Introduction

Articles, videos and activities will help us achieve the following learning outcomes:

• Differentiate and understand three types of pre-braille activities: manipulation, orientation, and constellation.

• Engage with LEGO Braille Brick activities based upon the five characteristics of playful experiences (Active engagement, Meaningful, Joyful, Iterative, Social).

• Develop facilitation techniques for brick discovery: how to manipulate, assemble and attach the bricks to the base plate.

It is important to explain what we mean by pre-braille before we present the activities. There are many definitions and terms around the world: early braille literacy, early braille, prerequisites to braille.

Please share your vision and definition for pre-braille in the comments below!

We see pre-braille as the phase of learning when children develop prerequisites and fundamental skills to read and write in braille.

Some of the fundamentals are:

• Tactual skills: exploration and discrimination

• Auditory skills

• Fine motor skills and manual coordination

• Finger isolation and independence

• Spatial skills (right/left, front/back, up/down)

• Rhythm and pattern recognition

• Spatial organisation of a braille cell

• Body awareness

• Objects identification: concepts such as same/different, big/little, tall/small

• Time awareness: yesterday, today, tomorrow, earlier/ later

A multi-sensory approach to pre-braille promotes development of motor, auditory and tactual skills as well as concepts. Most importantly, all the activities have been created to encourage, support and develop a love for reading.

Let’s get started and discover pre-braille categories!