Ozzie Dots: Teaching Contracted Braille to Beginning Braille Readers

Created by staff of the Statewide Vision Resource Centre, Ozzie Dots supports the teaching and learning of contracted braille (UEB) for beginning braille readers.

Ozzie Dots:

  • offers a systematic though flexible approach to teaching contracted braille

  • is an editable resource encouraging tailoring for individual learners

  • features hundreds of fully illustrated books

  • promotes tactual graphicacy, concept development and a love of reading

  • includes a downloadable Teacher Resource

  • is available in hardcopy braille for eligible Victorian students (Request Form) OR a digital organisational copy may be purchased

Ozzie Dots comprises:

  1. Towards Sets 1-10 – activities to introduce scanning, tracking, matching, concepts & vocabulary, braille letters of the alphabet and 2- and 3-letter words (80 books)

  2. Sets 1-10 – sequentially introducing 51 contractions selected from frequently-used word lists; includes punctuation and other braille signs (440 books)

  3. Beyond Sets 1-10 – resources to continue the development of the approximately 140 remaining contractions ... and available as your very own "choose-your-own-braille-adventure" (250 books)

  4. Surprise me – a range of longer illustrated stories offering practice in contracted braille and tactual graphicacy, along with puzzles, worksheets, maths resources and more!

Towards Sets 1-10

Responding to the question, "What comes before Ozzie Dots?" we created a suite of resources to assist the braille teacher and their beginning touch reader.

Pick-and-choose from this collection depending on the student's engagement, literacy, residual vision and tactile skills.

Resources include:

  • ABC (alphabet) books

  • Tactile colouring and spot-the-difference books

  • Tactile mazes

  • Tactile scanning and concept/vocabulary activity books

  • Tactile tracking and discrimination activity books

  • Letter/sound and number awareness and knowledge

  • 2- and 3-letter words and selected alphabetic wordsigns

  • qk brl – stories written using the alphabetic wordsigns only

Sets 1-10

Sets 1-10 assumes knowledge of the braille alphabet, the capital indicator and the full stop. The books start very simply. The first book contains 25 words; the number of words and the complexity of the language and concepts grows from there. Contractions include all the alphabetic wordsigns (e.g. but, can, do); the strong wordsigns (and, for, of, the, with); selected shortform words (e.g. after, friend, him); selected dot 5 words (e.g. day, name, some); and in (standing alone). Eight or more books are available to introduce each contraction, though we have found that 2-3 books per contraction is generally sufficient.

In order to assist in the selection of books for your student, PDFs are available to view or download. The PDF for each book generally includes an introduction; text of the book; number of focus contraction occurrences; and list of previously introduced contractions, punctuation and other braille symbols.

Ozzie Dots Sets 1-10 introduces contractions sequentially as follows:

  • Set 1: like, can, it, the, go

  • Set 2: do, you, will, not, little

  • Set 3: very, good, have, but, for

  • Set 4: that, so, with, him, from

  • Set 5: and, more, every, people, said

  • Set 6: of, some, great, mother, father, us

  • Set 7: here, friend, day, in (standing alone), as

  • Set 8: could, would, time, work, one

  • Set 9: just, name, after, again, your

  • Set 10: about, always, quite, rather, knowledge

  • Sets 1-10 assessment and review: four stories review the contractions introduced thus far

Beyond Sets 1-10

Beyond Sets 1-10 presents contractions in groups. These contractions are not designed to be presented sequentially, but rather as they come up in the classroom and/or in the order that the braille teacher considers best. Every effort has been made to create stories using only the contractions from Sets 1-10 and the new/focus contraction(s). This ensures that the beginning braille reader can build on their braille reading skills without having to decode unfamiliar contractions.

Select a group or just a single contraction from a group and enjoy a contracted braille choose-your-own-adventure! Again, teacher notes are available to view or download and generally include an introduction; text of the book; number of focus contraction occurrences; and list of included contractions, punctuation and other braille symbols. Contractions in Beyond Sets 1-10 are introduced as follows:

Digraphs, blends & double letters – groupsigns and related wordsigns:

  • AR; BB; CC; CH (& CHILD, CHILDREN, MUCH, SUCH); EA; ED; EN (& ENOUGH); ER; FF; GG; GH; IN (within words); ING; OU (& OUT); OW; SH (& SHALL, SHOULD); ST (& STILL, FIRST, MUST); TH (& THIS); WH (& WHICH)

Endings, also known as final-letter groupsigns:

  • ANCE, ENCE, FUL, ITY, LESS, MENT, NESS, ONG, OUND, OUNT, SION, TION

Initial-letter contractions:

  • Dot 5 words – those not introduced in Sets 1-10 (CHARACTER, EVER, KNOW, LORD, OUGHT, PART, QUESTION, RIGHT, THERE, THROUGH, UNDER, WHERE, YOUNG)

  • Dot 4,5 words (UPON, THESE, THOSE, WHOSE, WORD)

  • Dot 4,5,6 words (CANNOT, HAD, MANY, SPIRIT, THEIR, WORLD)

Lower signs, occupying the lower four dots of the braille cell (and not introduced elsewhere):

  • CON, DIS, HIS, WAS, WERE

Shortform words:

  • Group 1 – for younger beginners (BLIND, BRAILLE, EITHER, IMMEDIATE, LETTER, NECESSARY, NEITHER, PAID, PERHAPS, QUICK, TODAY, TOGETHER, TOMORROW, TONIGHT)

  • Group 2 – beginning with the letter "a" (ABOVE, ACCORDING, ACROSS, AFTERNOON, AFTERWARD, AGAINST, ALMOST, ALREADY, ALSO, ALTHOUGH, ALTOGETHER)

  • Group 3 – BE (standing alone), words with BE as the first syllable (e.g. BECAUSE), shortforms beginning with BE (BECAUSE, BEFORE, BEHIND, BELOW, BENEATH, BESIDE, BETWEEN, BEYOND)

  • Group 4 – containing "self" and "selves" (HERSELF, HIMSELF, ITSELF, MYSELF, ONESELF, OURSELVES, THEMSELVES, THYSELF, YOURSELF, YOURSELVES)

  • Group 5 – for older students (CONCEIVE, CONCEIVING, DECEIVE, DECEIVING, DECLARE, DECLARING, PERCEIVE, PERCEIVING, RECEIVE, RECEIVING, REJOICE, REJOICING)

Surprise Me

Surprise Me offers a growing collection of resources for use as extension, revision or assessment … or just fun!

A small collection of puzzles, worksheets and maths resources is also available and includes:

  • Longer illustrated books

  • Stories that include all the contractions e.g. Whale

  • Brain teasers (Rebus puzzles)

  • Wordsearch

  • Sudoku puzzles

  • Maths resources

Purchasing Ozzie Dots

The cost to organisations and transcription agencies (Australian dollars) is as follows:

  • purchase for use within Australia – AU$792 (GST inclusive)

  • purchase for use outside Australia – AU$720 (GST inclusive)

Parents/carers may purchase Ozzie Dots – but please note, you will also require:

  • computer with Duxbury Braille Translation software

  • a graphics-enabled braille embosser (e.g. Index Everest)

  • braille paper (11×11.5 inches)

  • a binder and binding combs (or stapler)

  • a printer for PDF/DOCX files

Trouble Shooting

Embosser settings: When embossing the DXB files, ensure that your "Desired Braille Document Formatting" settings for "Global Embosser Settings" AND "Document Embosser Settings" are the same as the settings used in the creation of Ozzie Dots Duxbury files.

  • Form (paper size): 11.5 by 11 inches

  • Characters per line: 40

  • Lines per page: 25

  • Top margin in lines: 1

  • Binding margin in characters: 4

  • Emboss in interpoint: NOT checked

  • Emboss a banner page: NOT checked

Note: We recommend Index Everest embossers.

Graphics: Ensure the dot resolution is correct (Layout - Picture - 2.0 mm resolution)

Pages: We encourage story-editing to personalise the stories, but this can change a book’s pagination. Check on-screen before embossing.

Feedback

We’d love you to stay in touch, particularly if you have suggestions or comments - please contact us.