I learned braille for 3 reasons. The first is my hobby of picking something random and learning it. The second is because I wanted to learn touch typing. The third is because I often fell asleep while reading and left the light on. This way, I can read myself to sleep without a light on!

If you are new to Braille here is an explanation of the basics. Many fluent sighted Grade 1 Braille readers have trouble with the contractions, so I thought I’d share my memory aids.

This is a small subset of all Grade 2 contractions: this subset will be appended to sporadically as time goes on.

Grade 2 is a large set of contractions; I’ve broken them up into the following parts. Peruse and enjoy!

1] Braille Alphabet 2] Prefix Indicator 3] Contraction for Part of Word 4] Final Letter Contraction for Middle or End of Word 5] Initial Letter Contraction for Whole or Part of Word 6] Abbreviation for Whole Word