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Rosenblum, L. P., & Amato, S. (2004). Prepa- graphemes for each character of the English ration in and use of the Nemeth braille code alphabet, which consumes a lot of space, re- for mathematics by teachers of students with sulting in books that are very long. Contracted visual impairments. Journal of Visual Im- braille, on the other hand, uses 189 contrac- pairment & Blindness, 98(8), 484–498. tions, many of which represent whole words Schroeder, F. (1989). Literacy: The key to with one grapheme (the, can, and people, for opportunity. Journal of Visual Impairment example), which has led to shorter publications. & Blindness, 83(6), 290–293. The creation and utilization of contracted braille has had an effect on the education of visually Ann P. Gulley, B.S., math and sciences student impaired students. As a result, there has been services coordinator, doctoral student, Learning Center, Auburn University at Montgomery, P.O. extensive research in this area. Box 244023, Montgomery, AL 36124; e-mail: Lee and Hock (2014) investigated the ef- [email protected]. Luke A. Smith, Ph.D., assistant fect of using contracted braille on the spelling professor, College of Education, Auburn University proficiency of visually impaired students in at Montgomery, 7400 East Drive, Montgomery, AL 36117; e-mail: [email protected]. Jordan A. Price, a bilingual setting. Through doing quasi- B.S., graduate student, Samuel Ginn College of En- experimental research, they concluded that gineering, Auburn University, 1301 Shelby Center, the most frequent errors were grapheme sub- Auburn, AL 36849; e-mail: [email protected]. Lo- stitution and direct translation of syllables of gan C. Prickett, undergraduate student, Learning Center, Auburn University at Montgomery; e-mail: the first language. Troughton (1992) stated [email protected]. Matthew F. Ragland, Ph.D., as- that the students who learn contracted braille sociate provost and professor, Auburn University at later in school show a better performance in Montgomery; e-mail: [email protected]. reading skills than those who learned contrac- tions earlier. Wall Emerson, Holbrook, and D’Andrea (2009), on the other hand, con- Practice Report cluded that if visually impaired students learn contractions at an earlier time, they will show better performance in their reading skills. A Comparative Analysis of In the educational system of Iran, in which Contracted Versus Alphabetical English is a foreign language, the duration of English Braille and Attitudes of primary school is six years. After that, these English as a Foreign Language English as a foreign language students enter Learners: A Case Study of a high school and start to learn English during Farsi-Speaking Visually an additional six-year period. In years seven Impaired Student and eight, English textbooks are embossed in Mohsen Mobaraki, Saber Atash Nazarloo, alphabetic English braille; but, for the next and Elaheh Toosheh four years, these books are prepared in the Education is an absolute right of all human contracted form. Visually impaired students beings, especially in today’s world, and there in Iran use alphabetic braille to read and write is a huge responsibility on those teachers who in their own mother tongue (Farsi). Con- work with learners with disabilities. A very tracted braille is, therefore, a foreign concept special kind of education is needed for people to these students. who are visually impaired, and braille is one In Iran, the exposure of students who are method that is utilized by individuals to ac- learning English to contracted braille in high cess educational materials. school has affected the reading skills of these There are two kinds of braille, alphabetic students. The present researchers interviewed and contracted. In alphabetic braille, there are four teachers regarding the teaching of ©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, September-October 2017 471 contracted braille to English as a foreign lan- covered. His voice was recorded when he was guage visually impaired high school students, reading text, and a stopwatch was used to and they also made some changes to the cur- measure how long it lasted. After implement- riculum followed by the teachers. Since it is ing the alphabetic braille test, teaching con- difficult for students to memorize a large tracted braille started, with instruction over as amount of contractions quickly, all parties many sessions as the alphabetic one (second agreed that contracted braille needs to be phase). In this phase, we taught the same taught as early as the first year of high school material but in contracted code, and a test was to Farsi-speaking students learning English. given after 20 sessions. Due to the time- The present study aims to scrutinize the consuming process of teaching the large num- effects on reading fluency of learning con- ber of braille contractions, we had to limit our tracted English braille. To do so, we taught project to teaching selected contractions to alphabetic and contracted braille to a visually make the teaching sessions equal. The mate- impaired 12-year-old school boy to examine rials used in this period were adopted from the degree of impact of teaching either of Interchange by Richards (2005), converted these two codes on his reading fluency. into braille notation, first into alphabetic and second into contracted. METHODS AND MATERIALS Visually impaired Iranian students learn al- RESULTS phabetic Farsi braille from the very beginning, Based on the words correct per minute with no knowledge of the contracted form of (WCPM) formula (University of Texas at braille that exists in English. During years Austin, n.d.) we measured the fluency and seven and eight, the students start learning accuracy rate in each phase, counting the alphabetic English braille and, in the next four number of correct words per minute and years, they learn the contracted form. The sub- per second and finally calculating WCPM. ject of our research was a 12-year-old student Through calculating the total number of er- (year six) whose primary method of reading and rors of the first and second phase, we calcu- writing was alphabetic Farsi braille. He had no lated the words which had been read correctly other disability and had no background knowl- (WC) as follows: edge of the English language. The practical aspect of the study presented (Total number of words) – (total num- here was conducted in two phases, alphabetic ber of errors) ϭ WC and contracted. Alphabetic English braille was first taught to the student for three months First phase (alphabetic braille): 74 – ϭ (first phase) in two one-hour sessions per 6 68 in 128 seconds week, each lasting one hour for 20 sessions Second phase (contracted braille): 74 – total. (We had intended hold 24 sessions, but 4 ϭ 70 in 120 seconds due to the participant’s reluctance and fatigue, some sessions were missed. Since we were By dividing WC by the total number of not able to have 24 sessions in the first phase, seconds, we got the words correct per second we decided to have the same number of ses- rate and multiplied that number by 60 to get sions in the second phase.) To correct errors, the WCPM rate. When reading alphabeti- the student was asked to review the lessons cally, the student read 68 out of 74 words and read them aloud in each session. To mea- correctly in 128 seconds. In contracted sure his reading fluency, a test was given in braille, he read 70 out of 74 words correctly in alphabetic braille based on what was already 120 seconds. He read 31 correct words per 472 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, September-October 2017 ©2017 AFB, All Rights Reserved Table 1 outcomes was that the words having sh, ch, and The types of errors made by the student during th sounds were read incorrectly in the alpha- the alphabetical braille test. betic test, whereas they were read correctly in Word, substitution Omissions the contracted one. As a matter of fact, these Question, goestion No omissions sounds have somewhat difficult spellings but Write, wit are easier in contracted braille in this regard; School, shool consequently, the student could read them Washes, washes Ate, eat correctly in the contracted format. This out- The, she come is similar to what Harley, Truan, and The, they Sanford (1997) concluded. They stated that sh, th, and ch, including a blended sound, can be much easier for visually impaired learners minute in alphabetical braille, and 34 correct to spell in contracted form. words per minute in contracted braille. Comparing alphabetic and contracted As shown, the reading speed in the second groups, Hong and Erin (2004) concluded that phase is faster, and the percentage of spelling the first one had fewer errors and the errors errors is also lower than in the first phase, but were unconscious (since, to the present re- the difference between the first and second searchers, they were considered as mistakes phases is not large. Through determining due to lack of concentration, fatigue, and WC in each phase, we divided them by the stress). The results of the contracted test in total number of words in the passage read to this paper were the same as those of the calculate the accuracy rate for his reading alphabetic test carried out by Hong and Erin as follows: (2004). After the two tests were administered, ϭ First phase: 68WC/74 0.91% accuracy we asked the participant to state the source of ϭ Second phase: 70WC/74 0.94% accuracy the errors, and he said that the source of errors was lack of concentration and also the diffi- DISCUSSION culty of memorizing the contractions. The data analysis indicated that substitutions Although Troughton’s study (1992) indi- in the first test (alphabetic braille, see Table 1) cated that reading speed is faster when the and omissions in the second one (contracted text is in alphabetic code, the present study braille, see Table 2) were the most frequent came to a different conclusion.

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