|
Most visually impaired children in special schools in Nigeria have little or no opportunity to develop braille reading skills - skills which are the key to accessing information for their educational development. Most of the children in the primary schools do not have textbooks in braille, not to talk of access to general reading books. The Nigerwives Braille Book Production Centre is currently working on the production of primary English and Maths textbooks and will take up other subjects later, but it certainly cannot undertake general reading books until the need for textbooks is met. Thanks however to a very generous supply of brailled reading books from the Braille Institute Press in California, we can now set up a Braille Reading Project as follows.
The books from the Braille Institute Press are being sent out to Nigerwives branches and contacts. Each is being asked to set up a group of volunteers to go into the local special school on a regular basis - weekly, fortnightly as practicable - and organise general reading times with the children in small groups in their free time. The children should be encouraged to read aloud during these periods, discuss what is read and also tell something of the books they have read on their own. The children should also be drilled in the importance of taking good care of the books and handling them carefully. Hopefully the volunteers/Nigerwives will also supply a simple bookcase for the books if none is available in the school, to set up a reading corner that is accessible to the children out of regular school hours. Some of the children can be trained to be responsible for the books and keep records of borrowers.
The above project, if successfully implemented, will give a tremendous boost to braille literacy amongst our young visually impaired school children. This in turn will greatly enhance the educational potential of the children.
I hope that, with the continued support of the Braille Institute Press and the support of Nigerwives groups and their friends in all parts of the country, the project will be well established during 2003. In 2004 I hope to arrange a braille reading competition for primary school children who have participated in the project – with the cooperation of the branches - with prizes for each state and an overall national prize if it is feasible to bring the state winners together.
Please send me feedback on the school/children where the books are placed, which I can collate and send to the donors, including photos of the children reading the books and of the volunteers with the children. The donors like to see how the books are being used.
Comments on how the children find the books and any suggestions for improving the programme will be welcome. I look forward to hearing from you.
The children may notice that there are some slight differences between the braille in these books (American braille) and the braille they learn at school (UK braille) but the differences are not such as to disturb the children's reading.
-Jean Obi - Coordinator (January 2003)
|
