the braille pals buzz september

							                      The Braille Pals Buzz
                                  The Braille Pals Buzz
                                   Volume 1, Issue 6


             What's Buzzing with the NFB Braille Reading Pals Team?

We need your feedback. The revamped NFB Braille Reading Pals Club has been
going on for six months and we want to hear from you. What are your suggestions for
improvements to the program? What questions do you have about literacy for your
child that you want us to answer? What portions of the e-newsletter do you find most
useful? Please send answers to these questions and/or any other comments to
BrailleReadingPals@nfb.org.


                              Literacy Hints from the Hive

            Practical and simple tips to foster a love of literacy in your child

Tips for Reading with Toddlers

Here are excellent pre-reading tips that can apply to all toddlers, blind or sighted. After
displaying the tips, you will find some simple adaptations you can make from these
suggestions for your blind toddler. The following information is taken directly from
Toddlers Get Ready to Read: How Parents Can Help Their Toddler Get Ready to
Read. (Shining Stars, National Institute for Literacy, April 2007)

Checklist for Parents of Infants & Toddlers

Here are some ways you can help your child "get ready to read" during the ages of 2
and 3.

    I read with my child every day, even if it's only for a few minutes.
    I encourage my child to bring his favorite books to me so that we can read
     together.
    I point to pictures and name them out loud, and encourage my child to point to
     pictures while we read.
    I watch to see if my child sometimes makes eye contact with me when I read
     aloud. That tells me she is paying attention to me and the story.
    I talk with my child throughout the day about things we are doing and things that
     are happening around us.
    I try to be patient when my child wants to read the same book over and over
     again.
    I encourage my child to "play" with books--pick them up, flip them from front to
     back, and turn the pages.
    Sometimes I listen when my child "pretends" to read a book--he holds the book,
     goes from page to page, and says words, even though they're not the words on
     the page.
    I give my child paper and crayons so she can scribble, make pictures, and
     pretend to write.

If you want to read the rest of the publication, go to
http://www.nifl.gov/publications/html/shiningstarstoddlers/toddlers.html

Only three of the tips listed above need to be adapted for blind children. Here are some
suggestions.
   “I point to pictures and name them out loud, and encourage my child to point to
      pictures while we read.”

Adaptation: I use books with tactile pictures and encourage my child to place her
fingers on the tactile picture while I name the picture out loud for her. I repeat words in
the story to emphasize them. I also show my child objects to represent the pictures
when possible, especially when I am reading from a book which does not contain
tactile graphics.

    “I watch to see if my child sometimes makes eye contact with me when I read
     aloud. That tells me she is paying attention to me and the story.”

Adaptation: I watch to see if my child is exploring the book and its pages with her
fingers. I listen for her to give me verbal or other cues. I listen for my child to repeat
some of the words I say. I watch to see if my child faces me while I am reading, or
turns her head towards me to hear better.

    “I give my child paper and crayons so she can scribble, make pictures, and
     pretend to write.” I give my child a slate and stylus so she can scribble, make
     pictures, and pretend to write.

Adaptation: I give my child a slate and stylus or allow her to "draw" with a Braillewriter
so she can scribble, make pictures, and pretend to write or draw. Coloring with crayons
can also be fun for blind children. To accommodate for this, I place a piece of screen
underneath a piece of paper and allow my child to color or scribble on this. The screen
makes the wax from the crayons more tactile on the paper so my child can feel what
she has drawn. I also put Braille labels on her crayons so she can learn the different
names of colors. (Note: sometimes you can find crayons which are flat on one side,
these work best for displaying Braille labels. Otherwise, you can attach a piece of
string with a Braille label hanging from it.)

The important thing to remember is that your blind children can benefit from the same
good pre-literacy strategies that are used with sighted children. Sometimes it just takes
thinking creatively about how to help your children access the world around them in a
more meaningful way.

Sweet Sweet Braille

Watch this video from the CBS Evening News to see an example of the struggle to get
schools to teach our children Braille and how parents are working to fight this battle to
provide literacy for their children.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6753244n

Buzzes and Tweets

Follow NFB_Voice on Twitter to get news and information from the National Federation
of the Blind.

Follow BrailleLiteracy on Twitter to get timely Braille news, information, and tips.

Braille Bee Book Review

Each month we feature a Braille book review by a parent, a blind person, or a
blindness professional. Is there a book you would like to review? Please send your
review to BrailleReadingPals@nfb.org.
This month’s review was written by Carlton Anne Cook Walker. She is the mother of a
nine-year-old blind daughter and is a Teacher of Students Who are Blind/Visually
Impaired in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. She is also a licensed attorney who
maintains a small solo practice. Carlton serves as second vice-president of the
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children, as president of the Pennsylvania
Parents of Blind Children, and as a board member on the Pennsylvania Advisory
Committee for Blind Persons.

Time for Bed
     Mem Fox
     www.seedlings.org
     $7.00

This is a wonderful bedtime book to share with your child. It utilizes repetition and
rhyme to create a calming and loving bedtime environment. The first half of the book
contains two line rhymes such as, “It’s time for bed, little foal, little foal/I’ll whisper a
secret, but don’t tell a soul.” Midway through the book, the opening of the rhyme
changes to “It’s time to sleep,” thus signaling to the child that the book is nearing its
end. The vocabulary of the book is accessible to small children, but it is not “dumbed
down.” I particularly appreciate this more robust vocabulary in books for infants.

Time for Bed lends itself quite well to interaction between the caregiver reading the
book and the child. The quoted text above allows for a secret to be shared. I could
always stop reading, bend down, and whisper in my daughter’s ear, “I love you.” While
this is not a true secret, the surrounding behavior evokes the idea of a secret. (I chose
to use a non-secret because I did not want to excite my daughter at bedtime.)
Additionally, because this book includes many different animal references, it provides
openings to take daytime activities and relate them back to the book–thus providing
another learning opportunity.

Questions for the Queen Bee

Q: My child wants to color just like her sighted siblings. Are there coloring books for
blind kids?

A: Yes. There are tactile coloring books and you can buy them from the Independence
Market. You can also make pictures tactile by putting the picture face down on a piece
of leather, foam paper, or even a mouse pad and using a tracing wheel to trace around
the picture. This will make the picture tactile. This works especially well when you’re at
a restaurant with pictures/place mats for the kids to color. The ideas stated above in
this newsletter about using a piece of screen can also make coloring more enjoyable
for your child.

Q: My child’s doctor told me that he really doesn’t need to learn Braille because he still
has “too much vision.” Should I keep teaching him Braille?

A: Yes. Your child’s vision may change. Also, as your child gets older, there will be a
lot more reading and the print will be smaller. Braille is more efficient than trying to
figure out the perfect magnifications, lighting, and other variables that your child may
need to read print. Your child could learn both print and Braille and be a dual-media
reader. Read the article “Print or Braille? Megan Reads Both” by Marla Palmer that
was published in Future Reflections, our magazine for parents of blind children, about
one parent’s experience with teaching her daughter both print and Braille.

Books for Busy Bees
Sighted children have access to print books all around them. It is important to offer our
blind children the same exposure. Here are several sources for obtaining Braille
books.
The Braille Storybook Resources page has a comprehensive list of sources for Braille
books.

NFB ShareBraille
NFB ShareBraille is a free service that facilitates the exchange of Braille books through
a community-run library. Go online to trade your Braille books or to request books
from other NFB ShareBraille users.


American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults (AAF)
Free Braille Books Program
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, MD 21230
(410) 659-9314, extension 2287 * Fax (410) 659-5129
E-mail: action@actionfund.org
Selected popular children’s reading series (currently Jigsaw Jones Mystery® chapter
books for grades 2-4; Matt Christopher sports books for grades 5 and up and Sampler
set of chapter books from four different series including SpongeBob SquarePants®,
Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist, My Weird School, and Ready Freddy) are available
free to blind children, teachers, libraries, etc. The books are mailed out every month so
that blind children can have them at the same time that sighted children can buy the
books in the bookstore.

NFB Independence Market
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, MD 21230
Phone: (410) 659-9314, ext. 2216
Fax: (410) 685-2340
E-mail: IndependenceMarket@nfb.org
The National Federation of the Blind Independence Market offers blindness-related
literature, resources, and products as a service to individuals who are blind or
experiencing vision loss, to their friends and families, and to the general public.


        The NFB Braille Reading Pals Club is organized in partnership with the
            National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC).

                          NFB Braille Reading Pals Club
                Jernigan Institute, National Federation of the Blind
           200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place, Baltimore, MD 21230
   (410) 659-9314   Fax: (410) 659-5129       E-mail: BrailleReadingPals@nfb.org
                              Visit us at www.nfb.org