Six Sensational Dots: Braille Literacy for Sighted Classmates
By Swenson, Anna M.; Cozart, Nancy; Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, Vol. 104, No. 2, pp. 119-123Publication Date: February 2010
Article describes ways of integrating the teaching and practice of Braille in a classroom with blind as well as sighted children. The role of the blind classmate as mentor to his or her sighted peers is discussed, as are the potential outcomes of learning Braille for sighted children, including acquired knowledge of the history of the Braille code; an understanding of the structure of the Braille cell and the ways of producing letters, words, numbers, and punctuation marks; and the building of social and communicative bridges between blind and sighted classmates. Braille literacy activities in the classroom for sighted students suggested include (1) reading readiness activities such as those included in Touch and Tell, which involve the practice of tactile discrimination of Braille letters; (2) teachers’ and mentors’ use of large magnetic dots for displaying letter and number configurations, and students’ use of small magnetic dots on magnetic boards or dried beans glued onto construction paper with the aid of a cardboard template for spelling practice; (3) a transcriber center in the classroom, where talented Braille students can work independently, or cooperatively with a blind classmate; and (4) a slate-and-stylus center with inexpensive materials such as the Plastic Pocket Slate or the Janus Interline Slate Kit available from the American Printing House for the Blind. An additional resource mentioned is The Braille Trail: An Activity Book by the authors of the article.
Assistive Products Discussed: BRAILLE TRAIL: AN ACTIVITY BOOK
TOUCH AND TELL (MODEL 6-44670-00)
INTERPOINT POCKET SLATE KIT (MODEL 1-00081-00) & INTERPOINT POCKET SLATE (MODEL 1-00081-01)
Published by: AFB Press (Website:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=46)
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) (Web Site: http://www.afb.org )
This publication is included in the library of the National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC), accession number J58512
