[AERNet] braille tunes

[Frances Mary D'Andrea]

I did the DOTS newsletter for 10 years when I worked for AFB, and  
published several versions of braille tunes teachers sent me over the  
years. The DOTS archive is still available on the AFB web site,  
www.afb.org/dots.asp, but I just cut and pasted here a few that were  
printed in DOTS several years ago:

In the Winter 97-98 edition (Vol.3, No. 4), Laurie Hudson had  
submitted a tune related to numbers:
Laurie Hudson gave her permission for me to share with you her  
"Numbers Poem":

Since you asked, F.M., my students do enjoy a little poem I wrote to  
help them with reversals in both Nemeth and literary numbers. It's  
based on a strategy of perceiving columns of 3 in a braille cell as  
"singles" (one dot), pairs (two dots), or all three. Pairs are  
further categorized as "together" or with a "gap" (such as dots 1,3  
or 4,6) . . . It goes something like this:

Zero, four, six and eight,
Sometimes it's hard to keep them straight.
Zero and four both start with a single,
You'll remember them with this jingle.
Four starts high, and "oh" starts low.
They both end with a pair, you know.
Zero, four, six and eight,
Sometimes it's hard to keep them straight.
Six and eight both start with a pair.
Anything else just wouldn't seem fair.
Six goes high, and eight goes low.
Now don't confuse these two no mo'!


Reprinted from the Summer, 2000 edition (Vol.5, No. 3):

Wendy Park, a teacher in Plano, TX, wrote in our last DOTS issue  
about how she celebrated National Braille Month. For this issue she  
has submitted the words to songs she sings with her students as they  
learn to write braille letters. While we don't have room to print all  
of them, we are happy to share a few that may come in handy when  
teaching those "confusers" that students sometimes have trouble with.

Letter D (Sung to "How Much is that Doggy in the Window?")
What dots are in the letter D?
One, four, five
The delightful letter D
What dots are in the letter D?
One, four, five
Dots one, four, five make the letter D.

Letter F (Sung to the "Barney" song)
One, two, four; one, two, four
The letter F is dots one, two, four
With its fa-fa-fa sound that makes us love F more
The letter F is dots one, two, four.

Letter J (Sung to "Kum-Ba-Ya")
Two, four, five is j; two, four, five
Two, four, five is j; two, four, five
Two, four, five is j; two, four, five
O-oh, two, four, five.

Letter W (Sung to "B-I-N-G-O")
There was a letter that had four dots
And w was its name-o
Two, four, five, six; two, four, five, six
Two, four, five, six
And w is its name-o.


And reprinted from the Spring 2001 edition (Vol.6, No. 2) comes this:
Continuing a theme that has gone through several issues of DOTS, Judy  
Hurst, a teacher in West Virginia, sent along some of the braille  
songs she sings with her students.

(Tune: Take Me Out to the Ball Game)
Take me out to the ball game;
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some 2-3-4-5 for T;
I don't care if I ever learn Z.
(Tune: 3 Blind Mice)
3 blind mice;
See how they run;
You make an M with 1-3-4
And they'll go running out the door;
3 blind mice.
(Tune: Row, row, row your boat)
Row, row, row your boat;
So you can write an R;
1-2-3-5;
You can write an R.

Judy writes, "I found having the song feature the particular braille  
letter it's teaching worked well. I tried some of the songs you  
printed before, but I couldn't remember which tune went with which  
letter. Since I'm having more senior moments, this helped me  
remember. (I really found out how old I am--most of my students  
didn't even know the Oscar Mayer song!)."




On Jan 14, 2007, at 8:01 PM, ks8um1nn at aol.com wrote:

> I have a student whom I think would remember the braille dots and  
> characters if set to music.  I made the rhymes below, and feel free  
> to use them yourselves, but I'm looking for more.  Anyone have  
> any?  Thanks!
> Kristin
>

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