How Students Who Are Blind or Low Vision Read and Write
If your child has little or no usable vision, they will probably be learning to read and write in braille. Braille is a code—a system of dots representing the letters of the alphabet that your child can use to read independently and write down their own ideas. As with children learning to read and write print, instruction in braille will be a major part of your child’s education for the first few years of elementary school.
- Your child will need instruction from a teacher of students with visual impairments in reading and writing the braille code. Like students learning to read and write in print, your child will need braille instruction several days a week in the early elementary grades, if not every day.
- Braille materials must be available to your child at the same time as their classmates who are sighted get the information in print. Having materials read to your child because they are not available in braille is not a permanent solution and should not be an ongoing practice. Your child needs to read a lot of braille to become proficient.
- When your child writes his assignments in braille, the teacher of students with visual impairments will need to make it available to the teachers who don’t know braille. He or she should write out in print exactly what your child wrote in braille, including any mistakes, so that the classroom teacher can see the actual work.
To provide your child with access to information at a distance, such as assignments written on the chalkboard, the classroom teacher has several options.
- The teacher can provide your child a copy of the material on the board by giving it ahead of time to the teacher of students with visual impairments so he or she can produce it in braille for your child.
- The teacher can read aloud what he or she is writing on the board.
- If your child uses a computer, the teacher can provide an electronic file containing the material so your child can read it with synthetic speech software, which simulates speech.
There are a variety of tools for both reading and writing that are used by children who are blind. These might include the following.
- Perkins braillewriter (also referred to as a braillewriter): Similar in appearance and function to an old-fashioned manual typewriter, the braillewriter has six keys to emboss (press) dots on the page to form braille.
- Slate and stylus: A portable tool for writing braille. The slate and stylus is often used like a notepad to write down short messages, such as a telephone number, telephone message, or shopping list, or to produce labels for items such as DVDs or cereal boxes. It is typically introduced to children in the third or fourth grade.
- Personal digital assistant (PDA): A portable or electronic notetaker, a PDA is similar to a laptop computer without a screen. Using this device, your child can write with either a standard keyboard or a braille keyboard and can read material on the PDA by listening to it spoken aloud via synthetic speech or by reading braille on a refreshable braille display.
- Audiobooks: When there is a large volume of material to read, your child may find it beneficial to listen to it. Audio texts may be available on CD or, increasingly, in digital formats downloadable to a computer, PDA, or other device.
- Computer: Your child will probably learn to use a computer with some kind of assistive technology, such as a screen reader or refreshable braille to have direct access to text that is available in electronic files or on the Internet and a braille embosser to be able to have a hard copy of the work that was printed out in standard print for the teachers to read.
It is important that your child not rely on just one tool. Instead, the goal is for your child to be skilled in using a variety of tools so that they can pick the most appropriate tool for any given task that is needed to be completed.