At Your Fingertips: Increasing Your Braille Reading Speed

Hey, everyone, it's Chris.

And welcome back to at yout Fingertips Braille, Then and now. I have a topic for you today that I hope will be really encouraging. And I want to offer this to.

People who are just starting to learn.

To read braille and people in the.

Midst of their braille journey, and then perhaps people who have been reading for.

Quite a long time. So I was thinking about increasing your braille reading speed.

Now, if that sounds intimidating, do hang.

In there with me, because I have some things that I think will be really helpful and that you would find pleasurable in doing that. So I was looking up a few.

Resources, and one study I came across.

Was written by folks from the American.

Foundation for the Blind and the American Printing House. And it was a study done in the late 60s.

And I thought, well, you know, this is kind of old stuff, almost 60 years old. What can we learn? And then I found a more recent.

Article, also by Judy Dixon. So I wanted to bring a few thoughts to you and see if they.

Would be helpful to encourage you in your braille journey. So, interestingly enough, this study that was published in 1969 studied various Braille readers.

In the school grades, so maybe our fourth grade through high school years here.

In the U.S. and while I didn't.

Read the whole study, I did take away a few really important tidbits that I thought were helpful.

One of the things that I read in the study is that readers who examined a character or a word that had dots mostly in the top of the cell, so maybe dots one and four, they were able to recognize those letters or words more quickly. And dots that were red or that.

Occurred in the bottom part of the cell were recognized more slowly. So that got me to thinking about.

Why that might be. And so when I taught a braille class last year to our unmute group, I talked about keeping a flat finger and making sure that you're reading with.

Your finger pad and also that you.

Read with a light touch. So as I instruct my students as well, I do tell them that if.

Your finger isn't flat, you're going to.

Miss dots 3 or dots 6 at.

The bottom of the cell.

So you might think that an M.

Is really a C if your finger.

Is not positioned in a way that you can take in that whole letter. So while you're laying your finger on.

The letter, feeling dots 1, 3, and.

4 without scrubbing up and down on the letter is really the best practice.

And of course, using a light touch is also awesome as well. And so they did Find that people.

Who read words that had a higher incidence of dots in the bottom of the cell maybe had a slower time. And I suspect that's because they were not keeping their finger flat. Also, if words were unfamiliar, people who felt more comfortable with braille uncontracted braille.

Read the words more easily if it.

Was uncontracted than if the word that was unfamiliar was contractions. And then of course, those folks that.

Felt more comfortable with contracted braille, maybe it didn't matter so much, but unfamiliar.

Words were easier for more beginning braille readers to read if they were all spelled out. And that being said, I also. Those were a few takeaways from that study.

I also read an article by a.

Gentleman who taught at the Louisiana School for the Blind, or Center for the Blind rather, and he was talking about this two handed reading technique. Now, I wasn't taught to read with.

Two hands by anyone in particular. I just did it naturally.

And I'm a lifelong braille reader. So what I did sort of instinctively was in, of course, reading paper braille, because we didn't have braille displays in about 1970 when I was learning braille, but using two hands, I would start the line with my left hand, I would finish it with my right hand. And then while the right hand was finishing, I was going down to the next line to find the next line.

Itself so I could continue reading fluently. And this is called the scissors technique, apparently.

So it's kind of like left, right, move your left, read the first part of the line to with your left hand, finish it with your right hand.

Move your left hand down so you're in constant motion.

And while that sounds really daunting, you could do a little exercise.

If you have access to a Perkins.

Braillewriter, you could have fun banging out a bunch of lines of, let's say.

G's or X's, something that is consistent. So say it's a line of GS.

And then you return, you know, to the next line and you know, go down to the next line and write another line of GS and another line of GS and another line Of GS. And then maybe you change it up and write a whole line of another character. And maybe you just practice tracking. So even though these are all the.

Same characters, it gives your hands the feeling of constant movement, even if it's slower.

Left, right, move down, left, right, left.

Move down, so forth.

So sometimes I have people do some tracking practice like that, just so that they get that feeling of movement with their hands. So, that being said, the fastest readers who read maybe almost 300 words a minute eventually did read with this scissor method. Also, people read several pages a day.

And you know, even if you start.

With a little kid's book and you say, okay, I'm gonna read Redfish, Blue Fish, I'm gonna read that whole little book in a sitting, or maybe you pick up a Dr. Seuss book or some other book that has repeated words in it, and you decide to read that little book, count those as pages. They may not be full on, you know, 25 lines on a page and, you know, 30, 40 cells, you know.

Across, but they're still pages, and they.

Still give you a feeling of accomplishment. So besides the scissors technique I did, and that was mentioned in the article by the gentleman who taught at the Louisiana center for the Blind, there's also a great article by Judy Dixon, and.

She recounts lots of ways to make sure that your braille reading is efficient. Some of them I mentioned already, by.

Keeping a flat finger, a light touch, and making sure that you're.

You're tracking. Reading paper braille is going to be more challenging, perhaps to some folks than.

Reading on a braille display. Now, that is something she mentioned later in the article, because as braille displays.

Have become more available, and especially if.

You are a patron of the National.

Library Service in the US you're able.

To get one of these E readers, which is a braille display. I think that the nice thing about reading on a braille display is that.

You have consistent braille that's not worn out.

If you have any problem with tactile discrimination or any neuropathy in your fingers, that is not an issue so much.

With the braille displays, especially as I.

Really think the orbit displays that they provide. Orbit research that they produce has the best signage quality, braille. And also there's no issue with tracking.

Because your finger can't wander to the next line because you only have one line. And so that's really great.

I know one particular person that I know of chose to work with a.

Braille display because this person had some.

Tremors, and they found it a little.

Bit tricky to read braille with a.

Little bit of tremor.

And so having access to a braille.

Display that they couldn't wander off the.

Line was really helpful.

And so just reading, reading, reading, you know, when if people read print as.

A child, they were inundated with braille.

I'm sorry, inundated with print everywhere. And so you really couldn't get out of Reading, because it was just everywhere and you were constantly presented with it. And the thing about reading braille is that we all have to make an effort to read it every day, which.

Can be more challenging for adults for.

Whom braille is not their first reading medium. So just finding ways to read it.

Finding ways to use it, reading and.

Making labels, reading and writing down phone numbers or short notes, even having access.

To the good old Perkins brailer and.

Kind of banging out, you know, and.

Then starting with something small. I know Judy Dixon had several suggestions.

Starting with something small, maybe making it.

Interesting for yourself, reading with a friend.

I know that when I first started.

Teaching, there were a couple ladies that.

I taught who, when they were done.

Learning the braille code, they would get.

Together at a little restaurant and read together.

Also, we started a braille reading group.

At the place agency where I work. And so after people are done reading.

The code, they have an actual reading.

Group class where they come and they're encouraged to read out loud.

And everybody is understanding because they know.

The journey of learning braille was maybe an arduous one, but they've arrived and they know the various contractions. Or in some cases, maybe people are reading some uncontracted braille, but they read together and everybody's in the same boat, and so they really enjoy it. And then finally, just reading for enjoyment, finding things that you really like, having.

A book near your chair or near.

Bed at night, some people find that's.

A great way to fall asleep reading.

To a braille book.

But there are so many great ways.

To maintain whatever level of braille that you have.

So if you're reading uncontracted braille, no problem, you can find it. It's a little more challenging to find books in uncontracted braille, but then again, if you have a braille display that will furnish you with the uncontracted code.

Of whatever book or chapter or, you know, document that you're reading, that's all the better.

So I hope that this is an.

Encouragement to you to not only read.

More and spend time with braille, but maybe some ways in which to increase your speed, which will also increase your.

Comprehens and will encourage you and help.

You to feel like you can use.

It as an everyday tool.

So next time we'll be back with more tips and tools.

But until then, thanks so much for listening to, at your fingertips, Braille then and now.