January Braille Literacy Awareness Month

January is Braille Literacy Awareness Month. It is designated as such in honour of  Louis Braille who originally developed the Braille code that enables blind people to read.  Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809. 

Literacy plays such a big role in both my private and working life that I would be devastated to lose the ability to read or write. To be born blind and not be able to read is something I only get to contemplate through reading. It has fascinated me though as a topic for picture books and I have shared many wonderful books with the young children I teach.  My Year 2 students are fascinated by the story of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller and these two books, Helen's Big World  by Doreen Rappaport and Annie and Helen  by Deborah Hopkinson are borrowed often. Because of this I purchased Six Dots, the picture book about Braille by Jen Bryant and it too has been popular. Up until this beautiful book was published anything my students gleaned about Braille came from some crusty old readers or from the internet. We do however have a couple of books which feature Braille.
Look for:
• The Black Book of Colours  by Menena Cottin
This book has remarkable illustrations done with raised lines. Braille letters accompany the illustrations and a full Braille alphabet offers sighted readers help reading along with their fingers.

• Private and Confidential by Marion Ripley
Here Laura learns Braille so that she can send her blind penpal a letter.

4th June

Tomorrow is Odd Socks Day, a day which was created to increase the awareness of blindness and vision impairment within our community. For a person who is blind not being able to see colours can be very distressing. Just choosing matching socks is one of the many challenges they face.

This is a good time to have children experience a life that is different from their own. Ask children how they know something is red, blue, green etc? Listen to what they say and how much emphasis they put on 'seeing'. Then introduce The Black Book of Colours by Menina Cottin and Rosana Faria. This extraordinary book emphasises other ways of 'seeing' using the other four senses in the way that a blind child needs to. The format makes this book unique. All the pages are black. The text is written firstly in Braille and then in a white font. The illustrations are textured rather than coloured. Reading this book is very different from reading other picture books and it should lead to some very interesting discussion.