Hello Friends,

I am excited to share my journey in learning braille. I love typing and i am wandering if its going to be as easy as just the normal typing. Lets dive into this learning project together and I am sure its going to be a fun experience.

What is Braille ? Braille is a combination of simple dots to represent written language for people who are blind or have visual impairment. As a future educator, i really wanted to learn braille so i will be able to help students who have visual impairment. It will take some time for my  hands to adjust to the fine motor skills and tactile dexterity needed since I  have never read  braille before. To maximize the likelihood of success, in my learning project , then the pre-braille step is very crucial and  needs to be actively and frequently practiced.

I have been practicing using my laptop keyboard and its not so easy and I will say its not difficult as well. Focus , concentration and devotion of more hours in my day will actually help me to get a good grip of the skills needed. Its similar to how we type on the laptop .  Lest, i forget, i realized my nails were causing problems by typing wrong keys and producing wrong dots because they were too long.

Below is one of my practice video, when i shouted “hey” was when  i finally passed the pre-braille test and I can now move on to lesson 1.The quality of the video is not the best because i had to compress like 10 times before i could add it to my media .I have 30 lessons to take but I am going to take them through spring/summer and i am not going to rush my classes at all because there is an examination at the end and I would love to pass so that i can get the certificate.

If you are interested in practicing pre-braille with me , you can follow the keyboard finger placement below:

Using the Keyboard

Six Key Input

To replicate using a braille machine, this course uses six keys on the computer keyboard to present the six dots of the braille cell. These keys are s, d, f, j, k, l. You will also use the space bar to enter spaces between words, the return or enter key to move to the next line, and the backspace or delete key to correct errors.

The keys correspond to the braille dots as follow:

F key, dot 1

D key, dot 2

S key, dot 3

J key, dot 4

K key, dot 5

L key, dot 6

Each keyboard button illustrated represents the dot shown in the braille cell.
(*note these dots do not represent the letters)

Keyboard finger placement

The left hand index finger will use letter F for dot 1 of the braille cell, with 2nd and 3rd fingers of the left hand using letters D and S for dots 2 and 3. The right hand index finger will use letter J for dot 4, with 2nd and 3rd fingers of the right hand using letters K and L for dots 5 and 6.

The 6 keys will be pressed in different combinations to produce the braille letters, contractions and punctuation required to complete all lessons in this course. It is possible to press multiple keys at the same time. For example, to enter the cell dots 1 2 and 4 5 you would press the f, d, j and k keys together.