Welcome to the braille Illiterate Website

This website was created in response to gatekeepers of the blind community blocking the site creator’s counter arguments to braille literacy advocates arguments. The bulk of the site is HTML versions of email messages sent to podcast hosts with counter arguments. None of the podcasters ever used or commented on the messages. There were never any undeliverable notifications for the messages. The files were edited to remove personal email address and format to meet HTML standards.

Creator’s Personal History Including Braille

I was probably born legally blind as defined in US. Law. I wore maximum prescription glasses when I entered kindergarten. I completed primary and secondary education mostly as a large print reader. My vision was good enough to read regular print using only my glasses if necessary. I went totally blind in my 20th year. I entered a residential rehabilitation program for the blind on my 21st birthday. I learned valuable blindness skills like:

• Orientation and mobility
• Cooking
• Daily living skills such as basic sewing

I was reading Arthur C. Clark’s 2001 A Space Odyssey in what was called grade 2 literary braille when I left the rehabilitation program. I returned to college with a full load four or five months after completing the rehabilitation program. This meant that I did not have enough time to built-up braille reading speed for a college workload. I used audio books and direct reader support to learn course materials and dictated papers. I completed college just as good quality screen readers were becoming available. I had a career that lasted a bit over 32 years as a government analyst in resource conservation and recycling. I used computers with screen readers with speech only for my entire career. I have used braille to label herbs, spices, clothes for colors and grocery shopping lists since leaving the rehabilitation program. My limited use of braille suggests that there really is no need to expect people to be braille literate whatever that means.

Adult-Onset Blindness and Braille

Braille literacy advocates insistence that people with adult-onset blindness must learn braille to be literate is especially appalling to me. The majority of these people are already literate. They know the rules of correct writing from their primary and secondary education not to mention lived experience. These people know about topics like:

• Capitalization
• Spelling
• Punctuation
• Sentence -- paragraph -- essay -- report -- book structures

The have no need to learn a specialized code in the age of computers with screen readers that have speech output.

Braille Reading Speed

The one topic not otherwise covered on this website is braille reading speed. All of the studies that I reviewed or seen referenced on braille reading speed are consistence. The typical braille reader has a braille reading speed from one half to one third of print readers.

Suggested Reading Order for Links

As previously stated, the bulk of this website is HTML versions of email messages. The messages were prepared in haste to try to keep current with weekly podcast schedules. They were also separate single concept messages again trying to keep current to podcast schedules and get at least some part of my ideas into the conversation in a timely manner. The following suggested reading order comes nearest to reflecting what I would write if I tried to write a single document expressing my views.

1. Mosen at Large Literacy Questions
2. Mosen at Large Braille and Employment
3. Mosen at Large Definition of Illiterate
4. Double Tap on Braille