talk] Braille reading speed and when you learned Braille

There is a big difference in my case between my Braille reading speed when
reading silently to myself and trying to read out loud. I learned Braille at
age 19 and I am a pretty fast Braille reader, but the flow of my reading is
awkward when I try to read unfamiliar material out loud and with expression.

Cheryl  

-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio-Talk <ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Paula Jordan via
Ohio-Talk
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2023 12:24 AM
To: 'NFB of Ohio Announcement List' <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Paula Jordan <paujor at roadrunner.com>
Subject: Re: [Ohio-Talk] Braille reading speed and when you learned Braille

Hi Marianne.  I learned Braille as a young child.  I consider myself a
pretty fast Braille reader, But that's subjective.  Is there some way to
test speed?  Never thought of that.
God bless!
Paula and The pups
-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio-Talk <ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of marianne denning
via Ohio-Talk
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2023 3:57 PM
To: 'NFB of Ohio Announcement List' <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: marianne at denningweb.com
Subject: [Ohio-Talk] Braille reading speed and when you learned Braille

I have 2 questions for people. There is a discussion on another NFB list
about learning to read Braille as a child verses an adult. Did you learn to
read Braille as a child or as an adult? Do you know your reading speed? If
you feel more comfortable sharing this information privately please email me
at

marianne at denningweb.com

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