[ebooktalk] Re: Learning and teaching Braille.
- From: "Elaine Harris \(Rivendell\)" <elaineharris@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ebooktalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:27:04 +1000
Thank you, Clare; I feel vindicated and as angry as you are; didn't know
that about Braille music but should not have been surprised. It just fills
me with impotent fury!
Yes, I slow down when reading aloud, too, though not always consciously.
Chris often likes to watch telly or a DVD when we're having a sandwich or
something. I won't read on the BrailleNote while eating so often read a
Braille book if the telly is of no interest.
This also reminded me of when someone out here developed - before computers-
a sort of immediate transcription device; the Perkins sat on top of it and
as you wrote in Braille, it produced a print copy. Mine came out only
semi-literate and they told me I had obviously made mistakes. I hadn't; I
wrote too quickly for the device. I was also accused, light-heartedly, of
having a recording of someone brailing in my room and playing it back at
double-speed when training with my second Guide dog; they had never heard
anyone write so quickly here.
Okay, David, sorry; the very tenuous connection with books is that my very
first short stories were composed using a Perkins and one of the poems made
it into an anthology in 2007.
Elaine
-----Original Message-----
From: ebooktalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ebooktalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Clare Gailans
Sent: Tuesday, 30 April 2013 7:00 PM
To: ebooktalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ebooktalk] Re: Learning and teaching Braille.
Elaine, couldn't agree more. Braille is the single most important inanimate
thing in my life. I think a huge amount of harm has been done by the
reluctance of blind charities to acknowledge that the lack of braille skills
is illiteracy. If these people had really listened to professional readers,
they couldn't fail to notice that they almost always read more slowly than
they could. I consciously slow myself down when reading aloud, because it is
quite uncomfortable to listen to someone reading as fast as the words are
going into their brain. If you think the braille outlook is depressing, the
braille music one is worse. Even in a school for the blind, I have met a
teacher who had been the music teacher for five years and hadn't (got round)
to learning braille music. One very able pupil who was felt to need it was
passed on to a retired teacher for email help. Sorry for getting away from
books, but I often sit with a braille book in company, where it would be
anti-social to use headphones, and you couldn't dip in and out of the
conversation. Clare
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