Do you know about Braille?

     When starting a new school semester, you must look for the room number to ensure you are in the right room. While looking at your classroom number, have you ever seen little dots under it? If you pay close attention those dots are under most of the labels at school. These little dots are called braille. Braille is a system that was created for the blind to be able to read. The person who created this system was blind and his name was Louis Braille. 

    Braille is read using your fingertips. The people glide their fingers from left to right, just as how we read our sentences. Braille comprises a small number sequence that makes a little rectangle. Numbers 1, 2, and 3 are under one row, and numbers 4, 5, and 6 are under the second row. This braille form is called grade 1 as it only shows the alphabet and numbers and the second form of braille is called grade 2. In grade 2 they have abbreviations that are commonly used in English. 

    Sometimes we may ask ourselves, "If they can read, can they write?" and the answer is yes! They use certain tools to be able to help them write and they are called slates and stylus. The way this works that is the slate is a guide that opens on one side. Once opened you place a card-stock paper in between the two panels and get ready to write. The stylus is the "pencil" that is used to make the holes in the paper. The one thing about writing Braille is that you have to write it from right to left. The reason for this is that when you finish writing you have to turn the paper over to the other side to feel the little bumps and as you read you will be reading the correct way. 

“How to Read and Write Braille.” Department for the Blind, 28 May 2023, blind.iowa.gov/educators/how-read-and-write-braille.

“Braille.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 15 Mar. 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/Braille-writing-system.