[stylist] Quote to ponder - taken to another level

Sat Feb 9 00:00:43 UTC 2013

This is all very interesting and I would bet most folks have no clue about 
any of it. I do not think teachers are prepared to deal with blind children 
unless they have specialized in that niche. But, I know very little about 
K-12 teaching or the programs.

 Lynda

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Hill" <penatwork at epix.net>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 5:57 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] Quote to ponder - taken to another level

> Lynda,
> The truth is that blind kids don't learn either spelling or sentence
> structure unless they read Braille. They may pick up a bit if they think 
> to
> use their screen reader's ability to read letter by letter, but none of us
> think to check all the things we really need. After all, you might hear,
> "Smith" but the spelling is with a y. Studies show that non Braille users
> have not only poor spelling and punctuation, but poor abilities to 
> construct
> their ideas into words. Who cares, though? After all, their blind, what 
> can
> they be expected to do anyway?
>
> The other thing is that the kids who have some reading vision and are 
> forced
> to spend their time laboring over large print and CCTVs learn to hate
> reading. As for visualizing, I am a very visual Braille reader, and having
> once been able to see print, I visualize both the Braille and print 
> letters.
> Studies show that when congenitally blind people read Braille, they are
> activating the visual cortex.
> Donna
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda 
> Lambert
> Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 1:02 PM
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [stylist] Quote to ponder - taken to another level
>
> This is a really good question, Robert.
> I have noticed that so many blind people spell things so wonky, and maybe
> this is why. I always wonder is spelling is  really taught and learned
> visually. I really have no experience with any of the discussion on 
> Braille
> because I do not use it - I do everything with electronics and some things
> with a CCTV.   I have only had sight loss for 5 years, so I really have no
> idea how blind children learn things like spelling, grammar, formatting, 
> and
> punctuation. To me, they are all visual, and it is very hard for me to
> understand it any other way - well, I really don't understand it any other
> way. When I am reading (listening to a voice on a machine) I am still
> listening visually. I see it in my mind, and if I cannot see it that way,
> it's confusing to me.  Auditory skills  would rate very low  for me.
> Everyone has strength in certain skills and ways of learning - and I am a
> Visual learner above all else. That did not change - I still have to be 
> able
> to SEE it to remember it - I have to stop and SEE a picture in my mind
> before it sticks with me.
> Writing and reading, for me, has always been a visual experience.  This
> makes me wonder, can a person who has always been blind be a Visual 
> learner?
>
> And, then, I wonder, how does a blind person visualize things?  These are
> some things I am thinking about and working with a blind painter friend to
> put together an exhibition on how people  see and visualize.
>
> Lynda
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 9:03 AM
> 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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>
>
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