Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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How do you read print? (self.Blind)
submitted by K-R-Rose
So I’m legally blind, and everyone thinks I’m crazy when I tell them I read by the shape of words rather than the letters. I barely squeak by reading print as it is, and I can’t see every individual letter in a word. It all blurs together, and it’s are for my eyes to focus on them. I’ve learned to recognize words using their shapes. So I know “the” is a short word with a sort of decline to it, and the word “and” is the opposite. It’s great for common words, but words I haven’t seen before, or rarely see, are sometimes difficult. I don’t know how to spell anything either because of this, but that’s another post entirely... Anyway, I’ve never heard of anyone else reading with the shape of words, so is it just me?
changeneverhappens 2 points 3y ago
It's called bubble words and its being used mainly, as far as I know, with kids in higher phases of cortical/cerebral/neurological visual impairment.
It's a neat concept and teaching looks looks quite the process but it absolutely makes sense that people have discovered it on their own!!
The issue with bubble words is exactly your problem. They're great functionally but aren't very useful for much beyond the basics.
Editing to add a link that explains the concept.
http://www.pathstoliteracy.org/strategies/teaching-sight-words-children-cvi-phase-iii
It's a neat concept and teaching looks looks quite the process but it absolutely makes sense that people have discovered it on their own!!
The issue with bubble words is exactly your problem. They're great functionally but aren't very useful for much beyond the basics.
Editing to add a link that explains the concept.
http://www.pathstoliteracy.org/strategies/teaching-sight-words-children-cvi-phase-iii
8i8oio 2 points 3y ago
I did that with road signs early on in my vision loss when I was still driving. The length of the name / sign let me know where I was. I’m sure the method could work for books. I never tried it.
ABlindManPlays 2 points 3y ago
That's similar to how I drove as my vision started to fail. Word length and shape would let me extrapolate the information, but it was almost exclusively in areas I was familiar with. I finally had to turn in my license earlier this year, but I am proud to end my time with no tickets and no accidents.
8i8oio 1 points 3y ago
Me too! I haven’t driven in years, but still had my license until early this year. Pleasure to meet you, and well done!
K-R-Rose [OP] 1 points 3y ago
That’s interesting. I’ve never been able to read a road sign, but that makes sense
KillerLag 2 points 3y ago
While it is possible to learn to read basic words like that, it wouldn't be a viable option over the long run. As words get longer and more complex as people advance up in grade, it would become harder to recognize words. the, tbe and tbo would be virtually indistinguishable, since they are the same shape with very minor variations. Increasing font size or font boldness could help compensate for that, but by the time someone would be reading books, they would need something to supplement for error correction. Some kids end up primarily learning through audio books because their vision doesn't provide enough clarity to identify the words.
K-R-Rose [OP] 1 points 3y ago
That’s especially true for foreign languages. I find it a lot harder to read in Spanish than I do in English, mainly because the words are unfamiliar
bscross32 1 points 3y ago
It kind of seems like your vision is just barely good enough for reading print. You're in for a lot of eye strain, and possibly headaches if you keep that up. I might evaluate the possibility of using a screen reader or a braille display were I in your shoes.
codeplaysleep 1 points 3y ago
My vision loss is not as severe, so I can read the words, but your method reading makes total sense to me. I can definitely see how you could learn to recognize shapes as specific words.
K-R-Rose [OP] 1 points 3y ago
Good at least there’s logic!
codeplaysleep 1 points 3y ago
Yeah, when you think about it, it's not much different than learning that "these dots in this pattern mean 'A'" when reading braille, or "a hexagon means the word 'dog'." or whatever. Text is just an encoding scheme. So seeing the shape of the word, even if blurry, and associating that with a word makes a lot of sense, at least to me.
It's the same principle as actually reading the text, just applied as a different type of pattern recognition.
It's the same principle as actually reading the text, just applied as a different type of pattern recognition.
CloudyBeep 1 points 3y ago
Braille is a precise system; this is guesswork.
codeplaysleep 1 points 3y ago
I'm not saying it isn't error prone or that it's super reliable or precise, just that the principle is the same. X thing (shape, pattern, letter, etc.) has Y meaning. They're all just different ways of decoding data. Some are better/more accurate than others.
So while it's not a great solution and it doesn't scale to more complex texts, from a "humans are great at finding patterns and adapting to their limitations" perspective, I can understand how OP came to do it that way.
I'm not necessarily advocating for it, but I get it.
So while it's not a great solution and it doesn't scale to more complex texts, from a "humans are great at finding patterns and adapting to their limitations" perspective, I can understand how OP came to do it that way.
I'm not necessarily advocating for it, but I get it.
K-R-Rose [OP] 1 points 3y ago
I never thought about it that way
[deleted] -1 points 3y ago
[deleted]
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