The School for the Blind just completed the 2021 Braille Challenge! The Braille Challenge is an academic contest for individuals, who are blind/visually impaired, 1st-12th grade, that takes place across North America and is designed to motivate students to improve braille literacy skills including reading comprehension, spelling, speed and accuracy, proofreading, and charting and graphing. Students can participate in the rookie, apprentice, freshman, sophomore, junior varsity, and varsity categories. Competitive students are eligible for a variety of prizes and the top 50 finishers are invited to a final, international competition, in Los Angeles.
The rookie group is a non-competitive category that participated in a variety of pre-literacy activities. They made braille greeting cards, participated in a music activity, made clay monsters, and made and enjoyed cheesecake. Each of these activities were designed to encourage pre-braille skills like tactile discrimination, auditory discrimination, hand strength, and direction following. The cheesecake making activity was a class favorite, culminating in a tasty treat to celebrate a day’s worth of hard work.
