I would say literacy is more a matter of how much time and effort you're willing to spend. Jaws can spell out any word for you and speak punctuation. Whenever I hear a name on the radio these days now that I am blind I do get curious as to its spelling, and I find knowing the spelling makes me remember words and names much better. You don't even need to know any fancy Jaws command to read letter by letter, just put the cursor at the beginning of the word and right arrow one by one. Jaws could be a way to increase literacy, if you're willing to take the time.
I don't do texting, but from what I understand nobody spells out words in texts, or intentionally misspells them, and these are mostly sighted people working in a purely visual medium. It's part of the times, not just a disease of the so-called illiterate blind. And I have heard some very good writers say they proofread their writing by reading it aloud. I certainly catch mistakes in my writing through Jaws' speech output. So to me, there's really no superiority or inferiority to learning language by writing, hearing, or feeling it. It's really more a question of do you have the motivation and energy to make the effort.
Michael Dave wrote:
Jerry,Good point. and to make another point that was mentioned in this forum, a very important aspect to learning and reading Braille is in learning how to spell.I've seen far too many posters on various lists for the blind who are writing at a 2nd grade level. It is clear to me that they are spelling strictly based on how a word sounds
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