Braille document on an iPad with Apple Pen writing corresponding print & Good Notes app. Text
Strategy

Interlining Braille: Remotely!

Is your student completing assignment in braille during COVID-19 school closures?

You (the TVI) and your general education classroom teacher are working in tandem to continue classroom instruction with your braille student during the COVID-19 school closures. There are a variety of ways for students to complete assignments – including using tech, going “old school” with a Perkins braille writer or a combination of the two. Many TVIs who had time to prepare, sent home packets of braille materials for students. Some students prefer paper braille while other students may not have access to a 1:1 device or Internet at home. For whatever reason, a student may have completed an assignment in braille. Now what? How can the student send the assignment back to the classroom teacher in a format that the general ed teacher can read?

Jessica McDowell, a tech savvy TVI, has been experimenting with different ways to remotely interline (adding printed words above the braille). Jessica’s second grade braille student completed his assignment using a Perkins. The student (or family member) took a picture of the braille page and emailed it to Jessica. On her iPad, Jessica opened the image in Good Notes and then annotated or wrote the corresponding print above the braille characters using her Apple Pencil.

Note: When interlining, the text is written in print exactly as it is in braille – if the student made a typo, misspelled a word, or made a punctuation error, the print reflects that. If a student uses a braille contraction, the person interlining writes out the contraction in print, then underlines the contracted portion.

In the video below, Jessica demonstrates how she uses the Good Notes App to interline her second grade student’s braille story.

Jessica shared that the second grader had a Zoom meeting with his general education classroom teacher and she provided feedback on the draft of his opinion paper. The next video is of his revised draft. The classroom teacher is responsible for his instruction; the TVI is is  bridging the access gap. 

Note: Many younger braille users may not be independently using technology at a level where they are online by themselves and able to receive and submit materials.

In the next video, Jessica demonstrates more interlining of Logan’s opinion paper.

Resource

Good Notes App in the App Store

Interlining Braille: Remotely! Pinterest pin

By Diane Brauner

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