Brandon is a twenty-three year-old man living in Kenya. He was born blind and is completely illiterate. He speaks Luo, a dialect in Kenya. There is no Braille code for the Luo language.

However, since the written form of Luo uses the English alphabet minus a couple of letters, we used the English Braille alphabet to make words in Luo.

Step1:

On the table in front of Brandon are trays where Brandon is putting pebbles in different arrangements. On the top of each tray is a white keychain with a small object on it. Each small object begins with a different sound in the Luo language. The tray has six wells that correspond with the six dots in a Braille cell. Brandon feels the object, says the sound that the object begins with in the Luo language, and builds the letter for that sound by placing pebbles in the correct wells.

Step2:

After mastering the previous step, Brandon’s facilitator shows Brandon the back of the keychain, which has the Braille letter in printed form. The facilitator shows Brandon that the printed Braille matches what he has built with the pebbles. Brandon feels the printed Braille and says the sound that the letter makes. Note: For letters with multiple sounds, we use the main sound for the letter.

Step3:

Once Brandon knows the sound each letter makes, he’s ready to read his first words in Braille. He has already been learning some symbols in SUN as well. To assist in the transition to Braille, the SUN word is shown with each Braille word. If you look closely at the book Brandon is reading, you’ll see an arrow pointing upward. This is the SUN word for “up.” Brandon has read the SUN word and is now reading his first Braille word. He sounds out each letter and then says the word.

Step4:

After Brandon becomes comfortable sounding out words, SUN is removed and Brandon transitions to the Orbit Reader. Brandon progresses from vocabulary words to fragments to sentences. Once Brandon is able to read sentences, his facilitator presents a Scripture passage on the Braille reader. Here, Brandon is reading Matthew 14:22-33 in Luo Braille on the Orbit Reader.