How to STOP scrubbing While reading Braille

If students are left to their own devices when they first learn to read braille and no one is checking those fingers, a child will scrub, as in move finger up and down or around and around on the dots, or any deviation off these movements. This will not only squash all the braille dots down, scrubbing will make you a VERY slow Braille reader. If you cannot create enough speed when you read Braille, then comprehension will be difficult. You have to be able to read a certain amount of information within a certain period of time or the brain forgets.

Starting off correctly is the best way to begin instruction. Start off with words that are applicable to the child. They will braille the words first, for example: I love cats. --Make the sentence short and double-space every word and sentence and they will rebraille this on half of an 11 x 11 piece of braille paper. Then they braille a second sentence: I love dogs. Double-space every word and sentence. For an example to download and use go to: Beginner Braille Reading

After you use this one lesson, create others that are exactly like this for them to reread until you see that fluid movement over the braille page. They need to create a good habit of fluid motion across a page, so they must know the content they are reading well...this way they do not have to focus on decoding, but rather the movement. When they want to braille a contraction, make sure they braille a couple of lines of it, then read it over and over before putting into a sentence.

If they are already scrubbing the braille, reading from lessons like Beginner Braille Reading will help them break the habit of scrubbing. You will need to be persistent in breaking this poor practice. A habit takes 30 days to break or make...keep it up and beautiful braille reading will happen