In standard English Braille, many of the sixty three cells will correspond to a letter of the Roman alphabet, or a punctuation mark. A few cells will represent short words or syllables that are frequently encountered in English. This is done so that the number of cells required to show a sentence may be reduced, which helps minimize the space requirements while printing Braille. These special cells are used in specific ways along with regular cells to form sequences which are known as contractions. Contractions are specified for most frequently used syllables and words and there is a standard list of contractions in English Braille. To begin with, one is taught Braille without contractions and this is called Grade-1 Braille. Braille with contractions is known as Grade-2 Braille.
In standard Grade-1 Braille, the twenty six letters, and some punctuation marks are used. No distinction is made between upper case and lower case letters. Interestingly, numerals are not included in the set of symbols which have been assigned cells. Shown below is the table that corresponds to Grade-1 Braille.