Russell Leung and Ava Henderson have an uncommon skill among Burnaby students, and last week they got a rare chance to show it off.
Leung, a Burnaby North Grade 10 student, and Henderson, a Sperling Elementary Grade 5 student, are the school district’s only braille readers.
On Friday, the two were at UBC with 18 other B.C. students for the annual Braille Challenge, a contest to test their reading comprehension, speed, accuracy, proofreading, spelling and ability to read tactile charts and graphs.
“Everybody had a really great time,” Burnaby vision teacher Debbie Sitar told the NOW.
The yearly contest, held at 46 sites across Canada and the United States from January through the end of March, is a valuable opportunity for braille readers to share their interests and struggles with others who rely on raised dots and not print to read, according to.
“Print is everywhere,” Sitar said. “We look around and we see print on signs. Little kids know McDonald’s before they can even read. Our kids don’t have that same opportunity because they don’t see print. The opportunity to have braille under their fingertips is not as prevalent as kids who have sight. That’s a big issue.”
Not only is it a challenge to find braille material, according to Sitar; chances to get together with other braille readers are rare too, mostly because there are just so few of them.
Blindness is a continuum, Sitar explained, and not everyone with a visual impairment will learn Braille since some have enough vision to read large print.
Others may have cognitive impairments along with their vision loss that prevent them from learning to read.
“There’s very few braille readers across Canada,” Sitar said.
It’s a big part of what makes the Braille Challenge so important, she said.
“It offers a very special opportunity for visually impaired Braille readers to come together and share their interests, struggles and commonalities in a friendly kind of competition.”
The preliminary round of the challenge is open to students of all skills levels. The results are scored locally using national guidelines, and the top-scoring 60 contestants are invited to Los Angeles in June for a two-day final round.
All contestants receive a brailled certificate of appreciation and feedback on their performance in May.
