[stylist] Quote to ponder - taken to another level

[Donna Hill]

Amen to this, Robert. Another way of looking at it is asking the teacher how
they would feel if their child came home saying, "Hey, Mom, I don't have to
learn to read! My teachers says I'm such a good listener, that I can just
have audio books!"

They know it isn't equivalent to print literacy, but audio is cheaper by a
country mile. I like how the law says that Braille is to be assumed the
reading method of choice, but the regs effectively vanquish that little
clause.
Donna 

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Robert Leslie
Newman
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 9:03 AM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: [stylist] Quote to ponder - taken to another level

We were discussing how the impact of what is read is influenced by the
reader, themselves (by what they personally bring to the reading-table). 
And here is an interesting thought or outcome that is happening to too many
blind people! First as a baseline thought - the sighted student/reader who
uses print to read literature, educational stuff and the like - they are
reading the words themselves, visually scanning, actively processing ---
while during this process, the student is being exposed to important
"reading related/literacy" features/elements such as: format, punctuation,
spelling, and features like tables, graphs, pictures, etc. Also, along the
same line of literacy, of actively reading for oneself --- The blind reader
who has the skill of Braille can get the same basic exposure to content,
plus all the important literacy features as - format, punctuation, spelling
and the other stuff. However, in today's world, at least in this country,
Braille is not being taught as a first-line method of reading for the
non-print reader! And yeah, you all have heard this gripe, this warning
before. There again my point today is a bit different: My thought, question
is --- hey --- picture this- if you could not read print, did not know
Braille and could only hear new information, be it a textbook, or poem or
piece of prose --- you were not getting exposed to formatting, punctuation,
or spelling of anything you heard; And so I ask does this then essentially
take the blind person back to the preprint era, back to learning via the
oral tradition? Yeah --- what are these teachers thinking? (Another bazaar
thought - what do you think these teachers who are doing this to the blind
would do --- if they were to find that in school their very own sighted
children would have print taken away and their child was restricted to only
listening to what was being taught??)


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