About This Lesson
This page has been created to satisfy sighted people's desire to learn braille. I (Jen Jesso) have had tons of people ask me to show them the braille alphabet, or ask me whether I could teach them braille. Usually neither Jen nor I have time to teach them, so we have made this Web page so that we can direct them here!
If you have any comments about this lesson, braille, or this site in general, whether they are good or bad, we'd love to hear from you, so go right ahead and e-mail us!
Note that this page uses a braille font to display braille characters. If you
do not have a braille font, the braille sections of this page will appear as
gibberish.
If you can see the row of braille cells (groups of 6 dots) below, then you
have the braille font on your system. If the row looks like a row of equal signs
(=====), then you do not have the braille font installed.
=========================
If you cannot see the braille above, you can download a braille font either
Windows or MacOS.
Most people know what braille is. Braille is that wonderful system of tactile
reading used by blind and visually impaired people who cannot see print easily
enough to read it. Braille is read by moving your fingers lightly over the line
of dots, similar to moving your eyes along a line of print. Sighted people
(those with normal vision) can learn to read braille by sight, rather than
touch. This page teaches you how to read grade 1 braille by sight.
The entire braille system is based on only six dots. These six dots are
arranged in two columns of three dots; this arrangement of dots is called a
braille cell. By using different combinations of dots in this cell, a
maximum of 62 characters can be made. A braille cell looks like this:
To make writing and referencing braille symbols easier, each dot in the
braille cell has a number. Down the left hand side, starting from the top, it is
numbered 1, 2, 3. Down the right hand side, again starting from the top, it is
4, 5, 6. Here is a diagram to help you:
Like I mentioned earlier, the braille alphabet and punctuation are made up of
different combinations of the dots in the braille cell. Below is the braille
alphabet, and below that are some common punctuation signs. If you are
interested (or if you use a screen reader and cannot see the below characters), you can see the dot numbers for each
braille characters. The first 10 characters of the alphabet, A-J, are in the
upper part of the cell, using dots 1, 2, 4, and 5.
Here are some common punctuation marks. Again, if you want, you can see the dot
numbers for each of these characters. Note that most of the punctuation
marks, except for the / are in the bottom part of the cell, using dots 2,
3, 5, and 6.
Because of the limited number of symbols available in the braille system,
there are no unique signs for capital letters. Instead, a capital sign is
used. The capital sign is made by using dot 6, or the lower right-hand dot. When
the capital sign is placed before a letter, that letter is capitalized. When
two capital signs are placed in a row in front of a word, that means that
that whole word is capitalized. Here are some examples:
Joe Smith NASA McDonald's SARAH McLACHLAN Do you understand the capital sign now? Good! Numbers work in a similar way.
There are no unique signs for numbers. Instead, a number sign is used.
When the number sign is put in front of the first 10 letters of the alphabet,
A-J, they become the letters 1-0. The number sign is dots 3, 4, 5, and 6. It
looks like this:
When you write a number that is more than one digit, like 2001, you do
not have to repeat the number sign before each letter, only before the first
letter, in this case the 2.
Here are the letters 1-0, as well as some examples of how to write letters
and dates.
Dates, addresses, and things like phone numbers can also be written in
braille:
(604) 948-4859 December 6th, 1981 There are no mathematical symbols in Grade 1 braille, so whenever you have
symbols like +, =, x, etc., you must write them out as words. Like this:
7 + 3 = 10 The two symbols that you just learned about, the capital sign and
number sign appear only in braille, and there is no equivalant to them in
print. There are several other symbols that are like this: they appear only in
braille and have no print equivalant. I will tell you about two of these symbols
that are useful in Grade 1 braille. You don't need to know these to write Grade
1 braille. In fact, with what you've learned so far you could easily communicate
with a visually impaired person. However, you might be interested in these
symbols if you want to go on and learn more braille.
The first of these symbols is the italic sign. As you might guess,
there is no such thing as italic braille. Therefore, when italics or bold font
appear in print, there must be a way of shoing this in braille. This is
accomplished by using the italic sign.
The italic sign is formed by using dots 4 and 6, or the top and bottom dots
on the left-hand side. Like this:
When an italic sign appears before a word, that word is in italics. When
two italic signs appear before a word, then that word and all words that
follow it are in italics, until the italics are cancelled by another
single italic sign. The word after that single italic sign is still in
italics, but anything after that is just normal text again. Here are some
examples:
Did you have to do that? We had to read Lord of the Flies for homework. The single italic sign is used when there are three words or less. When there
are more than three words, that is when you use the double italic sign cancelled
by the single italic sign.
The second sign I will tell you about is the letter sign. This sign
has many uses in Grade 2 braille, but in Grade 1 braille it is used to tell a
number or a letter apart when they are mixed together, like in a postal code.
The letter sign is dots 5 and 6, or the lower two dots on the left-hand side,
like this:
The only situation you would need to use this sign in in Grade 1 braille is
in a postal code or other situation where numbers and letters are mixed. In
Grade 2 braille it is also used to diffinterate between a letter and a
contraction, but you will learn that if you want to go on and learn Grade 2
braille through another source.
You will remember earlier that when a number sign is placed before the
letters A-J, they become numbers. But what happens it you have something like
1a, where the A is supposed to be interpreted as an A, and not a 1? If you wrote
it without a letter sign, it would look like this:
#aa
Now, if you did not know what that was supposed to say, and were only reading
the braille as it appears there, you would read it as 11. That's where the
letter sign comes in! If you want that second 1 to be interpreted as an A, you
would put a letter sign before it, so that the reader would know that it is an A
and that the number sign is cancelled. Like this:
1a Here are some other examples of using the letter sign:
v9g 2k5 Room 26c A23 Notice that on A23 no letter sign was used, because there wes no number sign to cancel.
Congratulations! If you have gotten this far, you can now read Grade 1
braille! Now all you need to do is practice.
Below are links to different pages I have created that have practice
exercises on them. Pick which area or difficulty you would like to practice, and
click on that link. At the bottom of each practice page there will be a link
back to this page.
The Alphabet There are several ways of writing braille. Although I can't teach you to
write braille over the Internet, I can describe how to do it, in case you happen
to have some braille writing equipment you'd like to practice with. There are
two main ways of writing braille: the slate and stylus and the
braillewriter. There are also braille printers, or embossers that
can hook up to computers and print braille, but these are mostly used by braille
transcribers and braille readers. There are also braille notetakers, which use a
braille keyboard to input braille. These are used exclusively by visually
impaired braille readers. For an example of what a braille notetaker looks like, see the Braille Lite page.
First I will describe the slate and stylus. This is the oldest tool for
writing braille, and is probably one of the most versatile and simplest
braille-writing tools. They are very cheap to buy, and are readily available at
agencies for the blind such as the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, which
is located in most major Canadian cities.
A slate is a guide that clamps over a piece of braille paper (or regular
paper). All braille paper is is paper that is heavier than normal, and measures
11x11.5 instead of 8.5x11. Anyway, the slate is two pieces of metal or plastic
that have a hinge at one side. On one side of the guide are holes cut out for
each braille cell. On the other side are indents for each braille dot. Here is a
picture:
When the slate is clamped onto a piece of paper, a stylus is used to punch
out each braille dot. When the page is turned over, the braille appears. Because
you are punching the dots downward, and they are read right side up, you
have to reverse the braille cell when writing, so that dots 1, 2, and 3 are on
the right, and dots 4, 5, and 6 are on the left, like this:
Remember the actual position of the numbers are the same, nothing has
changed. Because you are flipping the page over when you are done writing, the
numbers will be in the right place when you read them. You also need to write
from right to left, since when you flip it over you will be reading from left to
right. For example, when you write my name with a slate and stylus, you write it
like this:
[::ih' wide$$ih'
But once you turned the page over, it would appear normal:
,jennifer ,jesso
It may look confusing at first, but once you get used to writing with a slate
and stylus it becomes automatic.
The other way of writing braille is by using a braillewriter. A
braillewriter, or brailler is similar to a typewriter, except that it
only has 7 keys, one for each dot and a spacebar. By far the most widely used
braillewriter today is the Perkins Brailler, which looks like this:
Each of the keys on the brailler correspond with one braille dot. On the
Perkins brailler, on the left side of the spacebar are dots 1, 2, and 3, with
the 1 being closest to the spacebar. On the right side of the spacebar are dots
4, 5, and 6, with the 4 being closes to the spacebar. So this:
Swings open and turns into this with the Perkins Brailler keys:
To type A, you would press the key that corresponds to dot 1. To write M, you
would simultaneously press the keys that correspond to dots 1, 3, and 4.
Most people prefer the Perkins over the slate and stylus, because it is a
much faster way of writing. However, the Perkins Brailler is not very portable,
and so cannot be used to jot down notes or carry in a pocket or purse.
With all this talk about Grade 1 and Grade 2 braille, you may be wondering
what these grades mean. All these two terms really mean is uncontracted braille
and contracted braille. You just learned Grade 1, or uncontracted, braille.
Uncontracted means that all the words were spelled out letter-by-letter. Grade 2
braille uses contractions and abbreviations to save space and speed up reading
time. A contraction is a symbol that stands for a word or a part of a word. For
example, in Grade 2 braille, the symbol ! stands
for the word "the". An abbreviation is a group of letters that stands for an
entire word. For example, in Grade 2 braille the letters "brl" stand for the
word "braille".
Grade 2 braille also contains many rules about how to use the contractions
and abbreviations, and is a bit more complex than Grade 1. If you are interested
in learning Grade 2 braille, or even other braille codes, I have provided some
resources for you in the next section.
If you are interested in learning more
braille, here are some resources that might be helpful. Some of these are free,
while others are not. I will be adding more resources as I find them.
The National Braille Press
offers a book called Just Enough to Know
Better, which is a manual for parents of blind children who want to know how
to read Grade 2 braille. It teaches all of the contractions, without going into
excessive detail about rules. It is in print and simulated braille, with a few
pages of real braille.
The National Library
Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped offers braille transcribing
and Nemeth (braille math) correspondance courses to residents of the U.S. who
want to become braille transcribers.
The Hadley School for the
Blind offers a course in Braille
Reading for Family Members. This course is offered free through distance
education to family members of a blind or visually impaired person. Hadley also
offers courses in Grade 1 and 2 braille, as well as Nemeth and braille music, to
blind or visually impaired people free through distance education.
The Canadian National Institute for
the Blind offers braille transcribing courses in Grade 2 braille, Nemeth
(braille math), and braille music, to teachers and those interested in becoming
braille transcribers. They also have courses for becoming proofreaders and newly blind and visually impaired individuals.
BRL: Braille through Remote
Learning is a series of three on-line courses offered by the Shodor Education Foundation. The three courses
are an intruductory course that covers all Grade 2 braille, a course for braille
transcribers, and a course in other braille codes such as Nemeth (braille math),
music, chemistry, and computer braille. These courses are offered through e-mail
and their Web site free of charge.
NOTE!
Introduction to Braille
The Braille Cell
2 O O 5
3 O O 6The Alphabet and Punctuation
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
u
v
w
x
y
z
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
4
1
8
6
-
--
3
2
'
8 0
7 7
99
/
.
,
?
!
-
--
:
;
'
" "
( )
*
/ Capitalization and Numbers
,joe ,smith
,,nasa
,mc,donald's
,,sarah ,mc,,lachlan
#a
#b
#c
#d
#e
#f
#g
#h
#i
#j
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0
7#fjd7 #idh-dhei
,december #fth" #aiha
#g plus #c equals #aj
Other Special Symbols
,did you .have to do that8
,We had to read ..,Lord of the .,Flies for homework4
#a;a
v#i;g #b;k#e
,room #bf;c
,a#bc
Want some practice?
Punctuation
Sentences
Numbers
Italics and Other Symbols
Paragraphs
An Entire Story
Short Poems
How to Write Braille
Image from American Printing House for the Blind Web site.
5 O O 2
6 O O 3
Image from American Printing House for the Blind Web site.
2 O O 5
3 O O 6
3 2 1 4 5 6What is Grade 2 braille?
Resources to Learn more Braille