Hadley

Contracted Braille Workshop 19:

Shortforms Set 1

Opening

Hadley presents Contracted Braille Workshop 19: Shortforms Set 1.

Page 1

To begin, make sure you have your braille workbook with you.

If you don’t already have one, call Hadley at 847-784-2816 and we’ll mail one right out to you.

Now, let’s look at a new set of contractions. This next set is called, “shortform words.”

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

These are the words, “him,” “your,” “said,” and “paid.”

Shortforms are abbreviations that stand for words.

Above the middle line are four rows of braille with shortform words.

Find the first word. This is “him.”

Now, let’s read the second word, “your.”

The third word is “said.”

And the last word is “paid.”

Below the middle line, you’ll find a row of words.

Let’s read these words together. “Said,” “your,” “paid,” “him.”

Turn the page.

Page 2

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page. This is “him,” h-m.

Above the middle line, you’ll find four rows of braille.

As you read the braille and work through the activities on these pages, use the Pause button or spacebar to pause for as long as you need to.

Then, select the Play button or press the spacebar again to hear the feedback for that item.

Which row above the middle line contains “him?”

If you found “him” in the third row, that’s right!

Below the middle line, you’ll find four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find which word is “him.”

If you picked the second word, you got it!

Now, find “him” in the second row.

This time, it’s the last word.

Next, find “him” in the third row.

In this row, “him” is the second word.

Finally, find “him” in the last row.

It’s the last word.

Move to the next page.

Page 3

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

This is the word “your,” y-r, as in, “This is your book.”

Above the middle line, you’ll find four rows of braille. Which row contains “your?”

Did you find it in the third row? That’s right!

Below the middle line, you’ll find four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find which word is “your.”

“Your” is the third word.

Next, find “your” in the second row.

Did you pick the last word? You got it!

Now, find “your” in the third row.

This time, “your” is the second word.

Finally, find “your” in the last row.

In this row, it’s the last word.

Turn the page.

Page 4

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

This is “said,” s-d.

Above the middle line are four rows of braille.

Which row contains “said?”

If you found “said” in the first row, you got it!

Below the middle line, you’ll find four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find which one is “said.”

In this row, “said” is the last word.

Now, find “said” in the next row.

It’s the first word.

Next, find the word “said” in the third row.

This time it’s the second word.

Finally, find “said” in the last row.

If you picked the last word, that’s it!

Go to the next page.

Page 5

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

This is “paid,” p-d.

Above the middle line, you’ll find four rows of braille.

Which row says, “paid?”

Did you find it in the last row? That’s right!

Below the middle line are four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find which one is “paid.”

“Paid” is the second word.

Now, read the next row and find “paid.”

If you picked the third word, you found it!

Next, find “paid” in the third row.

This time “paid” is the first word.

And finally, find “paid” in the last row.

It’s the third word.

Turn the page.

Page 6

Feel the braille words “him,” “your,” “said,” and “paid” in the top left corner of the page

Near the top of the page, you’ll find three rows of braille.

Once again, use the Pause button or the spacebar to stop the audio for as long as you need to complete an activity.

Then, select the Play button, or press the spacebar again, to hear the feedback.

Which row near the top of the page has the words “him,” “your,” “said,” and “paid” in that order?

If you said the last row, you’re right!

Continuing down the page, you’ll find three sentences.

What does the first sentence say?

If you read, “Bob said he paid your rent, and please call him,” you got it!

Now, read the second sentence.

This one says, “Will you still loan us your car as you said last week?”

Finally, read the last sentence.

This last one says, “I am glad I paid for your lunch when you helped me move.”

If you’d like to go through the activities on this page again, you can always select Replay.

And if you’d like some help, reach out to a braille expert anytime.

When you’re ready, move to the next page.

Page 7

Let’s learn three more shortforms.

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

These words are, “today,” “tonight,” and “tomorrow.”

Above the middle line, you’ll find three words. Let’s read them together.

The first row is the word “today.”

The word in the second row is “tonight.”

And the last word is “tomorrow.”

Below the middle line is a row of words.

Let’s read these three words together: “tonight,” “today,” “tomorrow.”

Turn the page.

Page 8

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

This is “today,” t-d.

Above the middle line, you’ll find three rows of braille.

Which row contains “today?”

If you found “today” in the middle row, you got it!

Below the middle line, you’ll find four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find which word is “today.”

“Today” is the last word.

Now, find “today” in the next row.

In this row, it’s the middle word.

What about the third row?

If you said “today” is the middle word again, that’s it!

Finally, find “today” in the last row.

This time it’s the last word.

Go to the next page.

Page 9

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

This is “tonight,” t-n.

Above the middle line, you’ll find three rows of braille.

Which row contains “tonight?”

If you said “tonight” is in the first row, you got it!

Below the middle line, you’ll find four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find which one is “tonight.”

“Tonight” is the last word.

Find tonight in the second row.

If you said it’s the first word, that’s right!

And where is “tonight” in the third row?

This time, it’s the middle word.

Finally, find “tonight” in the last row.

In this row, it’s the last word.

Turn the page.

Page 10

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

This is “tomorrow,” t-m.

Above the middle line are three rows of braille.

Which row contains “tomorrow?”

Did you say it’s in the last row? That’s right!

Below the middle line, you’ll find four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find “tomorrow.”

In this row, “tomorrow” is the first word.

Next, find “tomorrow” in the second row.

This time, it’s the last word.

Where’s “tomorrow” in the third row?

If you said it’s the middle word, that’s it!

And finally, find “tomorrow” in the last row.

“Tomorrow” is the last word.

Move to the next page.

Page 11

Feel the braille words, “tonight,” “today,” and “tomorrow” in the top-left corner of the page.

Near the top of the page, you’ll find three rows of braille.

Which row has the words, “tomorrow,” “tonight,” and “today” in that order?

If you said the middle row, you got it!

Continue down the page and you’ll find three sentences.

What does the first sentence say?

This sentence reads, “I can’t come tonight, but tomorrow I will stop by.”

Now, read the second sentence.

If you read, “Is the lunar eclipse happening today or tomorrow?” that’s right!

Finally, read the last sentence.

The last sentence says, “Kim is staying with me tonight, but can you stay tomorrow night?”

Turn the page.

Page 12

Let’s look at three more shortforms.

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

These words are “about,” “again,” and “after.”

Above the middle line, you’ll find three words.

Let’s read them together.

The first word is “about.”

Now, let’s read the second word, “again.”

And the last word, “after.”

Below the middle line, you’ll find a row of words.

Let’s read these together: “again,” “after,” “about.”

Go to the next page.

Page 13

Feel the braille in the top-left corner of the page.

This is “about,” a-b.

Above the middle line you’ll find three rows of braille.

Which row contains “about?”

If you found “about” in the middle row, that’s right!

Below the middle line you’ll find four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find which word is “about.”

Did you pick the middle word? That’s it!

Now, find “about” in the next row.

In this row, it’s the last word.

Next, find “about” in the third row.

This time “about” is the first word.

Finally, find “about” in the last row.

It’s the last word.

Turn the page.

Page 14

Feel the braille in the top-left corner of the page.

This is “again,” a-g.

Above the middle line, you’ll find four rows of braille.

Which row has the word “again?”

If you said it’s in the last row, you found it!

Below the middle line, you’ll find four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find “again.”

“Again” is the last word.

Now, read the second row, and find “again.”

If you picked the middle word, that’s right.

How about the third row?

This time, “again” is the first word.

Finally, find “again” in the last row.

It’s the middle word.

Move to the next page.

Page 15

Feel the braille in the top left corner of the page.

This is “after,” a-f.

Above the middle line, you’ll find three rows of braille.

Which row contains “after?”

If you found it in the middle row, you got it!

Below the middle line, you’ll find four rows of words.

Read the words in the first row and find the word “after.”

“After” is the first word.

Next, find “after” in the second row.

This time, it’s the last word.

What about the next row?

In this row, “after” is the first word.

And finally, find “after” in the last row.

If you said it’s the first word again, that’s right!

Turn the page.

Page 16

Feel the words, “again,” “after,” and “about” in the top left corner of the page.

Now, find the four pairs of sentences numbered 1 through 8.

As always, select Pause while you read, then select Play when you’re ready for the feedback.

Let’s look at sentences 1 and 2.

Read them both and find which one is brailled correctly to say, “Can we talk about dessert after the play?”

If you said sentence 1, you got it, because sentence 2 has errors.

“About” is written incorrectly as ac and “after” should be af.

Now, read sentences 3 and 4 and find which one is brailled correctly to say, “Tell me again about your plans for the holidays.”

Sentence 4 is correct.

Now, check out sentences 5 and 6. Which one is brailled correctly?

This time, sentence 5 is right.

Finally, give that last pair a try.

This time, it’s a little tricky.

Sentence 8 is brailled correctly.

In sentence 7, both “about” and “after” incorrectly use dot 4 instead of dot 1 for a.

If you’d like to try these again, feel free to replay the page.

And if you’d like some help, you can always call a braille expert.

When you’re ready, go to the next page.

Page 17

Feel the shortform words “your,” “him,” “said,” and “after” in the top left corner of the page.

Now, find the four rows of braille near the top of the page.

Each row has three words.

In the first row, which is the correct way to braille the word “your?”

If you said the first word, you got it!

Now, check out the second row and find the correct braille for the word “him.”

This time, it’s the last word.

In the third row, which word shows “said” brailled correctly?

It’s the middle word.

Finally, read the last row and find the correct braille for the word “after.”

The last word is correct.

Continue down the page to find five sentences.

Read sentence 1 and see how many shortform words you find.

If you found three, you’re right!

The first sentence contains, “again,” “after,” and “about.”

Now, read sentence 2 and count the shortform words.

There are three: “said,” “today,” and “tomorrow.”

What about sentence 3?

This one includes, “said,” “your,” and “tonight.”

Next, read sentence 4 and see how many shortform words you find.

Sentence 4 has three shortform words: “paid,” “him,” and “tomorrow.”

Finally, read sentence 5 and find the shortform words.

This one has three: “about,” “again,” and “today.”

Turn the page.

Page 18

Feel the shortform words, “tonight,” “tomorrow,” “your,” and “him” in the top left corner of the page.

Shortform words can touch punctuation except the forward slash.

Let’s look at examples of shortform words with punctuation.

Near the top of the page, you’ll find three rows of words and phrases.

Read the first row.

This is the word, “SAID” in all capital letters inside quotation marks.

Shortform words can be used with capital indicators and with quotation marks.

Next, read the second row.

If you read, “him-with-the-beard” with hyphens between the words, you got it!

Now read the third row.

Notice that you cannot use shortform words next to the forward slash as in, “paid/not paid.”

Continue down the page to find four rows of braille.

Each row has two words or phrases.

In the first row, which phrase shows the correct way to braille “well-paid” in quotation marks?

If you said the first phrase, you got it!

You can use the shortform word “paid” here.

Now, look at the second row and find which is the correct way to braille “(your)” in parentheses.

This time it’s the second phrase.

You can use the shortform “your” with parentheses.

What about the third row?

In this row, “–said!” is correctly brailled the first way.

Finally, read the last row and find which is the correct way to braille, “tonight/tomorrow.”

The second phrase is correct.

Move to the next page.

Page 19

Feel the shortform word “paid” in the top left corner of the page.

Shortforms can be used as parts of words, but the longer word must stand alone.

Read the first row of braille near the top of the page.

Notice that the shortform “paid” can be used in “prepaid” and “overpaid” when these longer words stand alone.

Now, read the second row.

This time, the shortform cannot be used in the longer words “prepaid” and “unpaid” because these words are not standing alone.

If you have questions about when a word is standing alone contact a braille expert for help.

Note that shortforms cannot always be used in longer words.

To understand whether a longer word can use a shortform, you can check the shortform list in Appendix 1 of the UEB Rules Book.

A copy of Appendix 1 is included with this workshop.

Now, continue down the page to find three fill-in-the-blank sentences.

Read the first sentence and the two choices below it and find which word best completes the sentence.

If you chose the first word, “aftershave,” that’s it!

The sentence should read, “Grandpa’s aftershave smells really nice.”

Now, read the second sentence and the words below it and choose the one that best completes the sentence.

It’s the second word, “afterhours.”

Finally, read the last sentence and the choices below it and pick which word best completes the sentence.

The first word, “aboutface” is right.

Turn the page.

Page 20

Feel the shortform words “about,” “after,” and “again” in the top left corner of the page.

On this page, you’ll find a schedule of activities for a community that offers classes and other get-togethers.

Read the activities schedule, and at the end, we’ll look at a few questions.

Now, let’s look at some questions about the activities.

On what day can you go to a cookie swap?

The cookie swap is on Wednesday.

Who paid for the news and coffee session on Monday?

Mr. Jones paid for it.

If you don’t finish your painting project on Monday, when can you finish?

You can finish it on Tuesday.

If someone would like to get their nails done, when is that happening?

Did you say it’s on Friday? That’s right!

That was a lot of reading! If you’d like to practice writing the new shortforms you’ve learned, creating a schedule is a great idea.

When you’re ready to complete this workshop, select Next.

Completion

Congratulations! You’ve learned 10 shortform words.

If you have questions about using these contractions or anything else you’ve learned in these workshops, reach out to a Hadley Braille expert at 847-784-2816. We’re happy to help!