LEGO Braille Bricks help kids avoid making mistakes

A maths teacher says LEGO Braille Bricks are crucial for helping kids to avoid making mistakes while learning.

The LEGO Foundation is gradually rolling out its Braille Bricks all over the world, with the aim of making them available in 20 different countries by the end of 2021. The educational pieces are topped with specific stud patterns that reflect a letter or number in the Braille alphabet, allowing partially-sighted or blind children to learn while playing.

What’s really pivotal about the kits for kids, though, is how the bricks allow them to quickly and easily correct their own mistakes – at least according to Sue Lock, a maths teacher at the UK’s New College Worcester.

“Children dislike making mistakes,” she told Psychology Today. “If you’re using a braille machine, your mistakes are there, written large. Children love being able to make something, unmake it if it’s wrong, and make it again, and that is the important thing that Braille Bricks does.”

IT teacher Sean Randall also underlined the simplicity of the LEGO Foundation’s system, which was first unveiled in 2019. “It’s ridiculous that all it does for us, really, is give us convenient access to moving letters around,” he said. “But that opens up so many doors, and that’s a wonderful thing.”

The LEGO Foundation is giving away its Braille Bricks kits free of charge to schools and organisations that serve partially-sighted or blind children. Educators should head to the official LEGO Braille Bricks website for information on acquiring a copy of the kit, along with plenty of resources, activities and ideas for how to use the bricks in a classroom setting.

LEGO Braille Bricks are already available in US, the UK, Denmark, Norway, Germany, France, Brazil, Australia and Ireland, while 2021 will see them arrive in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

To support the work of Brick Fanatics, please buy your LEGO sets from LEGO.com using our affiliate links.