American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections Special Issue on Braille TEACHING
Beyond Contractions: Teaching Braille as Literacy
by Rebecka Gullickson
From the Editor: Rebecka Gullickson is currently the Literacy, Braille, and Assessment Teacher at the Washington State School for the Blind. This is her third year working as a teacher of blind students. She holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education with a literacy emphasis and a master’s degree in special education with an emphasis in visual impairment. Altogether, she has been teaching for six years—first as a general education elementary teacher and now at the secondary level. Previously she served as a high school ELA (English Language Arts) teacher, and currently she works in a role similar to that of a literacy specialist.
During the 2023–2024 school year, I participated in the National Federation of the Blind’s program, Teachers of Tomorrow. I now continue to mentor teachers in the program. Through this experience, I learned several principles that deeply influence my teaching today: maintaining high expectations for blind students, staying informed about evidence-based practices, advocating for students, creating inclusive classrooms, and building strong professional networks.
Perhaps most importantly, the Teachers of Tomorrow program reinforced something that has become central to my teaching philosophy. I recognized that Braille literacy should not exist separately from the literacy instruction happening in the general education classroom. Braille is not an isolated skill. It is the access point that blind students use to participate in the same literacy development as their sighted peers. In this article I explore the connection between Braille and phonics, and I discuss ways educators and families can work together to support strong literacy development.
The Literacy Brain: Braille and Print Use the Same Reading System
Often the teacher of blind students is not the teacher of record for reading goals in a student’s IEP. However, the teacher of blind students often is the teacher responsible for Braille goals. This places teachers of blind students in a critical position when it comes to developing foundational literacy skills such as decoding, phonemic awareness, word recognition, vocabulary, and morphology.
The key question becomes: How can Braille instruction support the same literacy development happening in the classroom rather than operating separately?
Research in the science of reading helps answer this question. Reading engages multiple regions of the brain, each contributing different skills. The frontal lobe supports language production and comprehension. The parietal lobe connects words to meaning. The temporal lobe is involved in phonemic awareness and decoding. The occipital lobe traditionally has been associated with visual recognition of letters and words.
For many years, researchers assumed that the occipital lobe was used only for visual processing. However, studies conducted by researchers such as Norihiro Sadato and later Joanna Siuda-Krzywicka found that the visual cortex becomes active during Braille reading. These studies demonstrated that this region of the brain can process tactile information as well as visual input. In other words, the brain does not fundamentally change the way it reads when a person reads Braille instead of print. The same reading system is activated; the only difference is the method of input. Braille is not a separate literacy system. It is a different pathway to the same end—reading.
Integrating Braille with Phonics Instruction
When I plan Braille instruction, I often begin by asking three questions: What literacy skills is the student currently learning, and what skills will the student learn later this school year? Where do those skills fit within reading development? How can Braille instruction reinforce those same skills?
Alignment does not mean duplicating everything the classroom teacher is doing. Instead, it means ensuring that Braille instruction supports and mirrors the literacy development happening elsewhere. It also means teaching Braille and phonics simultaneously. For example, when students are learning letter-sound correspondence, Braille instruction can focus on identifying Braille letters, connecting them with sounds, blending those sounds, and forming simple words. When students begin to encounter digraphs and blends in phonics instruction—patterns such as sh, ch, or st—these patterns can appear naturally within Braille reading and writing practice as contractions.
Morphology can also become part of Braille instruction. When students begin learning why certain prefixes or suffixes, such as -tion or -ed, are added to words, Braille readers can explore those same patterns tactually. In this way, Braille instruction reinforces literacy concepts rather than existing as a separate system of symbols to memorize.
The Risk of Limited Exposure
When Braille instruction is separated from classroom literacy, students may experience a dramatically reduced exposure to language.
Consider a typical first grader who is learning to read. During a single year, the student may encounter dozens of phonetic patterns and hundreds—sometimes more than a thousand—words. If a Braille reader’s goals focus only on reading specific contractions or group signs, the student may encounter only a handful of patterns and a small set of words. In some cases, Braille readers may be exposed to only a fraction of the linguistic input their sighted peers receive.
This limitation is not inherent to Braille itself. Rather, it occurs when Braille instruction becomes narrowly focused on symbol mastery rather than literacy development. Blind students deserve the same rich language exposure as their sighted peers.
A Student Example
I once worked with a student—let’s call them Student L—whose goal focused on identifying Braille letters in isolation and writing letters when verbally prompted. While these skills are important, I wanted the student to begin seeing letters within meaningful language. Instead of focusing exclusively on isolated letters, I revised the goal to include letters both in isolation and within context, using CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant words, such as cat and jet), and high-frequency words.
After this change, the student’s progress accelerated. Within a few months, letter recognition increased significantly by 50 percent, and the student began reading 50 percent more high-frequency words accurately. The shift demonstrated an important principle: literacy develops more efficiently when skills are connected to meaningful language.
Learning From Errors
When students begin working with multiple literacy skills at once, mistakes are inevitable. Rather than viewing errors as failures, we can treat them as valuable pieces of information.
A mistake might reveal that a student misunderstood a phonics pattern. It might show confusion between Braille symbols. In some cases, especially for multilingual learners, it may reveal a vocabulary gap.
Understanding the source of an error helps guide instruction. If we misinterpret the error, we may end up teaching the wrong solution. This is another reason collaboration between educators is so important.
Collaboration Between Teachers
Effective literacy instruction for blind students often involves several professionals working together: the classroom teacher, the reading specialist, and the teacher of blind students. Collaboration does not always require formal meetings. Sometimes it happens through quick conversations, shared documents, or brief email exchanges about what students are currently learning in phonics. Teachers can share reading samples, discuss patterns they are noticing, and identify areas where students may need additional practice. When educators approach literacy collaboratively, Braille instruction can reinforce classroom instruction and vice versa.
Most importantly, we must challenge the idea that literacy belongs only to one professional. Braille teachers are literacy teachers. Reading specialists are literacy teachers. Classroom teachers are literacy teachers. When these roles align, students benefit.
How Families Can Support Braille Literacy at Home
Families play an essential role in supporting literacy development. Fortunately, many of the strategies that support print readers also support Braille readers.
Creating a Braille-rich environment at home can encourage curiosity and exploration. Parents may choose to label common household items, such as doors, toy bins, or pantry shelves, in Braille so children encounter Braille naturally throughout the day.
Shared reading is another powerful tool. Families can read together, with a parent reading print and the child reading Braille. Conversations about the story—predicting what might happen next, discussing characters, or explaining unfamiliar vocabulary—help build comprehension and language development.
Word play can also strengthen phonemic awareness. Rhyming games, identifying beginning sounds, or blending sounds into words easily can be incorporated into everyday routines.
Parents can also help children practice high-frequency words through short activities such as using Braille flashcards, creating word scavenger hunts around the house, or writing simple messages using Braillewriter or slate and stylus.
Perhaps most importantly, families can encourage children to write. Children might create grocery lists, leave notes for family members, or keep short journals about their day. Writing reinforces reading skills and strengthens familiarity with Braille patterns.
These activities do not require specialized training. They simply require time, encouragement, and the belief that Braille readers can and should engage fully in literacy.
Braille Is a Living Literacy System
Braille instruction supports the same literacy goals as print instruction—it simply provides a different method of access. Braille is not a supplemental skill or a support tool. It is a complete literacy system that allows blind individuals to read, write, and engage fully with language.
When Braille instruction aligns with phonics and classroom literacy, blind students gain access to the same rich reading experiences as their peers. And when educators and families work together, Braille becomes what it was always meant to be: a powerful pathway to literacy, independence, and opportunity.