Sitting on the sofa and reading a book
together with our children is a day-to-day experience for most of us. However,
this is not the case for Eliya’s children and their families. As opposed to
children with normal vision, children suffering from blindness or vision
impairment hardly enjoy the experience of their parents reading books to them.
At Eliya we invest utmost efforts in
offering our children an all-encompassing and complete childhood experience, just
as any other child their age would receive. In our Jerusalem Day
Care Center, we have opened a library with accessible books, adapted specifically
to the children’s needs. Here they can find all the classic books that many of
us know and love: “The Lion that Ate Strawberries”, “Five Balloons”, “Hot Corn
on the Cob”, “Caspion” and many others. The only difference is that these books
are in an accessible format for children
with impaired vision and blindness. The print is in Braille, as well as in Hebrew text
so that the parents and the children can read the stories simultaneously. The
books include three-dimensional illustrations which help children to visualize
the subject and the plot of each story. The pages in these books have been
designed with tactile features which allows the children to enjoy the reading
and story-hearing experience.
The book “Caspion” for example, is a story about
the adventures of a small fish named Caspion. Most of the children have a
visual conception of what a fish looks like. They have seen fish in aquariums,
on TV or possibly even swimming in the sea, and for them the story is simply
about one specific fish called Caspion. But for children with vision impairment
one must take one step back: What does a fish look like? The illustration in
the specially designed book has the shape of a typical fish with a smooth, slippery texture. This image is
placed into a setting resembling water, thus drawing the child into the world
of the sea, into the world of Caspion. In the same way other situations that
occur with the fish in the story are “visualized”, and made as real as
possible. For example, the shark – another character in the story, is presented
as a huge animal with emphasis on his sharp teeth and his big dimensions
compared to Caspion.
The accessible books library not only encourages
the reading experience itself, but also develops the children’s language skills
and prepares them for the learning process of the Braille alphabet. Using the
accessible books also has a direct influence on their cognitive development and
on their language skills. As a result of vision impairment or blindness,
children will often suffer a delay in reaching developmental stages. This is one
more reason why we have established an accessible books library, specifically designed
to offer the children a major advantage during their critical stages of
development.
To donate for the activity click here
