[stylist] Quote to ponder - taken to another level -spellingisfirst, recognition of a pattern

Sat Feb 9 21:20:12 UTC 2013

I think this has been an interesting discussion and I am learning so much 
through it. When I was learning Braille I was envisioning the shapes that 
the dots form. I found that there were some shapes there that I really 
enjoyed a lot and others I did not like at all. For some wild reason I do 
not know, I was very partial to the "i" because of the upward movement - it 
was dynamic to me. I felt like I could fly right off that page every time I 
felt the "i."   I know that is so crazy.
Lynda

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Hill" <penatwork at epix.net>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2013 3:52 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] Quote to ponder - taken to another 
level -spellingisfirst, recognition of a pattern

> Robert,
> First, it looks like there was something at the end of this message that 
> got
> cut off.
>
> The other thing I was thinking about was about whether a totally,
> congenitally blind person can visualize. I believe they can. It may be a
> matter of semantics, but there is also something which I think is called
> spacial awareness. It has to do with understanding, for instance, shapes,
> how far away the table is or what it's proportions are and where a cup was
> placed. My understanding has always been that in general men are better at
> this than women -- or should I say they gravitate to it more readily and
> pick it up at an earlier age. The theory used to be that this was because
> men were the hunters and women the gatherers. The thing I was thinking 
> about
> with regard to blindness is how this spacial awareness works with regard 
> to
> both travel and reading. After all, those Braille dots are in patterns
> governed by specific proportions. A sighted person might look at a Braille
> letter and see a design or pattern, but when a blind person feels the same
> letter, they understand the same design, minus colors, perhaps, but in 
> terms
> of distance and placement of the dots, shape and depth, it amounts to the
> same thing. I think this is all related to the visual cortex, which has
> other uses than strictly visual in both blind and sighted people. It would
> be interesting to learn what life without a visual cortex would be like --
> no, I'm not volunteering to have mine removed, thank you very much.
> Donna
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Robert 
> Leslie
> Newman
> Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2013 1:13 PM
> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [stylist] Quote to ponder - taken to another level -spelling
> isfirst, recognition of a pattern
>
> Hi you all, good discussion going here:
>
> My take on spelling, or in the larger sense the ability to "read" itself 
> is
> not a question of vision, or touch or hearing --- but is a question that
> begins with the human ability to recognize and decipher patterns.  And I'm
> starting at this super basic point, and from that we can plug in our
> questions of "is spelling and/or reading a visual or tactile  or auditory
> reliant skill?" Or, "can someone who has been blind all their life
> 'visualize,' in order to do things?"
>
> Well, I think we know that  " people do learn to read and spell using 
> vision
> (interpreting visual markings which consist of a known alphabet). And we
> know that people also learn to read and spell via touch, by the use of
> Braille (another system of set patterns consisting of raised dots that
> represent the same stuff the visual world is working with). Also, we all
> know that most anyone who can hear, is able to read via recordings.
>
> Finally, we all know that some of us have a preferred mode of learning, 
> that
> tends to favor our dominant sensory modality like -- A person might say, 
> "I
> am a visual learner." Or, "I learn best if it is hands-on?" Or, "Reading 
> it
> in Braille is what makes it stick for me." Or, etc.
>
> And so what is my point? Well --- that we humans are intelligent and
> adaptive. That we all have more than one sensory modality that we can use 
> to
> read and know if a word is spelled correctly. Also that we all tend to 
> favor
> one sensory modality over the others. And yes, some of us are "visual"
> learners, where some are hands-on, and some are auditory. Additionally, 
> our
> proficiency with any of these sensory modalities, our ability to read and
> spell is greatly impacted by how we have worked with and trained to use 
> our
> chosen mode of operating with that favored sense. Bottom-line, any and all
> of these sensory pathways will work; hopefully as we go through life, we
> have the opportunity to make use of our favorite sensory modality for all
> the tasks we find necessary to perform. And if we have to give up our
> favorite, either in part or in its entirety, then that we have the
> opportunity to learn how to make use of the next best pathway to reading
> and/or being able to continue on with our lives. (What is being said 
> between
> the line is - one group does not have it over the others! Second, there is
> much ignorance and with the consequence, there is too much discrimination
> that happens with all this going on.)
>
> (This past Saturday, I attended a meeting of the Nebraska Commission 
> Board,
> and there was a testimony by a first year college student who started out
> reading braille in elementary school; in later elementary classes, got a 
> new
> "Vision Teacher" and was switched to magnifying glasses that allowed her 
> to
> read 20 words per minute [with much eye strain and headaches]; in high
> school she got a different "Vision Teacher" and was switched back to 
> braille
> and now she reads at 485 words per minute.) And yea,  then was  , using
>
>
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