Available schemes
The Scheme menu currently offers RNIB: Hands On and RNIB: Take Off. Each follows its workbook's vocabulary and book order. Levels cover a page or a few short pages and introduce words not used earlier in that workbook; the Level menu is grouped by book.
Words keep the workbook's graded spelling. The prompt adds “(contracted)” when a contracted form is expected, and a capital letter can require a capital sign. Check the answer against the workbook when teaching a particular spelling. Check your organisation's licence for these materials.
Activities
Choose a scheme and level in Settings, or activate a student to practise their Focus with the chosen Review mix. Untick 60-second timed rounds for practice without a countdown.
- Flashcards — the item is shown and spoken; the learner brailles it. The practice set is shuffled; revealed items return sooner for another try. On the third unsuccessful submission, the answer’s braille is shown; its cell names and dot numbers are announced according to the voice setting.
- Listen & Type — hear the item without a print prompt, then braille it. R or Play it again repeats it. With Voice Off the essential speech still plays; Screen reader mode sends the words to your screen reader.
- Transcription — the print is shown; each cell is judged as it is typed and the braille line builds up on screen. After three wrong tries on one cell, that cell is given.
- Missing Dot — one dot is missing from a cell in the item; the learner presses it. This works for single-cell and multi-cell items with at least one cell containing two or more dots. Press only the key for the missing dot; the third unsuccessful try reveals it.
- Simon — a sequence of spoken items, one longer each round.
- Snowman — guess one braille cell at a time in an item with at least two non-blank cells. A correct guess fills every matching position. Repeated guesses do not cost a life; six different wrong guesses reveal the answer.
- Falling Words — braille a word and press Space before it reaches the line. The speed adapts to your performance!
An activity is disabled when the current practice set has no suitable items. Flashcards and Listen & Type show how many focus items have been seen or heard; Transcription shows cell-by-cell progress. Review items do not increase the focus coverage count.
Voice and screen readers
Self-voicing speaks prompts, feedback and, if enabled, typed cells. Screen reader sends these messages to live regions instead of speaking them with the app's voice. Off suppresses ordinary speech, but Listen & Type and Simon still speak the instructions or items those activities need. Sound effects still play. When an activity starts, focus moves into it so that a screen reader can pass S D F J K L to the app. If your screen reader keeps using those keys for navigation, switch it to its application or focus mode.
Curriculum Builder (Editing a level)
Settings → Edit this level. Each row has the print, the braille and an optional spoken form. Tick "Use six-key entry" to braille straight into the braille fields, or click Fill braille from print to have empty braille fields filled in automatically (UEB grade 2, in-browser). Drag the ☰ handles to reorder items. You can save edits to the current level, or click Save as New List to create a custom spelling list — choose a student in Teacher → Focus & signs and select the list as their Focus, or use Words & lists → Use as focus. Make that student active on the Students tab to practise the list. Restore removes edits to every level in the current scheme; Export downloads the whole scheme with your edits.
Students, focus and review
The Teacher button (and the "Student: …" pill beside it) opens a screen with five tabs, kept separately for this app:
- Students — choose which student is active ("No student" behaves exactly as before, practising by level), or add, rename or delete a student.
- Focus & signs — for the student being edited (the active one by default, or pick another from the Student list at the top): their Focus (a sign group, a level, or a custom list) is what most practice draws from; Review mix sets what share of items instead come from their other known signs, favouring ones they have missed or not seen for a while. Tick off Known signs by hand, or use Mark signs as known up to… to fill them in from every level up to the one you choose.
- Words & lists — manage this scheme's custom lists (edit, rename, delete, or set as a student's focus), and Make a word list: generate real words built only from a student's known signs (optionally restricted to their current focus group), pick which to keep, and save them as a new list.
- Progress — a summary, a breakdown by activity, sign-group mastery, the ten most-missed items, a CSV export and a way to reset progress.
- Data — export every student and custom list for this app as one JSON file, or import an export from the same app. Merge keeps existing students and lists, replacing entries whose IDs match the imported ones. Replace everything replaces students and all custom lists, including clearing lists for schemes omitted from the file. Invalid files and exports from a different Learn app are rejected.
Saving and backups
Students, progress, custom lists and level edits are stored in this browser on this device, separately for each Learn app. They do not sync automatically to another device or browser, and clearing site data can remove them. Use Teacher → Data to back up students and custom lists. To keep edited curriculum levels, use the level editor's Export separately; the Data export does not include level edits or Settings. If a save fails, the app reports it; export your work before closing the page.
Settings that persist
Scheme, level (per scheme), voice mode, cell echo, chosen voice, look and the 60-second timer option are remembered in this browser. Scores reset whenever an activity starts; student progress is saved separately.
