Thank you. This is precisely the kind of information/reminder that I need. Jack had a well-meaning but ineffective TVI. She had no clue what to do about helping him learn braille. His teacher and I labeled the classroom for the most part but I have noticed that a lot of those labels have come down. They are moving to a new classroom soon so I will need to relabel anyway.
Thanks for giving me lots to think about!
Marie
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org>
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2010 16:13:44
To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,\(for parents of blind children\)<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] braille learning as fun!
He could be feeling the dots but not associating any meaning with them
yet. How often does he encounter braille? Does he have a TVI, or any
other braille support?
I'm sure I can come up more suggestions but the first thing that comes
to mind is that Stephanie (my wife) for most of Kendra's Kindergarten
would put a braille "word of the day" in her lunch box every day. They
started off simple but got rather elaborate. Stephanie did more than I
did but we'd take turns. (I WILL brag and mention that the fancier
ones were usually mine! LOL) We'd use card stock and cut things out,
sometimes adding extra parts on with tape, etc. I recall a guitar with
rubber-band strings attached and a harp (similar design). We'd make
cut-outs of people (Mommy, Daddy, her Sister or Brother, etc.) and
various animals as well as just circles or squares or triangles when
we'd be running behind or out of ideas. Any object or shape you can
think of and fabricate will do. After many months, we had to struggle
at times to come up with a new word idea ("didn't we do that
before?!!") , but every day in her lunchbox, a new word appeared.
Sometimes she would want to know it in advance but we'd try to keep it
a surprise... They all came home and went into a place where she could
explore her growing batch of words...
Remember, print is everywhere and kids with even moderate vision
quickly figure our that it means something. My daughter has no vision
at all so she only ran across conventional print when it was raised
(less common obviously). The thing potential braille readers need
first is to run across incidental braille all over their home and
school like sighted kids do with print-- if he can't see enough to
know about signs as you drive down the road, tell him they're out
there and what they're for. Later, he'll be asking you how you know
some things and you can tell him, there are print letters I can read
on that sign, just like you read braille signs with your fingers. We
make a big point of reminding Kendra she has the power to read, just
like we do-- she just reads a different format than we do. Before you
know it, you'll probably be asking him to read things to you that are
in braille only, even if you learn to read braille because he'll be so
much better at it than you are!
Kendra will be 8 in a few months and we still have braille labels
stuck all over the house with object names-- Door, Oven, Drawer,
Dishwasher, Bed, Chair, Bathroom, Bedroom, and on and on-- when kids
fingers keep finding the braille, they'll want to know what it means--
why is it there? Once they find out one of those sets of bumps are the
names of the things, then they'll most likely want to know what the
next set means. Also, your child's name may quickly have meaning in
Braille if his name starts showing up on many of his things where he
can feel it. You can stick braille dymo labels on toys and games-- use
clear to preserve readable print.
Twin vision books are also very useful early on-- you can read the
print (perhaps he can too?) and he can explore the braille as well.
Sighted kids do the same thing-- they look at print before they have
any idea what the words really are as you read them books, right? It
is the same with braille.
I'll try and post more ideas later, and no doubt others have many good
ideas as too. If he's in school, you'll definitely want a lot of
braille there as well-- all over the classroom. We even had the bus
number on the door of her school bus in braille so she could confirm
her bus number for herself.
My wife wrote a great article on Kendra's year in Kindergarten, that
was two years ago now. Have you read that? There are probably some
useful ideas there for you. I don't have it right here, but I can find
the link and send it to you if you like.
Please feel free to contact me off the list for more detailed
discussion as well if you want.
Richard
On Jun 8, 2010, at 3:21 PM, Marie wrote:
> Hey Richard, can you give me some ideas of things that you did to make
> learning Braille fun for Kendra. Jack needs letters 2 to 3 inches
> high for
> near vision so I am definitely thinking he needs to learn Braille
> and have
> put Braille in his environment with labels and such and we have
> Braille-Print books. However he is VERY attracted to print but
> Braille does
> not seem to mean anything to him yet. It may have to do with (lack of)
> fingertip sensitivity (have no idea how sensitive they are since he
> is still
> learning to talk and this would be a difficult concept to discuss
> with any 5
> yr old). He wants signs read to him and he tries to spell ALL the
> time.
> Ideas?
>
> Marie (mother of Jack, born May 2005)
> Check out our blog at http://www.allaccesspasstojack.blogspot.com for
> glimpses into our busy life with a boy who is busy growing and
> developing in
> his own way in his own time
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindkid-
> bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Richard Holloway
> Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 11:48 AM
> To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)
> Subject: [blindkid] Wii Thoughts
>
> I'm wondering if any of us has actually had "hands on" this device,
> and who among us has actually seen that video or had it described to
> us...
>
> From what I can discern, this "electronic cane" is basically a fairly
> conventional cane with a chunk in the middle that has been replaced by
> a pair of shafts with what appears to be some sort of a motion-sensing
> device that hangs between the the shafts. I suspect it would feel like
> a slightly awkward and heavier-than-usual cane. This is not some crazy
> alternative-to a-cane contraption. It is also (from what I can tell)
> FAR closer to a typical cane than the Wii Guitar is to an actual
> guitar, for whatever that may be worth. Despite it's similarity with a
> "proper" cane, it also does not appear to be offered as a replacement
> to a cane in any way.
>
> My guess is that (much like with the knfb reader) among so many other
> pieces of technology, over time the device would shrink and could
> ultimately feel (and in fact be) a typical cane that happens to offer
> the features of a Wii input device as well. (Perhaps you could even
> attach a small device around a personal cane for this at some point.)
>
> I keep hearing so much apprehension and resistance to what this device
> claims to offer but no evidence that it really won't work or certainly
> anything that shows this to be detrimental to cane travelers' skills.
> What I did hear however, is that it apparently has inspired and
> pleased a number of the kids who have been trying it out. Again, I'm
> not picking up an anything bad there. I hear that some people
> apparently think learning to use a cane should NOT be fun. Well, let
> me tell you-- if my daughter thinks something is fun, she's going to
> do it a lot more often and a lot better than something she dislikes
> and I'm suspecting this is not unique to Kendra. In my experience,
> Kendra really enjoys reading and writing braille. She has fun doing it
> now, because she actually had fun learning to read braille and it has
> nearly always been associated with positive experiences for her. Many
> of the ways she learned to read were very much game-like, Now she
> reads several years ABOVE grade level and she's only just finished
> first grade. Does anyone want to suggest to me that while it is okay
> if she enjoys reading NOW, she should NOT have enjoyed LEARNING to
> read? Does that make sense to anyone?
>
> I was recently looking at a braille compass in a store. Then I saw an
> electronic compass. I don't know how well it works, but the concept is
> interesting. So consider this-- put the electronic compass into a cane
> which tells you which way you're pointing at will. Or why not a GPS in
> a cane? Does that sound excessive or overly complicated? Well it may
> be, but what is much more likely is that things like this Wii cane
> could develop into something like a conventional cane (or cane
> attachment) with a bluetooth interface that could send whatever data
> the sensors in the cane are made to pickup, then you could interface
> that with whatever you wanted-- a compass system, a GPS, or probably
> any number of other devices.
>
> There was a time when telephones were not mobile, then some people had
> the "crazy" idea of putting them in cars and then briefcases. Those
> became "bag phones" that became the "brick" cell phones which became
> pocket sized phones like many of us have now. Ultimately, a pocket
> phone can encompass everything from a PDA to a GPS system to a knfb
> reader and who knows what else?
>
> It looks to me like the Wii system, in many ways is actually at least
> part of something somewhat like a simulator for cane travel. You can
> actually travel with it (at least a bit) but not in a "real world"
> environment. Well, the simulator concept is a proven one. People learn
> to do all sorts of things in them all over the world. Often it keeps
> them safe, makes learning faster, and saves time and money. Again, I
> have trouble seeing the down side. Every time I get on a airplane, I'm
> delighted to know the pilot may have spent a lot of time in a
> simulator AS WELL AS actually flying. All of that is hopefully keeping
> me safer in the air!
>
> The NFB really is working towards cars that would be reasonable for
> blind people to drive on their own. Not just an autonomous vehicle a
> blind person could own and ride in, but one that my child might be
> able to get in and drive on her own one day. It troubles me to observe
> other bashing ideas that may not only be useful and helpful right now,
> but which may very well lead to all sorts of additional helpful
> technologies for all of our kids in the future. I hope we can all keep
> this in mind when we're exploring and discussing new developments in
> technology.
>
> Once upon a time someone came up with a strange and awkward concept
> for sending messages that could be read in the dark in combat areas.
> It didn't work very well at all and it needed a lot of refining. I
> expect many people thought it was a ridiculous concept, and a waste of
> time, but today I don't think so many of us would announce that
> Braille is a foolish or useless invention.
>
> Just my thoughts on the matter.
>
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