Making the switch to UEB: Perspective from an
Incoming TVI
By Kaitlyn Piekarski
kpiek971@live.kutztown.edu
For four months I spent 90% of my time trying to make sense of the
series of dots presented in front of me. These "series of dots" just so
happened to be the English Braille Code. After much time, a lot of studying
and a few shed tears, I finally considered myself to be fluent in this code. I felt
very accomplished and incredibly excited to know that my journey to
becoming a TVI had officially started. Little did I know, braille as I knew it was
about to make quite the change.
Last August (2014) I began my road to becoming a TVI. The first of my
many classes was called "Reading and Writing Literary Braille." In my Braille
class, our focus was learning English Braille. This was one of the hardest
classes I have ever taken in my life, and possibly one of the hardest classes I
ever will take in my future. Through pure excitement of learning, I quickly
began to practice the braille alphabet over and over again until I felt that I
could type it in a satisfactory manner. Upon learning the alphabet, I began to
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