[blindkid] Grade 2 vs. Grade 1 Braille

Carol Castellano carol_castellano at verizon.net
Thu Mar 22 16:41:38 UTC 2012


Hi Tina,

This does seem ridiculous.  Since everything in the IEP is supposed 
to be based on evaluations and observations, would it be possible to 
test him reading Gr. 1 Braille and then Gr. 2 Braille, showing he is 
faster in Gr. 2?  Same for spelling--give a test that will show that 
he functions better using Gr. 2.  Why this would even have to be 
proved is beyond me.  Are we sure that the teachers know Gr. 2?

Carol

Carol Castellano
President, Parents of Blind Children-NJ
Director of Programs
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
973-377-0976
carol_castellano at verizon.net
www.blindchildren.org
www.nopbc.org

At 01:37 AM 3/22/2012, you wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>what is the best strategy to persuade our I.E.P. team to put it in writing
>that the classroom teacher need to start doing grade 2 braille only when
>it comes to braille lesson time.
>   My son had been taught contracted braille since he was in 3rd to 5th
>grade (He was using Mount Batton, Braille n Speak and other Brailler but
>he types and read grade 2 level ) but we have moved from 2 different
>districts because of safety concerns, even though Justin was receiving
>great Braille lessons from his first public school system, they did not
>allow him to have 1:1 aide when he desperately needed one due to his
>epileptic episodes and being autistic and non verbal, he kept falling
>and they did not address the autism issues so he often took off from the
>playground and fell many times and hit his head, that school would send
>him home with blood on his face and shirt and they did not even bother
>to take him to the nurse to clean up, and I never got phone call to pick
>him up early. So we moved to a different district then, that school
>refused to give him braille lessons saying he tested super low on IQ
>test and it turned out that they never gave him appropriate test so the
>test was designed to fail him purposely, and so now we got him to go to
>a vision program out of district and out of our region since we win the
>case that he can read and write braille. I had to give him private
>braille lessons for 2 years, taking him half day out of school to do
>that.
>
>Now we got another battle, the new 9th grade vision program also is saying
>that there is no time to teach Justin to Grade 2 Braille, they said the
>reason they need him to only do Grade 1 is for him to make sure he learn
>how to spell.  Justin has excellent spelling ability ( about 90%
>accuracy), I taught him spelling since he was 2 years old using speech
>output computers from V tech and when he got older we switched to computer
>program with NVDA, sample jaws etc..
>We have no problem with his spelling, he is 16 years old now, he got
>plenty of time before he become a Senior and he is a quick learner and had
>not forgotten some of the contractions, granted that he still need to
>learn and memorize about 30 more left.
>
>How can I convince them to give it a shot at Grade 2, since now when he
>typed at home, he is typing and reading contracted Braille but all notes
>coming back from his classroom were done in Grade 1 only. He is now
>confused. I have 3 staffs who worked on braille on hourly base from Mon to
>Fri and he always typed contracted Braille with them and on weekends, when
>I do Braille lessons, he typed Grade 2. As soon as he is in classroom, he
>switched to grade 1 and that is bugging me.  This is not good for totally
>blind kid, who already was exposed to Grade 2 now, we are going backwards.
>  As far as spelling is concerned they can test his spelling ability on his
>speech output "Fusion" device which he use to communicate with staffs and
>classmates.  I am very satisfy with all the other services that the vision
>program is offering except I disagree about teaching him only grade 1
>Braille which is a big problem.  The TVI who did Functional Vision
>Assessment also agrees with me that Justin should be encourage only to
>type, read and continue to learn Grade 2,( she came in via phone since she
>lives 3 hours away,) on the last year IEP when he transition from 8th
>grade to 9th.
>
>Any suggestions?  Our next IEP is on April 9th.
>
>Thanks so much,
>
>Tina Egle
>
>
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