Guest Post: World Braille Day - the importance of learning braille

hollytuke

Today is World Braille Day, a day that celebrates the birth of Louis Braille, inventor of the reading and writing system used by millions of blind and partially sighted people all over the globe. 

Holly Tuke from Life of a Blind Girl Blog talks about the importance of learning braille.

There’s so much technology around in today’s society that there’s no wonder why there doesn’t seem to be a need for learning braille anymore. We can access just about anything on our phones, tablets or computers quickly and easily. Learning braille is a very controversial topic, some people love it and encourage those who are blind or visually impaired to learn it whereas others absolutely hate it. There seems to be this idea surrounding braille that it’s no longer useful in contemporary society, and that it doesn’t have as much value nowadays but is that really true?

We now have assistive technology that is based around braille such as braille displays, braille notetakers, a wide range of braillers, the ability to type using a braille keyboard on devices such as the iPhone and so much more.

As a blind person myself, I think braille is an important skill to have. I started learning braille when I was around 4 years old and I’ve used it ever since. When I was at school, I used to use a combination of both braille and a laptop depending what subject I was doing. I used to have to carry a Perkins braille around with me as I didn’t have anything like a braille display but I accepted it for what it was and got on with it. 

Using braille in school allowed me to learn it in different languages, in my case French and German. I can also read music braille which is different to standard braille,  I started playing the flute when I was 9 so learnt to read braille music, just like sighted people would learn to read print music. Granted, I am at university and don’t use it as much now as I used to, but I’ll always have the invaluable skill.

In this post I wanted to tell you why I think braille is important and why blind and visually impaired people should still be encouraged to learn it.

Braille is like learning another language, it’s like a secret code that fewer people seem to learn nowadays. It can take a long time to learn but when you’ve learned it, it’s such an achievement.

Braille has two grades: grade 1 and grade 2. Grade 1 is where everything is spelt out letter by letter, word by word. Grade 2 braille is possibly more fun but that bit more challenging: it involves contractions and word signs. You’re probably wondering what on earth a contraction is, well it’s a shorter formation of a word or part of a word, for example the word ‘and’ is a series of 5 dots and that’s it. So the positive of learning contracted braille? It’s quick, simple (when you know how) and can be simpler and faster to read than your grade 1 braille.

One of the most important aspect about learning braille is literacy. It’s all well and good listening to audio and other formats for hours but that doesn’t help you with sentence structure, word formation and punctuation. These are things that can only be taught through writing. So for blind people, this can be done by learning braille.

Many blind people love music, just like their sighted peers. When it comes to learning an instrument and reading music, this is possible for blind people to do by using braille. There’s music software available, but there’s nothing like feeling the dots under your fingertips. Personally, I think reading the music helps you retain it better.

Braille is also useful in public places. It’s often all around us; in lifts, on toilet doors and on tactile maps. Having the ability to read it in public places means that it gives you more independence and you don’t have to rely on others. Granted, it’s not everywhere but it’s a useful skill to have when you can use it.

One of the important factors about learning to read braille is being able to identify products that have braille on them. The majority of packaging doesn’t, but a lot of medication has braille labels on them and it’s also really easy to make your own braille labels for products around the home too. It’s a quick and easy way for people to identify products, it can be especially useful for those who have limited vision.

For students, braille can be extremely useful when revising for exams. There’s so many ways of creatively revising with braille such as making short revision notes, and making flashcards. It can be great for organisation too as you can braille yourself a revision timetable to put up and it’s something that you can refer back to it easily.

One of the most important skills when learning braille is that it’s such a unique skill to have. Whether you learn uncontracted or contracted braille, it’s a skill that’s really hard to find nowadays. You may never know when you may need to use braille, especially if you’re a blind or visually impaired person!

Do you use braille? What are your thoughts on braille? Do you use other assistive technology? Let us know your thoughts now.

htlcy

Great blog! Braille is something I rarely hear about, but I'd love to be able to read it, much like BSL. Using these things improves accessibility and thus should be accessible to everyone. Any ideas about where/how I can learn braille and/or BSL? I'll do some research and I'll let you know how I get on!

hollytuke

thank you so much, glad you enjoyed reading! I completely agree with you, it's so important. There's quite a lot of resources online and if you're keen then the RNIB may be able to help with braille, you can get books and things like that.