Louis’ School Days – Week 3: Little Book Worm

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Reading is necessary for everyday life, and for many, it is a pleasurable pastime. I’m still a bit of a bookworm.

When I was young, I could see much better and learned to read like my peers with the Biff, Chip, and Kipper books. These books were visible in good light. Throughout primary school, the text size in my books gradually increased, reaching around 36pt by the time I entered secondary school. Many of the books I needed during class were specially ordered for me, and my preference was bold text on yellow paper.

I consider myself fortunate—although I didn’t realise it at the time—to have Theresa take over at Cornwall Council when I was 9 years old. She introduced Braille into my life. Learning Braille felt like starting to read all over again, using the Abi books e.g. “Abi and Sam went to the park”!

It was known that my vision would continue to decline, and learning Braille was a way to future-proof my reading abilities. If you want to find out more about Braille, see my Completely Dotty articles from January.

It was a challenging process, and I didn’t enjoy it. There were some tears over the next few years, fuelled by a teaching assistant who told me at age 10 or 11 that I didn’t have to learn Braille if I didn’t want to... Subsequently I have been told that she got in trouble for that, given the lifelong benefits for me, my development and education.? Braille remains the only thing my parents have ever forced me to do.

During secondary school, some of my textbooks were in Braille, although I still wasn’t particularly fast at reading it. The focus was on improving my Braille skills, and I even had Braille lessons instead of French classes. French was chosen because if I couldn’t read English Braille, tackling French Braille would be an even greater challenge when GCSEs came along.

The first full book I remember reading in Braille was “The Enormous Crocodile” by Roald Dahl. My teaching assistants also introduced me to a host of Dahl’s “Tales of the Unexpected,” which they thought would interest me. However, reading “Of Mice and Men” for my GCSEs in Braille was quite challenging due to all the apostrophes and contracted words used by the characters.

It was very much my preference to be read to, or use my computer at secondary school. I do however feel that Braille has been a really valuable skill to have and whilst technology largely has taken over from it, I think it a shame blind children are increasingly not gaining the ability.

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#Education #Disability #DisabilityInclusion #VisualImpairment #SightLoss #SpecialEducationalNeeds #Reading #Braille #LargePrint