Writing is Not Reading

Learning braille has been fairly fun so far.   It’s been something to bond over with my daughter (and she and I could use a little positive bonding right now).   It’s also like a secret code that not a lot of people can read.  

I started the contracted braille class recently, but haven’t been able to dedicate much time to the curriculum because I’ve been trying to catch up on the other braille I keep encountering via my daughter and her school work.

Everything she’s working on in school has to be translated into a medium she can understand, which mostly means braille.    This means not only the completed work she’s done (write five sentences about The Little Red Hen), but also the original material itself (the Little Red Hen short story).

If it were in print matter, I would scan it quickly, look at what my daughter did for the assignment and then recycle it, or if it was particularly cute, keep it in her folder.   The original copies are usually sent with the braille versions, but the only way I’m going to get good at braille is by practicing, so I’ve been going through everything and reading it—slowly.

What’s been interesting to me is that reading braille and writing braille are two different skills in the brain.   I can write braille much more easily than I can read braille.    When I’m done writing something up, if I go back and look at it,  I have to go through the same, slow, reading process as anything else written in braille, because my brain isn’t translating that fast in the braille to print direction.

This isn’t uncommon a think when learning a written language.   I remember watching my son build sentences using something called a “moveable alphabet” in Children’s House at school.   He would spell out words to make a sentence in plastic letters.    But when he was done, he’d have to work through it again to figure out what he’d written.  

This wasn’t a fast process—It could take several days to write a few sentences about the planets, so by the time he was done, he didn’t remember what he’d started writing.   I feel a bit like I’m looking at a huge array of dots on a page.   When I’m just at the right spot, I know where I am and can read.   But if I’m interrupted, the page goes from words and letters back to a collection of dots.    But I’m getting faster and it’s getting easier.

The Big Boy Update:  My son started a new bit of homework this week via the Xtra Math app.  It tests him on math problems and changes the following days work based on what he got right and wrong in the prior days.   He’s seeing a grid of addition problems now that is turning more and more green as he’s getting more correct more quickly—and that’s encouraging to him.    He even likes doing it I think.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and I had a hard time this morning and then again this afternoon.   She is having a hard time, but she’s being infernally difficult.   She’s seeing Dhruti, which I think is helping, but I feel like I keep failing her.   She’s having a hard time, but she’s acting like a spoiled brat.   The question is, which is it?   We aren’t letting her get away with bad behavior, but is her pushing and being defiant related to her fear and anxiety?