Maintaining Braille Skills Using a Daily Journal for an English Language Learner

Cristian is a 17-year-old boy from El Salvador who recently moved to the United States.  He is totally blind, but received very little in the way of formal education or braille instruction prior to this past school year.  When we began working with him, he could recite the alphabet and knew some of the letters in his name, but was otherwise essentially illiterate.  We used the “Read Naturally” program in Spanish last year and this year Cristian is beginning to use the English version.  

Maintaining Braille Skills During the Summer Break

His TVI was very pleased with the progress he made during the school year, but was worried about how to help him maintain his new skills over the long summer break.  She gave him a loose leaf notebook with a stack of braille paper and invited him to keep a journal over the summer.  We honestly did not have very high expectations of what he would be able to do without any supervision or support people familiar with braille. We were thrilled to discover on the first day of school that he kept an extensive journal faithfully until he ran out of braille paper after a month.  While he had some difficulties with some formatting issues, such as setting margins, the results are exciting!  We are sharing a sample of the pages here.

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