[AERNet] More Cherry Picking

[Jody W. Ianuzzi]

Hello all,

Here are some more interesting comments from Braille reading adults who 
learned Braille as young children.

Delete the message if you feel it is just more cherry picking or irrelevant 
non scientific statistics.

These are the comments of 'real people' not numbers in a book.JODY

"Hi listers,
I have been reading the messages for some time now and find it interesting. 
I met a young woman at the Seeing Eye years ago who could read Braille with 
her whole hand, both hands.  I read a page and then gave it to her to read 
and she could summarize what it said in a matter of seconds.  I was blown 
away.

I have been reading Braille all my life but am not a terribly fast reader. 
I wish I had applied myself more as a child but school was hard for me, with 
books coming late and so on, and I just wasn't motivated until college.  I 
couldn't have gotten through college, or my jobs, with out Braille, and am 
glad to be a part of the division to promote the use of Braille in New 
Jersey.  I think this is a very worthwhile discussion for anyone working 
with young Braille students. "
___________________________

"i went to schools for the blind until my senior year so was not just
immersed but inundated with braille; when they couldn't find me in class,
i'd be hiding behind a bookshelf in the library with a book - wish all my
school related infractions were so innocuous.
Anyway, this was long, long ago and I got my braille reading speed up to 180
words a minute.  it mightn't be that high these days, but i'm much better at
skimming and scanning due to volumes i have to regularly read.

tactile literacy - it's way, way more than decoding; blind kids don't get it
much anymore but sure need it.  it includes understanding all the
two-dimentional stuff: math, charts, graphs, maps, figures, skematics, etc.
then, of course, since public/formal education really has become more visual
in scope, literacy has to include all the meaning-making that goes into
presentations at school (think Powerpoint),  and their interpretation.

Sorry to have gone on and on like this; the students are heavy on my mind
today."
________________

"I do not use all fingers of both hands. However, I *do* read with the
index finger of both hands; the left hand is tracking and reading the
first half of the "next line" as the index finger of the right hand is
completing the "current line".
_________________________

"I read with the left hand only, index finger leading, have no trouble
tracking and read rapidly, don't know at what speed, but I can get through a
lot of material in a hurry when I want or need to.  I started reading
left-handed in first grade in arithmetic class, in public school, in order
to stay competitive, I used the right hand to operate a cube slate while
reading with the left, then suddenly, I discovered I could do more than one
thing at a time by reading one-handed and having my dominant hand for other
activities, once I started figuring out that, they could never change me, I
got in trouble my first weeks in the state school, until the principal
finally said I was proficient and fast and to leave me alone since I was a
competent student.  I would walk around campus with a book resting on my
right arm while reading with the left, especially if I was near the end and
wanted to know how it would end.  I still read left-handed, am able to cover
a lot, and have only had a problem when I broke my left collarbone, when I
had to resort to moving the book with my right hand if I was trying to read
very much material in braille.  I can read my watch right-handed, page
numbers, and a little bit more, but I can't read well right-handed."
__________________________

"If there is anything I can do to help persuade folks about the benefits
from learning reading early, I'd be happy to.

If it is even remotely likely that vision will deteriorate later in
life, (meaning any time in the future), then learn Braille now.

Learning later is like learning reading later--never gets same results."