congratulations, James

[Fernando Capovilla]

>

Dear James,
We are so impressed at what you and Judy have been doing! Congratulations, indeed!
What a wonderful work! And the grand experiment on using SW as a bridge to literacy
acquisition in fluent SW kids... Remarkable!
After publishing our Libras Dictionary (packed with SW), we are preparing a series of 16
books for teaching Libras, which shall be published on November, plus a CD ROM (the
digital encyclopedia of Libras) that permits retrieving signs by simply clicking on
cheremes and allochers (graphic interface), thus dispensing with the need for alphabetic
Portuguese mediation. But as soon as we are done with this, we intend to conduct a
similar experiment in Sao Paulo. That has been our dream ever since we came to know
Valerie and her wonderful invention back in 1998... We hope the financial situation gets
better. You have our full sympathy because we do know what kind of heroism it takes to
conduct educational experiments under rough circumstances. Keep up your wonderful work.
It is an inspiration for all of us in developing nations around the world, and say hello
to Barney and his aunt.
Cheers,
Fernando & crew



>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date:    Sat, 18 May 2002 22:13:18 -0500
> From:    "Judy A. Kegl" <kegl at MAINE.RR.COM>
> Subject: Re: Bluefields
>
> I am sitting here watching Barney (age 16) writing a letter to his aunt -- 3
> pages of SignWriting, mostly describing a dream he had last month  (running
> frustratingly slowly while being pursued by a crocodile, as others cheer on
> the croc....)  The point is that Barney has achieved literacy in his native
> language; so hats off to you, Valerie.  (His aunt can read it well.)
>
> Random House has sent us the authorization for including the Headless
> Horseman in our next collection of reading lessons, so I don't think they
> would mind your including a demo page on your website (but not the whole
> thing; I think that would require specific permission.)  (If you do this,
> please note that NSLP's adaption uses illustrations by Donald Cook with
> permission from Random House.)
>
> We are about to reach 2,000 entries in the glossary; our goal is 3,000.  Our
> basic level grammar book (comparing and contrasting Nicaraguan Sign Language
> with Spanish grammar and syntax) will be ready (somehow) for use in the
> school in August.  This will be our first real experiment with teaching
> Spanish using SignWriting as a bridge.  An intriguing experiment....
>
> Some rough news to share with you all -- just as we are about to embark on
> this "grand experiment", we just received notification that the foundation
> that funds us is not making disbursements this year, afterall  -- a
> consequence of low bank interest yields (related, in part I suspect, to the
> economic consequences of Sept. 11.)  Since we operate a year round foster
> care program for abandoned Deaf children, I have to reserve all our
> remaining funds for that, plus the salary of one teacher.  What a mess!
>
> -- James
>
> ------------------------------