Braille Program Helps Local Student

Palisadian Bethany Stark was thrilled when her 7-year-old son Julian received a Braille book and kit which helped him understand the concept of the American flag in time for the Fourth of July. The kit, part of the Braille Institute’s Dots for Tots program, came with foam stars and stripes to build a flag. ‘The whole book was about the flag, and the flag he constructed was always there for him to feel,’ Stark said. ‘Now he knows about the flag.’ The Dots for Tots program provides blind children with popular children’s books to which translucent Braille printing has been added. Children can follow along with the Braille to build literacy skills. In addition to the book, the kits come with a tape of the story being read aloud with professional descriptive narration along with sound effects, and a set of three-dimensional toys which relate to the story. Children can use the toys to act out or repeat the story. The program aims to engage blind children’s senses, such as touch and hearing, to get them involved in reading and interested in literacy. For example, ‘Miss Spider’s Tea Party Kit’ comes with true-to-life-size plastic insects and cups, saucers and everything for a tea party. The free books and kits are meant to promote literacy among blind children of preschool and early elementary age. They are equipped with beginning uncontracted Braille, where one symbol corresponds with each letter. Blind children can learn this basic Braille, just as a sighted child learns their ABCs, and later learn contracted Braille in which one Braille symbol can signify an entire word or a combination of letters. ‘The toys make abstract concepts more concrete for him,’ Stark said. ‘It’s a great program.’ The books chosen often have a rhyming quality, which is also great for children who use their sense of hearing acutely. Bethany and her husband Adam have lived in the Palisades since 1993. Their twin sons Julian and Yale, now 8, were born prematurely in December 1996. Due to complications from prematurity, Julian is blind and developmentally delayed and has motor problems and difficulty with speech. His brother Yale is visually impaired but is able to read large-print books, so he doesn’t use the Dots for Tots program. ‘It helps the children be much more interactive with books at an earlier age,’ says Bethany. ‘It reaches down and grabs the child’s interest in a way that a picture book comes alive for a sighted child.’ Bethany has used the interactive reading program with Julian for two years. ‘After we received the Miss Spider’s Tea Party kit [when he was 6], he began referring to the kit by a special nickname’ ‘bug.’ It was a word he had never said before. That may not seem like much to most moms, but this one was overjoyed,’ she says. ‘He even took the kit to school on share day and the sighted kids were amazed. That day he was just one of the kids.’ For the book ‘Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?’ each animal on the page is represented by a small plastic animal. The toys, although not to size and without the textural elements of the different animals, still can teach some concepts such as an elephant has big ears. Julian has brought this book and kit into class for share time. ‘The kids seem to enjoy the experience of looking at the Braille books and toys,’ said Julian’s first grade teacher at Palisades Elementary School, Loan Panza. The Dots for Tots program launches three new titles three times a year. Other titles in the program include ‘Go, Dog, Go,’ ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and ‘Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.’ ‘We choose popular children’s titles that are also good multisensory books,’ says Nancy Niebrugge of the Braille Institute. ‘It also helps them be more interactive with the sighted. Because the kits are colorful and fun, it makes the [blind] child’s experience not so different.’ For more information on Dots for Tots, contact the Braille Institute at (323) 663-1111. Bethany Stark (459-5566) would also be happy to talk about the program with other parents of blind or visually impaired children.