2013-02-05-Fun With Braille
Seminars@Hadley
Fun with Braille
Presented by
Susan Fisher
Sue Melrose
Moderated by
Doug Anzolvar
February 5, 2013
Doug Anzolvar
Welcome to today’s Seminars@Hadley. My name is Doug Anzolvar and I am the Dean of Educational Programs and Instructions here at the Hadley School. Today’s seminar topic is Fun with Braille. Now let me welcome today’s speakers, Susan Fisher and Sue Melrose. Susan Fisher has been an instructor for Hadley since 1981. Prior to joining Hadley, she taught students with visual impairments and blindness in the public schools. Susan has experienced teaching Braille at the university level.
Her passion for Braille began when as a teenager she was volunteering for a summer program for children with special needs, and was randomly paired with a young visually impaired girl. She enjoyed the experience tremendously and decided to make this her passion. Susan says that “It’s easy to promote and be passionate about Braille as literacy for all is extremely important.”
Sue Melrose has been blind since age two and a lifelong Braille user. She has worked at Hadley for the past 28 years, first as an access technology specialist and then for the past 18 years as an instructor. She currently teaches the Introduction to Braille and Contractive Braillecourse to professionals and family members, as well as the Internet Beyond the Basics to adult continuing education students.
Sue’s past work experience includes nursery school teacher at the Stanford University Lab School, a [VR] Counselor for the Department of Rehab Services, Texas and Access Technology Evaluator for the VA in California. One of her proudest accomplishments is raising a daughter who is now a junior at the university studying genetics. I’m going to hand the microphone over to Susan Fisher and she will get our seminar underway; Susan.
Susan Fisher
Thanks Doug. You know before we started this, formally started this seminar, some people will chatting amongst themselves and it crossed my mind I think that Sue, Doug and I are probably going to learn just as much as the rest of you. So, thank you for sharing. I’m going to talk about some educational items. The first few items that I’m going to mention are some of our favorites; they’re mostly for beginning Braille users. And these are the swing cell, the peg slate and the [papa] cell. All three are from the American Printing House for the Blind, and there’s going to be a resource list and all of the contact information will be included there.
The swing cell is a device that really helps students understand the relationship between the Braille cell and the keys on a Braille writer. So if you can picture a wooden rectangle with six pegs, there’s a vertical cut in the middle of the rectangle that allows it to swing open. When it swings open, it simulates the six keys on the Brailler and when it is closed it simulates the six dots of the Braille cell. So by changing the pegs in the six holes you can make letters and contractions in Braille.
The next one that I want to mention is called a peg slate, which motivates the use of the slate and stylus. So this is a paperless slate. It’s a frame with pegs that has 10 cells, and instead of your stylus, you use your finger to push the pegs down just like when you are writing with the slate, only using your fingers rather than a stylus. You then flip the peg slate over to read the Braille. And some of the suggested uses from students have been to keep by a telephone so that you can write down phone numbers; just to take little short notes, one or two word notes. You can keep this in your purse, in your briefcase.
The [papa] cell is a real popular item. It’s about two and a half inches by four inches; it’s like a cardboard large Braille cell. It has plastic cell dots that you pop to make characters. So this is a fun thing that you can again, stick in your purse, in your briefcase, even in your pocket and just practice Braille when you don’t have access to your Braille writer or a slate and stylus. Everybody loves stickers – students love stickers, children, even adults love stickers. And the American Printing House for the Blind sells all kinds of stickers.
They have number stickers. They have rewards stickers with words and phrases such as “excellent” and “way to go,” “marvelous,” “brilliant,” “fantastic”; and these are fun to put on papers. There are color word stickers and star stickers, smiley face stickers and common word stickers. And you can also make your own stickers. The American Printing Hose for the Blind sells pre-cut labels and also sheets that you can cut yourself and make your own stickers.
And did you know that you can draw with your Brailler? There is a book called So What About Drawing and also the Perkins School for the Blind has a book called Drawing With your Perkins Brailler. You can actually draw raised line pictures – a turkey, a pumpkin, a Christmas tree. And with Valentine’s Day right around the corner you can make your own Braille Valentine’s. You can learn how to make a picture of a Valentine heart.
One thing we like to do is to offer ways to remember some of the contractions and some of the letters that may be a little bit challenging of easy to confuse. And we have a list of pneumonics and other hints to help you remember these. For example, a lot of students confuse the letter E and the letter I. And the little hint here is that the letter I goes up high; the letter E comes down, weee.
For that four or five initial letter contractions there’s a little saying that’s “Upon my word these are those whose dots are for five.” And in that little saying you use all of the dots for five contractions. Are you familiar with the Braille date book? This is a very well-planned organizer with tabbed calendar pages and blank tab that a lot of our students have come to love and find it’s a good way to practice their Braille and again, be organized and plan ahead.
Joke books and riddle books are always fun for any age group. And it’s important to have a calendar. Those you can get for free from the American Action Fund. And those are on our resource list, information on how you can do that. Magazines – NLS has a magazine called Conundrum; this is a monthly magazine that has crosswords and logic puzzles, anagrams, word searches and general knowledge quizzes. And there’s a magazine called Stone Soup by Young Writers and Artists. This is a bi-monthly magazine that has stories and poems as well as illustrations and book reviews created by children through age 13. And it features an activity section with suggested related projects.
One of the most creative books I’ve seen is called Fun with Braille. This book is available in both print and in Braille from the American Printing House for the Blind. And this is designed for students who have been introduced to all of the contractions and short forms and read at least on the 4th grade level. One really nice feature, especially for teachers, is that this book includes an index of contractions that shows all the activities in which they appear. And it really is very creative, it’s very unique. It doesn’t have word searches and things like that, but things that are just very unique and things that I’ve never seen before.
Next couple of things I’m going to talk about are things that Hadley has to offer for you. For students who are currently or have completed our Braille literacy 4 course, or are enrolled or have completed experienced Braille reading, we have a game called Quick Pick, which again is from the American Printing House for the Blind, so this is a game for students who have been introduced to most, if not all of the Braille contractions and short forms. And we will loan this game to you upon request.
It comes with a case that had 50 cards representing the Braille contractions and short forms, and each card has three choices. So the contraction of the short form is an uncontracted Braille, underneath there’s three choice of what the contracted Braille is. And there’s a hole underneath each one of the choices. You put this wooden tool in the hole that gives you the correct answer, and if you can pull the card up and out your answer is a correct one. And this has really been a good tool for our students to practice and review the contractive Braille.
We offer a penpal program at Hadley. You must be able to read and write at least a paragraph or two, so that you can write to your penpal. But you can write in uncontracted Braille, you can write in contracted Braille or somewhere in between. And to participate in the penpal program please send me an email and I’ll give you the instructions on how we can do this. I will do my best to pair you up according to your Braille skills and your interest.
And don’t forget about our online office hours available to students current and past and anyone else who’s interested. Sharon Howerton runs office hours. I ran office hours. Sharon’s are based more for earlier on for the Braille, when you’re learning Braille; and mine are for a little bit more advanced Braille student. Sharon’s email is ; my email is and this will be included later in the resource list. So please join our online office hours.
We chat weekly about all things related to Braille and we really have a fun time. We share tips and tricks and joys as well as frustrations. So that’s another thing that Hadley is happy to offer to you. And Sue’s going to talk a little bit about Fun with Braillegames.
Sue Melrose
Okay, by the way we are going to be mentioning, and Sue has mentioned many things- we have a resource list which you can download once this seminar has been put on the website. And it has references to all of these things, so don’t go really crazy trying to take a lot of notes or remembering. I did just want to comment on that date book, because as a blind person I know a lot of us are pretty skeptical of calendars and we’ve tried everything.
I can tell you this one is very uniquely done; it’s got a calendar date for each month with dividers for each month. And then it’s got tabs both across the top and across the sides, so that you really can very quickly put in appointments and things and find them. it’s one of the most unique calendars for blind that I’ve seen in hard copy.
But what I want to talk about games – ones you can purchase, or you can adapt your own or you can make your own. So I’m going to discuss each of those. I’m going to give you some sample prices just so that you have a ball game figure of what they cost, but like anything, when you get on the internet to order a game or you get on the phone compare prices. Believe it or not there are many resources; we’ve listed probably eight or ten of them in our resource list that sell games for the blind that are adapted and the prices vary. So like anything, as a good consumer you want to look around and compare prices.
The most common game that everyone knows about are various card games. Now you can buy these almost any website that has adapted material for the blind, and the card games might include just a regular deck, some may have large numbers. There are Rook card games and Uno; there’s probably, I think I saw about 12 different card games that you can purchase already Brailled for you.
But I warn you right away, card games are one of the most easily adapted of your own. You can simply put the card into the slate, turn it face down, Braille the number in the slate in the top right corner, turn the card around and Braille it again in the other top right corner. So when you flip it over you’ve got the number in each of the corners just as it is in print. And this is simple to do, even the [other] games that have words on the cards, you can Braille your own words.
But when you do that of course, things like the Jack and the Queen and the King, they’re J, Q and K, and the number 10 usually we put X, so that we keep the numbers just one cell, and then you put D, H, S or C if they’re club, hearts, diamonds or spades. My family has, we’ve been playing pinochle since I was about eight years old, so we’re a card playing family and I know I just buy my cards at the local store. But there also is a volunteer group in Carson City where you can order plain decks of playing cards for free; they’ll give you as many as you order, and they Braille them and send them out and cards are donated by the casinos.
So that’s on the resources list; you can simply email them and tell them how many decks you’d like and they’ll send you regular decks of playing cards. If you want a specialized deck, get on the internet and search out “Braille playing cards” and you’ll find any number of games. But again, think about Brailling your own because you will save quite a bit of money. I’ve found that most playing card decks on the internet, if they’re like Rook or one of the games, they run you $13 to $16.
You can also find, if you’re a poker player you can find wooden marked poker chips on the internet, with each different color has a different mark on it. And you can find Bingo games, of course. They have plastic cards all molded with the numbers and letters on the cards, so you can play Bingo. And most of them have indented, where the letters are they’re indented so that you can put your chip or whatever down into a little indented hole so that they don’t move around as you read your card. And they run, you know, $13 or something for a set of three, so that’s not bad.
Of course a lot of games take dice, and there’s all kinds of ways to Braille dice. Many of us just use commercial dice because the holes in them we can feel, but some prefer raised dots. For low vision people there are dice with bigger, darker dots; so there’s all kinds of those adaptions as well. There’s fancy teak wooden dice, plastic ones, and again they range from just a couple of dollars to more.
Here’s the Yahtzee came that’s online and it’s available for about $14, and of course it’s mostly dice, so there you go. There’s Domino’s; I happen to like to play Domino’s and there’s double six and doubles nines and various things. Most of them have raised dots on them. I like to play with the magnetic Domino’s and I play on a metal tray, so that they are so strong that they will not move when you touch them. There are other Domino’s though that have skid proof stuff on the bottom so they don’t slide around.
And oftentimes when I’m playing games that require blocks of things to be set out on the table so that they might move around, I’ll just put down, you can buy it at the hardware store, it’s that kind of bumpy rubber that’s used for [felt] covers in the cupboards to keep things from moving around; well they also keep your Domino’s or your tiles or whatever from moving around. So all [people] at the table can play.
Alright, they also [do] books for dance card games and other games on the internet for sale in Braille. And I was surprised, they don’t really cost much - $8 to $15, so check that out. For those who like chess there are wooden chess sets and they run between $20 and $40 depending on how fancy you want to get. By the way, I’ll tell you at Hadley here we have a course for playing chess. And if you pass the first course, I think there are two of them, if you pass the first one I believe you do get a chess set.
There are checkers and there’s travel checkers; again, $20. Chinese checkers, [Nine Men Morris] which is kind of a checker game if I remember right, Othello, Parcheesi, Connect Four, Backgammon, so all those kind of games are again, they’ve labeled the checkers with Braille dots or in some cases actually, like in chess they’ve labeled the characters, marked the boards. Usually you have squares again that are indented so that your pieces fit down into a square so that they’re not easily moved; nicely done.