[stylist] good news: won first place inbraille challengeregionals

[vejas]

This email is going to answer both Robert's and Brenda's 
questions.
The Braille Challenge is a countrywide (and also some of Canada) 
competition which both tests your Braille skills and is a lot of 
fun.  It's for grades 1-12.
To get into the final competition, which we call the nationals, 
you must first take a practice test.  Possibly 800 people 
practice but only about 60 (12 from each group) actually make it 
in unless there's a tiebreaker, so more will.
 The practices can be done in a group with kids from your state, 
or can be private with a VI.  What you do depends on your grade.
Apprentice grades 1-2: reading comprehension, spelling and 
proofreading
Freshman grades 3-4: same
Sophomore Grades 5-6: reading comprehension, proofreading, 
spelling, Braille speed and accuracy (for that one you have to 
listen  to a tape with a story and have to copy xof
Junior Varsity Grades 7-9 and Varsity grades 10-12: reading 
comprehension, proofreading, charts and graphs, and speed and 
accuracy)
I would suggest for anyone interested, like who might know a 
blind child that would want to do it, to start out with a private 
VI then later do regionals.  Don't get me wrong; regionals are 
fun, you get to make friends and you actually feel like you're 
doing the real thing, but when you first do it, doing it 
individually is a lot better because you can understand what to 
do better.  What I mean is, I did Braille speed and accuracy 
privately first, and was able to do it fine, but another kid had 
no clue what to do.  When you work individually you go at your 
own pace, but then later you will discover that regionals are 
more fun.  Like I said, it felt like I was doing the real thing.
Also, all because you win first place unfortunately doesn't mean 
you will get in to the nationals, as 12 or more other people from 
other states could do better than me.  I do have a pretty high 
chance though, because there were at least 10 of us in our group.  
The youngest group only had like 3 or 4.  (So that means if 
you're the only one in the group, and get them all wrong, you're 
number 1 for that group.) Anyway it's lots of fun, I hope that's 
what you're looking for but just ask and I will elaborate.