Louis: A Braille Primer Written in an ASL Format

This book is part of the ASL Meets Braille Series.  “Louis” tells the story of the life of Louis Braille.  It is organized in 7 short books for parents and teachers of ASL (American Sign Language) users who are learning braille. These books are in uncontracted braille. (The series cover is contracted braille.)   Modify to suit your learner’s needs.  For example, in the past, I left out the capitalization and punctuation in my first brailling to encourage reading before those concepts were introduced linguistically or in braille. 

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Description:

After the series title page, the pages include standard English, ASL picture prompts and grade 1 UEB braille. The Audio covers the standard English grammar. Each book cover page has a keyword with an ASL picture for the word as well as braille for the word.  I braille under the visual braille using a Perkins brailler.  For the story pages: the upper left-hand corner has the page number in English and visual braille.  To the upper right is the English being read and close-captioned.   In the center are three lines. Line 1 is picture prompts of ASL signs to help you remember the sign in an ASL grammar form. Line 2 is English in ASL grammar form. Line 3 is a visual braille of line 2, uncontracted. 

This version has capitalization and adds some punctuation such as periods, apostrophe’s and question marks. You may braille as needed to facilitate learning.  UEB 2 version is also available upon request. These books and series are brought to you as a braille primer for learning braille. 

With textured braille to touch and feel, this primer book is perfect for learning braille. This book was inspired by my sister’s desire to learn braille. Her primary language is tactile ASL.   While written English can never capture the beautiful fluidity and non-manual expressions of ASL or the haptic signals of tactile ASL, this book is my simplified translation of ASL to braille to help a primary language ASL signer learn braille. While not a separate language like ASL, braille has its own complexities and has been simplified here.