[Pibe-division] Braille Reading Speed

[H. Field]

Very little hard data exists on this topic. Blindness is a low 
incidence  disability and this means that it's very difficult to put 
together a study with enough participants to  enable researchers to come 
up with valid conclusions.  There are so many variables to control for 
and variables  not controlled for invalidate findings. For example, 
readers with additional disabilities such as cerebral palsy or 
developmental delays  will read less well. If their reading speeds are 
lumped in together with the results of children who are blind only, it 
lowers the overall, average reading speed. Variables like age at which 
braille began to be taught, number of hours per week spent on reading 
instruction and a host of other  variables make studying braille reading 
and working to establish expected reading speeds  extremely difficult 
indeed. For years Texas School For The Blind has had some suggested 
reading speeds that teachers all over the country have used and have had 
very low expectations for their braille reading students as a result.  
No really good studies appear to exist and well documented reading 
speeds don't exist to be compared with that of print readers. Anecdotal 
evidence has shown that  highly proficient braille readers can read in 
the hundreds of words per minute. but most don't read anywhere near this 
and, sadly, are not expected to reach such reading speeds even as adults.

So,  as an essay topic this is not a very good one, because the 
comparison data doesn't really exist. California did  do some work on 
math and reading standards recently. You might try searching  Google for 
the numbers they came p with. However, whatever numbers you do find you 
can be sure  that there is no large body of well designed and 
implemented studies that supports claims made about braille reading speeds.
The Ryles study was not about reading speed per se.

Regards,

Heather field

On 4/25/2011 2:43 PM, Hyde, David W. (ESC) wrote:
> I believe that Ruby Ryles did extensive research in this area. It may be more intensive than you want for this paper. I will look to see where I have it, or you can contact Ruby directly. You should also research The Braille Monitor and Future Reflections.
>
>
>
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>     1. Need Data (Kim Cunningham)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 05:33:24 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Kim Cunningham<kim at gulfimagesphoto.com>
> To: Professionals in Blindness Education<Pibe-division at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: [Pibe-division] Need Data
> Message-ID:<160718.90415.qm at web607.biz.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
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> My daughter is writing a paper for college and needs current information about braille reading speeds for students. She is doing a comparison between large print readers and braille readers and would like to show that braille is equal (if not faster) than print readers. Can anyone suggest a link for this information?
> Regards,
> Kim Cunningham
> President, TPOBC
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