Prebraille Skills

Prebraille skills are physical and sensory: tactile perception, fine motor skills, particularly finger and hand movements, and ability to identify braille characters. (Note the difference from emergent literacy skills, which are cognitive). This section offers advice and activities for developing these critical tactile and motor skills.

Multisensory Skills for Preschoolers

Braille Rap Song, American Printing House for the Blind
Young learners will enjoy memorizing the braille alphabet with this rap song, with a unique dance-like gesture to accompany each letter; features an audio recording of the song, and the complete lyrics.

Emergent Literacy Skills for Future Braille Readers, Early Intervention Training Center for Infants and Toddlers with Visual Impairments (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Motor and cognitive skills essential to literacy are presented in a grid that shows how they interrelate and support a child's development.

Enhancing Emergent Literacy Skills in Inclusive Preschools for Young Children with Visual Impairment, Young Exceptional Children
Janice Day, Andrea McDonnell, and Lora Heathfield discuss ways to enhance literacy skills in inclusive preschool settings by incorporating braille and large print into the classroom; media, materials, and equipment; curriculum modifications, and more.

Motor Activities To Encourage Pre-Braille Skills, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
These activities develop fine motor skills, including grasp, rotary motion, finger isolation, bilateral hand use, and hand and finger strength.

Pre-Braille Assessment, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI)
This checklist shows skills necessary for learning braille; includes cognitive, motor, tactile discrimination, language, and book skills.

Pre-Braille Curricula: Preparing the Child Who is Blind to Read, e-Advisor
Cindy Reed-Brown and Peggy Palmer list skills that are "helpful for families who want to support their child's pre-literacy skills."

Braille Books for Young Readers

Print-Braille Books for Young Children who are Blind or Visually Impaired, e-Advisor
Sheila Amato and Ellen Trief share advice for adding tactile enhancements and braille text to children's books.

Promising Practices for Transcription of Textbooks for Kindergarten, First, Second, and Third Grade, American Printing House for the Blind
Developed in collaboration with BANA (Braille Authority of North America), these are APH's proposed guidelines for transcribing early literacy textbooks into braille.

Teaching Emergent Literacy Skills To Kindergarten Students in a Braille/Print Program, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI)
Duncan McGregor and Carol Farrenkopf list practical strategies for teaching emergent literacy skills, including specific directions for creating books with and for students.

Research

Expanding Understanding of Emergent Literacy: Empirical Support for a New Framework, Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness
Karen Erickson and Deborah Hatton test the applicability of a theory of emergent literacy to children with visual impairments. Proposed by Senechal et al., the framework seems to apply well, and the article concludes with a list of recommendations for teachers and parents.

Technology and Early Braille Literacy: Using the Mountbatten Pro Brailler in Primary-Grade Classrooms, Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness
The Early Braille Readers Project "provided a Mountbatten Pro Brailler … to 20 kindergarteners, first-, and second graders in Texas…The project had a positive impact on the students' writing and reading skills and participation in instruction and social interaction."