Parent's Page

Parents' Page

This page is for information about braille written by and for parents of braille readers and braille readers-to-be. Please contribute anything you think may be helpful for other parents including things that didn't work. Some possible topics are:

your comments about this site
learning braille as a parent
reviews of braille-related software or hardware
braille experiences with teachers and other professionals
literacy ideas that have benefitted your children.

You can contribute by sending email to info@dotlessbraille.org. (This is also the address for other feedback about this site.) No names or email addresses will be included but you may identify yourself with a description if you'd like. Everything relevant will be posted with, perhaps, slight editorial changes.

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Jan. 4, 2002 This tip is from a teacher. When teaching a young child to recognize braille letters, start by brailling a whole line using just the letter a, i.e. dot 1. Then, to teach the next letter, braille some lines of a's with just one b in each line and have the child find the new letter.

Jan. 5, 2002 This tip for use with a blind kindergartner is from another teacher. She had the student make an alphabet book, along with the sighted students in the class who were using pictures, by using real objects. "Each week he would cut out his real object and paste it onto a piece of braille paper [brailled with the initial letter]. At the end of the year, I put the pages in a large-ring binder. It was a wonderful book for him." The link is to the teacher's alphabetized list of real objects that could be used in such a book plus larger objects that fit in a manipulative tub, "body parts, actions, animals, concepts of position, foods" and objects too large for a tub.

Mar. 7, 2002 Information from a parent. "[Our five-year old child's] TVI is relying heavily on The Mangold Developmental Program of Tactile Letter Perception and Braille Letter Recognition and we are very happy with it. It is available from Exceptional Teaching Aids. She also used a lot of the APH [American Printing House] prebraille materials such as Tactile Treasures and the On the Way to Literacy storybooks. I had a chance to preview the PREP program and the stories in it by Amanda Hall are adorable."

Mar. 7, 2002 More information from same parent. Literacy goals for a five-year old with low vision:

Will demonstrate braille readiness by tactually tracking a page of braille characters, identifying 2 dimensional shapes, identifying differences in a line of braille characters, and identifying matching braille characters when using braille literacy programs and teacher designed worksheets and games while working directly with her vision support teacher.
Will identify print and braille letters and numbers as well as braille composition signs when working directly with her vision support teacher.
Will demonstrate emerging writing skills by engaging in scribbling on the braille writer, indicating knowledge of the parts of the braille writer and writing 25% of all known letters and numbers. Print writing will correspond to braille writing using bold line paper and markers.

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