Kids show off their reading and writing skills in competition

Jed Boal reportingNearly 40 Utah school kids gathered in Salt Lake City to show off their reading and writing skills. But the way these students read and write differs from most of their peers in school.

The fourth-, fifth- and sixth- graders are keyed up as they concentrate on reading comprehension.

They like to read but use a different system than their peers and a special tool because they are visually impaired or blind.

Brandee Hick is competing in the Utah Braille Challenge at the Utah Foundation for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

Nearly 40 students from across the state in grades one through 12 are competing.

Hicks, a third-grader, says, "I can feel the dots. There are different numbers dots put together to make letters."

Braille is a system that uses patterns of six dots that come in 65 different combinations. The students also learn 180 different contractions that are a sort of shorthand. The students have to be able to discriminate between all of those symbols.

Tony Jepson, a Utah Foundation for the Blind board member, says, "We're opening up the world for them now academically and later on vocationally. It's imperative that these kids have great Braille skills for school and for jobs."

Devin Harris uses his Perkins Brailler for homework and to write stories. He likes the challenge. The fifth-grader says, "Whenever I push the Braille keys on a piece of paper; what it does, it pops up, and I can read it."

He likes the fun, the competition and the incentive to improve.

Some of the students will have a chance to move on to national competition later in the school year.

The Utah Foundation for the Blind says funding is always a challenge, but they strive to provide better services and higher expectations for students.

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