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Scribbling with Braille: A 4 year old begins to write his own stories

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Kohl checking his braille

Checking the braille

Kohl is learning to read and write braille. Using a Perkins brailler, Kohl is exploring how to make the patterns of dots on paper that make up letters and words to tell his stories.

Mark Tweedale (BLENNZ Resource Teacher Vision) describes how the education team have introduced the brailler into Kohl’s literacy toolkit and the importance of “scribbling” as a stepping stone to brailing accurate letter shapes.

Mark also describes the introductory activities Kohl has participated in to build his finger strength and gain an understanding of the physical shape and functions of each part of the Perkins brailler.

Getting ready for reading and writing using braille

Kohl picking up marbles from marble tower

Figure 1 Marble tower

As Kohl needs strong hands and fingers to use a brailler, we planned lots of hand and finger strengthening activities into Kohl’s kindergarten programme such as:

  • using his hands/fingers to explore the images in collage books,
  • using pegs to increase the fine motor movement in his hands,
  • unscrewing the lids from jars,
  • playing with playdough.

We did laterality games for Kohl to learn left, right, up and down.

As there is print everywhere in our sighted environment, we included braille labels on Kohl’s everyday, personal objects, such as his lunchbox and bottle.

We put a Braille label over his coat peg so he begins to understand that braille can be used to name and describe places and objects.

Getting familiar with the Perkins brailler

Figure 2 Using the new line key

Kohl has learned that the machine he uses is called a brailler, that paper goes inside it and braille dots can be fashioned onto the paper by pressing certain keys.

He knows that the paper comes out of the machine as each new line of braille is formed (Figure 2).

Figure 3 Moving the foot of the brailler

Kohl knows about the bell and that it rings when he is getting close to the end of a line.

Kohl has used all the keys on the brailler as well as the lever for moving the braille foot (Figure 3).

Figure 4 Brailling with both hands

Kohl can write lines of certain cells such as a line of  ‘c’ (braille dots 2 and 5) as in figure 4.

When Kohl uses the brailler we refer to it as writing a story and encourage him to tell us what he is writing about.

Figure 5 Feeling the braille produced

Kohl is making the link between the spoken and written word.

He shares the brailler with others and they produce braille too.

Kohl will use the brailler for about 10 to 15 mins before winding the paper right out and saying ‘finished!’.

Next steps for Kohl

  • Kohl will need to increase the strength in his hands in order for him to press more than two keys at a time.
  • As the Perkin’s brailler requires significant finger strength and a wide hand span we may also investigate introducing a Mountbatten brailler as this requires a lighter touch. We will still keep using the Perkins though, as it is a great back up.
  • To build on Kohl’s number skills we will begin to name the 6 braille keys and start to talk about the dots 1-6 that make up each braille dot pattern.
  • Kohl will continue tracking activities. These are lines of braille which have ‘holes’ in them (a space) and/or a tactile reward at the end, like a fuzzy sticker.

Teaching and learning strategies and adaptations

  • Kohl has had many collage books and has explored these with staff and children alike. He listens to stories in print which obviously don’t have the tactile pictures.
  • He has used lots of the toys at the play centre which didn’t need any adaptation for him to benefit from them. He has also used specialist tactile resources from the visual resource centre such as tactile matching games, threading games, musical toys and drawing board.
  • Kohl has had lots of hand under hand experiences to encourage Kohl to reach out and explore tactually. We have used a verbal explanation of the objects to support his exploration when it has been appropriate.
  • Everyone working alongside Kohl needs to share the expectations that he would need encouragement and time to explore and persevere with the tactile activities.

Useful links

More information

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