[stylist] reading braille

[Donna Hill]

Judith,
I was 21 when a fellow student at the Guide Dog Foundation gave me a 
Braille alphabet. I also got a little booklet from NLS which had the 
contractions and punctuation. In that booklet they employ the use of a 
full Braille cell -- all six dots, the word "for" -- before or after the 
symbol, so you have something right there to compare the symbol with. 
Otherwise, you can get things like the 'e (dots 1 & 5) confused with the 
symbol for 'en (dots 2 and 6). It was very difficult at first. My 
fingers would go numb and I got a terrible pain from my shoulder through 
my arm -- due to the unusual motion I suppose. There are still times 
after over 35 years when my index finger will numb out on me. I think 
that other than just plain studying the symbols, the thing that helped 
was making Braille dymo tape labels for things I wanted to use but 
couldn't tell from other things in any other way. Spices, and recordings 
-- cassettes and LPs in those days. I also started a file of phone 
numbers and addresses using 3 x 5 cards, which I still use, though I 
prefer using 5 x 7 notebooks. There is a thing called Jumbo Braille and 
you might want to use that to start with to sensatize your fingers.

My brother Jeff Weiss and his wife wrote a Braille instructional book 
decades ago, which I wish I had had when I was learning. It teaches 
words in groups like "bat, cat, rat" to promote the recognition of 
letter groups.


Also, I would recommend getting a Braille calendar. The fact that you 
already know what a calendar looks like will help you develop a 
familiarity with the symbols.
Donna


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Judith Bron wrote:
> You might think I'm nuts, but How do braille readers sensitize their fingers to the placement of the dots?  Thanks, Judith  
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