When I teach students on the brailler, I try to incorporate habits while they’re scribbling that will serve them well once we get passed the scribbling phase. For instance, when the bell rings and it’s time to advance to the next line, I teach the student to move the carriage lever from right to left. Then, using the same hand, I teach them to press the line spacer key. By helping to establish this habit from the beginning, I hope to help students to remember both steps, which helps them to avoid brailling over the work they just did or starting at the end of the line by mistake. In my experience these have been common erros that students have made made. By teaching it this way, I have found that these habits help to establish a good foundation as they begin to learn braille.
Video Demonstration of Student Learning Habit of Returning Carriage and Spacing Down
The video below shows a student is in a life skills program who just started braille instruction a week ago! I let her end her braille lesson with 5 minutes of scribbling, which is why there is no talking until she hesitates on moving the carriage lever. We worked on keeping her hands on the correct sides of the brailler, while also trying to braille the letter “k”, which is the first letter of her name. She loves to check her work and gets excited when I remind her that all that she feels on the paper is her work! Right now she’s very excited about what we’re doing.
