Kat Bottner opens a book and starts a children's story. Third graders from the Parkway School in Plainview gather round on the floor and listen intently. They listen, but they also watch-transfixed as Kat's fingers fly over the pages and the story comes alive. This is the first time these young students have ever seen a reader using Braille.

But this is not the first time that Bottner, 19, a student at the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults, has read stories aloud at the Long Island Children's Museum in Garden City. Reading and explaining about Braille is one segment of Kat's vocational training program in which LICM is participating. Deena Libes, Bottner's rehabilitation counselor, said "This is part of a comprehensive training program at Helen Keller that includes vocational training, communications technology, mobility and independent living."

Bottner has been living in a simulated apartment on the national center's grounds, which prepares her to live independently in the future. She arrived in September from her home in Delaware. She said her goal "is to eventually work with kids either in a hospital or school setting."

Bottner is the third Helen Keller student to train to be a museum "Explainer," as docents at LICM are called.

Accompanied by Kim Dolan, her employment training specialist, Bottner can be found reading or explaining something in Changes & Challenges, an LICM gallery that lets all visitors experience some of the challenges faced by people with different abilities. The Parkway students tried Braille typewriters, explored a phone system of the hearing impaired and saw a doorbell "ring" by flashing a light so a hearing-impaired person would be alerted that someone was at the door. They tried walking with canes and crutches, reading a Braille newspaper and identifying food by smell.

LICM education coordinator Celina Ilham said that like the Parkway students, all Bottner's groups "are fascinated to be able to so closely experience how a person with low vision overcomes her difficulties. Kat is a wonderful role model for all students. We appreciate having her with us."