Parker turned the tables one day last week and instead of being the student, became the teacher for a day. His students, Mrs. Forman, and his mother, Melissa, received an introductory course in braille.
“It’s (braille) not as hard as it was at first,” said Parker who has been getting acquainted with braille for the last few years. Parker has a progressive degenerative eye condition. With advancements in treatment options, he hopes the progression will be stopped or at least slowed, but he also recognizes there’s a possibility he may need to use braille sometime in his future.
“We want to have some basics in place and have that foundation ready for him if he needs it,” said Joanne Hewartson, a teacher/consultant for the Visually Impaired (TCVI) with the Kent Intermediate School District, who visits Parker twice a week and works with him for about an hour at a time.
“He’s a really good kid,” said Hewartson. “We celebrate his wins. He’s worked really hard and that’s why we decided to give him a reward. I told him I would bring in doughnuts or cupcakes, but he wanted to become the teacher for the day.”
Parker specifically wanted to show his principal and his mom how much he’s learned. He explained that the braille characters are formed using a combination of six raised dots arranged in a 3 x 2 matrix, called the braille cell. The number and arrangement of the dots distinguishes one character and contraction from another.
Forman got the gold star on her paper where she had to show the correct pattern of dots to use to write her first name. Parker’s mom had a couple of mistakes on her paper, but Parker was encouraging. “Mistakes are how we learn,” he said.
He also demonstrated how he uses the Perkins light-touch brailler, which looks a little like an old-fashioned manual typewriter. In no time, he had written the entire alphabet on paper. Instead of printing inked letters on the page, the light-touch brailler creates the series of raised dots.
“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever learned,” said Forman.
Parker also showed how he uses his fingers to feel the pattern of raised dots on the paper to read. With ease, he ran his fingers in a straight line across the paper and quickly read off the letters and words.
“He’s really doing very well,” said Hewartson. “It’s not an easy thing to do. It’s not a superpower. It’s just reading and writing in a different way,” she said.
Next up was a color-by-number activity. Forman and Melissa were blindfolded as they were given crayons. Parker helped by telling them which colors to use since they couldn’t read the numbers in braille, but he made them feel for the edges of the areas to color.
“This is so hard,” said Forman. “I don’t know what I’ve already colored. I can feel the edges, but I can’t see how I’m doing or if I’ve missed spots.
Melissa said she’s overwhelmed. “I can’t believe he can do all this. We don’t know what the future is going to be, but we want him to be prepared. I feel good that he’s going to have a solid foundation,” she said.
Hewartson complimented TK schools for being so accommodating in scheduling time for Parker to be out of classrooms to get this help he needs. “The collaboration with all the buildings at TK has been so great. The schools are truly invested in success for all students. The teachers make their schedules flexible and that makes a huge difference.”
Melissa agreed. “His success as a fourth-grade student is most important. He needs to be in the classroom, but he also needs this specialized work. It’s been a team decision on how much time and when to pull him out of the classroom,” she said.
Melissa said she’s proud of her son and knew he was proud showing her and Mrs. Forman what he could do. “I really appreciate that he knows how to do all of this, and I feel very fortunate that TK has the resources available through the ISD to help him. We’re very lucky to be part of the Kent ISD.”