Read this new translation of Writing Out loud dot dot dot

Just got news that the Library of Congress Talking Book Service has created a Braille version of Writing Out Loud — it’s available free of charge to Americans who are blind or visually impaired. The Library of Congress administers the National Library Service (NLS), a talking-book and Braille program available for free to those of us whose low vision or blindness makes reading regular print difficult. This translation is especially important to me: I want Braille readers to learn how I manage to lead my classes — and my life, for that matter! Who knows? Maybe some of them will start similar classes of their own. I’ll say goodbye here and leave you with an excerpt from Chapter 67 of Writing Out Loud that explains why, even with new technology and fancy speech synthesis, Braille is still so important — especially to children who are blind.

Chapter 67: Introducing Bennett

So let’s talk about Braille. Here’s a little-known fact: less than 20% of the 50,000 blind children in the United States are proficient in Braille. The American Foundation for the Blind reports a severe shortage of certified teachers of the visually impaired (TVIs), especially in rural areas or in small school districts. Without qualified teachers around, it can be a lot easier for parents of children who are blind to just let their kids listen to books on audio or hear words on a talking computer.

You might think that’s no big deal. Isn’t it a good thing that technology is doing all the heavy lifting for these kids? But think about it. If children who are blind never learn Braille, how will they ever learn to spell correctly? How will they know where to put commas, quotation marks, paragraph breaks, and so on? How will they be able to write clear communications for sighted people? And what if they want to be writers?