Students Compete for Top Spots in National Braille Challenge
Posted: 1/18/2012 in Academics
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (Jan. 17, 2012) – Students from the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind are testing their Braille skills this week during a Braille Challenge contest in the hopes of competing in the National Braille Challenge finals hosted in Los Angeles, Calif., on June 22-23.
“This is a big deal for them,” said Sandy Serventi, FSDB Off Campus Academic Coordinator and Braille Specialist. “We are so very proud of our students.”
The 35 students from the blind department’s elementary, middle and high schools are honing their skills in speed and accuracy, reading comprehension, proofreading charts and graphs and spelling. The categories they are competing in are: Apprentice (1st and 2nd grades), Freshmen (3rd and 4th grades), Sophomore (5th and 6th grades), Junior Varsity (7th, 8th and 9th grades) and Varsity (10th, 11th and 12th grades).
FSDB has held the Braille Challenge for the past 10 years and has had 13 students qualify for the final competition in California. FSDB’s top eligible students will be included in a larger pool of students from across the nation. If selected, the students are invited to Los Angeles where they will compete in the National Braille Challenge that tests the literary skills of blind and visually impaired students from across the nation.
The tournament is sponsored by the Braille Institute of America and is the only national academic competition for K-12 blind students designed to motivate students in Braille literacy.
Notifications for selection to the national competition will be announced around May 1.
