Teaching the Use of a Screen Reader with a Refreshable Braille Display

Introduction

Over the coming year this webpage will be expanded with ideas to help Qualified Teachers of Visual Impairment (QTVIs) teach learners with visual impairment how to use a screen reader with a braille display.

There is a significant trend towards the integration of refreshable braille displays with computers, tablets, smartphones and e-learning platforms to improve access to digital content (Etezad, Joshi & Cibrian, 2025). As the use of technology has become standard practice to access information both for education and leisure purposes, the need to ensure that learners have equal access to information has never been more important.

For learners who are blind or have a significant visual impairment, using a screen reader is a quick and efficient way to gain access to digital information. However, using a screen reader alone is not the optimal way to access this information. Research carried out by Savaiano et al., (2016) found that students did not learn to spell any new words when they were only able to listen to them, and that braille is vital to learn correct spelling of new vocabulary. In addition, using a refreshable braille display with a screen reader allows learners to access other aspects of writing such as punctuation and paragraphs, which speech alone cannot do.

Screen readers

The lessons on this webpage will focus on the use of one particular screen reader NVDA. It is recognised that JAWS is the most popular purchased screen reader. There are only a few subtle differences in keystrokes between NVDA and JAWS and so transfer from one product to the other should not be too challenging for most learners. NVDA has been chosen as it is free – often a deciding factor in the current economic climate.

JAWS

If you have a learner who is using JAWS, then there is basic training available on the webpage for Freedom Scientific and there is also a list of JAWS keystrokes here too.

Narrator

Narrator is the screen reader built into all PCs. The keyboard shortcuts are not too dissimilar to NVDA/JAWS but there are differences. The webpage created by Microsoft called a Complete Guide to Narrator gives a comprehensive overview of the key commands.

ChromeVox

ChromeVox is the screen reader built into the Google Chrome browser and Chromebooks. It has its own keyboard shortcuts. This Chromebook Help webpage lists the keyboard commands used to access ChromeVox.

Refreshable Braille Displays

In these lessons a refreshable braille display will be used in conjunction with the screen reader in the majority of videos. Refreshable braille displays come in many different sizes based on their number of cells. The one in the videos is a Focus 14 Blue - 5th Generation from Sight and Sound Technology. It has 14 cells, but other models can have 20, 40 or 80 cells. Many different factors are involved in the model and size of refreshable braille display that a learner will use. This includes price, portability, the device it will be paired with, frequency of use and the feel of the pins in the braille display. In the study by McCarthy et al. (2022) where learners used braille displays ranging in size from 14 to 40 cells, they found that "the biggest and most consistent predictor of reading speed was the number of cells on the braille display". This research showed that a refreshable braille display with 40 cells allowed learners to read more quickly than those using a display with fewer cells. As the authors point out, the 40 cell display most closely represents the number of cells that a learner would read using paper braille. What we can draw from this is that when it comes to refreshable braille displays, size really does matter.

Key Commands

Learning how to use a screen reader that powers the refreshable braille display is essential. However, learning to use a screen reader should never be about memorising lists of key commands. Learning happens when it is embedded regularly into tasks that are part of the learner's work. Most of the lessons on this page will give you some ideas on how to do this. To help you, as the teacher, key commands are also written below the videos. Special attention should be paid to how they are written. A "+" sign between keys tells you that the keys are pressed together, while keys separated by a comma are pressed in sequence i.e. in the same way that you would use the shift key followed by the letter to produce a capital letter in a word processing program.

© Elizabeth McCann, 2025

References

Etezad, M, Joshi, R, & Cibrian, F L (2025) 'Advancements in refreshable Braille display technology: A comprehensive survey.' Displays, 90, 1031333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.displa.2025.103133

McCarthy, T, Holbrook, C, & Andrea, F M (2022) 'Speed and accuracy measures of school-aged readers with visual impairments using a refreshable braille display.' Journal of Special Education Technology, 38(4), 423-433.

Savaiano, M E, Competon, D L, Hatton, D D, & Lloyd, B P. (2016) 'Vocabulary word instruction for students who read Braille.' Exceptional Children, 82(3), 337-353.