The Hadley Institute for the Visually Impaired offers distance-learning courses for reading Braille. These courses are free for the visually impaired. You can also purchase Braille blocks and toys online to help with learning letters. These materials can be especially helpful for young children.
Braille printed for the sighted may have “shadow dots” in the empty spaces, to help people see the positions of the dots more easily. Braille for the blind won’t have shadow dots. To read Braille through touch, you need reasonably good finger sensitivity. Most adults have enough finger sensitivity to read Braille. If your finger sensitivity has been impacted by an injury or health condition, you may want to use “jumbo dot” Braille. [3] X Research source
The letter a has dot 1 only. This makes intuitive sense because a is the first letter of the alphabet. Likewise, the letter b has dot 1 and dot 2, for the second letter of the alphabet. The letter c has dot 1 and dot 4. The letter d has dots 1, 4, and 5. The letter e has dots 1 and 5. The letter f has dots 1, 2, and 4. The letter g has dots 1, 2, 4, and 5 – all 4 top dots are full. the letter h has dots 1, 2, and 5. You can think of g as adding dot 3 to letter f, and then h as taking away dot 4 from letter g. Unlike the previous 8 letters, the letters i and j do not have dot 1. The letter i has dots 2 and 4. The letter j has dots 2, 4, and 5.
For example, the letter k has 2 dots: the dot 1 from the letter a plus dot 3. Note that the letter l, with dots 1, 2, and 3, basically looks like the lower-case letter it represents.
The letter u has dot 1 and 3 from letter k, plus dot 6. The letter v has dots 1, 2, and 3 from letter l, plus dot 6. Since you’re skipping w for now, the next letter is x, which has dots 1, 3, and 4 from letter m, plus dot 6. The letter y has dots 1, 3, 4, and 5 from letter n, plus dot 6. The letter z has dots 1, 3, and 5 from letter o, plus dot 6.
A w has dot 2 on the left side, and dots 4, 5, and 6 on the right side.
If 2 cells with only dot 6 appear before a word, it indicates that the whole word is written in all-caps.
A Braille comma has dot 2. You can also think of this as a letter a dropped down one line. A Braille semicolon has dots 2 and 3. This is the letter b dropped down one line. A Braille colon has dots 2 and 5. A Braille period has dots 2, 5, and 6. The Braille period is also used as a decimal point. If there are 3 Braille periods together, they represent an ellipsis. An exclamation mark has dots 2,3, and 5, while a question mark has dots 2, 3, and 6. Quotation marks have 2 cells. The first represents whether they are single or double, and the second whether they are opening or closing. For single quotation marks, the first cell has dot 6. For double quotation marks, the first cell has dots 3 and 4. Opening quotation marks have dots 2, 3, and 6 (note that this is identical to a question mark). Closing quotation marks have dots 3, 5, and 6.
The letter a is the number 1, all the way through the letter i, which is the number 9. The letter j is used for the number 0. There will only be 1 number sign, regardless of the length of the number. Commas and periods (for decimal points) are used in Braille numbers just as they are for numbers written in English. The mathematical comma has dot 6, rather than dot 2 as in the literary comma. [5] X Research source In the Nemeth code, used for math texts and in non-fiction writing, the codes for the first 10 letters of the alphabet are dropped down to the lower part of the Braille cell. [6] X Research source
The punctuation symbol has dots 4, 5, and 6. It typically precedes punctuation marks such as colons, periods, quotation marks, question marks, exclamation marks, commas, and semicolons.
A full cell (all 6 dots) means for. If all dots are present except dot 5, you have the word and. Dots 2, 3, 4, and 6 together represent the word the.
The letter b is used for the word but, and the letter c is used for the word can. Some of these abbreviations are also used in text-speak. For example, the letter v represents the word very.
A chart, such as the one at https://www. teachingvisuallyimpaired. com/uploads/1/4/1/2/14122361/ueb_braille_chart. pdf, can help you memorize these contractions so that you can read more smoothly.
For example, the Braille code for the letters b and l is used to represent the word blind. Some short-form words use a contraction along with another letter. For example, the contraction for be (dots 2 and 3) plus the letter c (dots 1 and 4) represents the word because.
