Future Reflections Fall 2014 PROGRAMS AND OPPORTUNITIES
iBRAL Is Here!
by Robert Gardner
Reprinted from The Illinois Independent, Summer 2014
From the Editor: Many families were disappointed when the National Federation of the Blind was forced to discontinue the annual Braille Readers Are Leaders contest in 2012. In an effort to fill the gap, a group of Federationists in Illinois pioneered a statewide contest. In this article, one of the contest organizers, Robert Gardner, tells the story.
iBRAL is here! No, we're not talking about iPad or iTunes. We're talking about iBRAL! In 2012 the National Federation of the Blind discontinued its annual Braille Readers Are Leaders (BRAL) contest after twenty-nine years. To fill the void, the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois (NFBI) decided to run its own contest for kids within the state. Say hello to the Illinois Braille Readers Are Leaders, or iBRAL, Contest for Kids!
The decision to organize the iBRAL contest came about in October of 2013, spurred by the Braille Literacy Committee within the NFBI. With help from Natalie Shaheen of our national office, the committee put together rules and forms and set up a contest page on the state website--all within a month! Working with the resources available in Illinois, the contest was simplified from the one formerly run at the national level. Registration opened on December 1, 2013. The contest included five grade categories from kindergarten through high school. Reading commenced on January 4, 2014, Louis Braille's birthday, and the contest ran for six weeks. The object of the competition, as before, was to read as many pages as possible during the contest period.
The reaction to the iBRAL contest was immediate and enthusiastic. One mother wrote on her son's registration form, "Thank you so much for organizing this event in Illinois. The BRAL contest was the single biggest motivator for my son to really work on his Braille skills." Another typical comment on a registration form came from a teacher of the visually impaired (TVI). She wrote, "This is my first student to enter a Braille competition, and we are both super excited!"
The overall response to our contest to promote the reading of Braille by schoolchildren was fantastic. Within the few weeks allowed for registration, we had twenty-six applicants, ranging from a first grader to several students in twelfth grade. We were amazed that our brand-new, never-before-heard-of contest received such a wonderful response. Much of the thanks goes to the well-organized Public Relations Committee of the NFB of Illinois. The PR Committee sent out a blitz of information to schools, parents, and agencies all over the state.
Lois Montgomery of the NFBI Blackhawk Chapter volunteered to be the contest administrator. She created an email account for iBRAL, where she received registrations at the beginning of the contest and reading logs at the end. In this way, all of the material could be handled electronically. The email account also allowed Lois to communicate easily with parents and/or TVIs who acted as Certifying Authorities for the contestants.
"The contest seemed simple on the surface," Lois said, "but it was surprising how much work it ended up being." Then she added, "But it was so gratifying to read some of the comments we received!"
Lois gave an example of what a TVI said about one of her students. "Thank you for letting us participate!" the teacher wrote. "This was a great way to encourage Braille reading for him!" A parent wrote of her son, "He wanted to make sure he would do well. He just brought me his last book to log, and told me his fingers hurt. No wonder! He read five hundred pages today alone!"
"Sometimes," Lois said, "the feedback we got was touching." For example, a TVI wrote of one of her students, "We had a GREAT time reading! Pierre has just started reading Braille in the past few years, and is finally reading with some fluency and reading for fun! He is seventeen years old, and has autism along with his blindness and cognitive delays. He was diligent daily about telling people he had to read for the Braille contest. Hope to do it again next year! Thanks!"
Cash prizes were awarded to first, second, and third place winners in each grade category. Special thanks go to National Braille Press and the national headquarters of the NFB for donating additional prizes. When we contacted Joanne Sullivan of National Braille Press about purchasing gift certificates to use as prizes, she told us we wouldn't have to buy them. NBP, that great supporter of Braille, would donate a twenty-dollar gift certificate to each contestant! In addition, the national office of the NFB donated a slate and stylus to each child who entered the contest. When it was all over, each child received a generous goodie package from iBRAL, whether or not he or she won a prize.
An additional bonus for category winners was the offer to attend, free of charge, the seminar for parents of blind children held by the NFBI in April 2014. In conjunction with the parents' seminar was a day-long conference for blind high school and college students. One winner and his family accepted the invitation.
The Braille Literacy Committee in Illinois, along with the entire state affiliate, is proud of its accomplishments. We took the idea, the dream, of creating a statewide Braille reading contest for children and turned it into a reality. Many people contributed to the success of the endeavor, including those who made phone calls to publicize the contest and our webmaster, Byron Lee, who made the contest electronically accessible. Lois Montgomery deserves special thanks for overseeing the details of registration, compiling the reading logs, and putting together the prize packages.
The NFBI is already committed to running a 2015 iBRAL contest for kids in Illinois. In our first contest in 2014, we were astounded by the amount of interest we received. We hope that, with more work and more publicity, our second contest will be even more successful. Go Braille! Go iBRAL!
More information about the Illinois Braille Readers Are Leaders contest for kids can be found at the NFBI website, <www.nfbofillinois.org>, at the link "iBRAL Contest."
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