Braille, iPad: an Update

Reading is Fun

Abby has been enjoying using her iPad with the RefreshaBraille18 for the past few weeks.  She not only has been reading and writing emails but she also has started reading books from BookShare through the "Read2Go" app and writing short documents.  Her TVI and I are going to try and get her trying to integrates its use for school work.  The school has bought a printer that will print what she writes in print.

Abby and I have learned a few things together.

• For some contractions/symbols that use the same dots you need to type them quickly for it the software to know which one you mean.  (since it translates as you type)  ie  "?" or "his"
• It very easy to turn speech on and off.  This can be good and bad. Many times its important for Abby to get the braille practice and she will want to use voice over instead of braille to read it. Since I do the work with her its less of an issue.  
• There is still lot of apps that could be added to make it better. I would love to find a accessible typing tutor to use with a blue tooth qwerty keyboard. 
• The using a braille display on an iPad doesn't replace the embossed paper page.  There is so many things a child learns by reading paper pages and books.  The technology is a great supplement but is not a replacement  at least in young readers. 
• There is no app I have been able to find to read a .brf file.  There is a way to read it but its complicated and not as simply as it should be.  It would be great to have an app that would open an .brf file and work simply with the braille display.  Its important to remember the braille display will display what ever voice over would say so in most instances this is simply not necessarily if you can get a .txt file or other voice over readable file. 

Abby reading the Cat and the Hat 

Read the previous post on the same subject. 

http://visionfora.blogspot.com/2012/02/braille-and-ipad.html

Miss Abby Can Read! Can you?

First off sorry I am I failed to update my Homework Chronicles so I am going to shelve that idea for while.  Thankfully the math has moved from shapes and line segments to something much more accessible.Though tonight was graphs but we figured it out.  I will update with whats going on with homework front from time to time.  Today we had one of the best homework times we have had for while.  Abby struggles with reading but she has gotten so much better.   We have started reading some Dr Seuss recently  and Abby loves it. Tonight we started Mr Brown can Moo! Can you?  She told me "Don't freak out mom but that was fun!"  Reading should be fun.  I am so glad she is getting to a point she can enjoy it instead of fighting through it.  There is hope at the end of the tunnel.

Here is a video of Abby reading tonight.  We actually went back to a page she had already read because she didn't want to make herself look silly (even though she looked fine) She read tonight better than she has ever read with me.

Reading is so important.  Literacy is the foundation of a person's education.