[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] tactile books

[Lisa Yayla]

Hi,
Great article about a volunteer group making tactile books.
Best,
Lisa

http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2006/07/14/news/local/clesight0714.txt

These volunteers are EYE-deal

In 1983, the Sisterhood of Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple began a 
volunteer relationship with The Cleveland Sight Center that continues to 
this day.

Fourteen women began assembling “touch-and-learn” books for children who 
are blind or visually impaired. Created with tactile materials and 
Braille, these books are used by parents and teachers to stimulate early 
learning skills.

Over the past 23 years, the women have made over 1,000 books that have 
helped many young people learn to read. In honor of their dedication and 
generosity, the Sisterhood was honored with the EYE-deal Volunteer of 
the Year Award at the Sight Center’s annual meeting this spring.

The award was presented to Ann Berk, Barbara Harris, Rose Kornicks and 
Hanna Wolff, the four original women who continue to work on the project 
today.

Harris, 84, remembers when she first joined the volunteer project. An 
art major in college, Harris drew the designs for the 12-page book that 
features simple images created as collages of tactile materials. She 
wrote rhyming text and added the name of the image or concept in Braille.

For example, a page may have the shape of a hat made of wool embellished 
with silk flowers backed with Velcro. The text describes trimming a hat 
and the word “trim” is spelled out in Braille at the bottom of the page. 
The text invites the reader to arrange the flowers herself to trim the 
hat. The pages are made of card stock and put in three-ring binders.

“We purchase felt, velvet, foil, corrugated paper, terrycloth, fake fur, 
and add zippers, buttons, beads, pennies and silk flowers,” says Harris. 
Her husband was in the fabric business and helped them get materials.

The women assemble the books every Tuesday at the temple, and in the 
summer, at Harris’s house. Whenever they complete about 15 books, Harris 
delivers them to the Sight Center, where preschool teacher Sharon Bowen 
eagerly awaits them.

“These are lovely books, and they get used to death,” says Bowen, whose 
10-member class includes seven visually impaired preschoolers and three 
typical youngsters. “When the books get too bad, I toss them and welcome 
the new supply.”

Bowen says the books are wonderful tools for teaching letters and 
numbers, as well as simple concepts. “Because they are handmade, they 
are all slightly different, so even when a child has seen one, he is 
still intrigued by another.”

Bowen recalls a cute experience she had when reading a “touch-and-learn” 
book to 3-year-old Maya Bell. The two were examining a page that 
explained “P is for penny.” It had several bright copper pennies glued 
above a felt piggy bank, and Maya tried very hard to remove the coins. 
When Bowen explained that they belonged in the book, the little girl 
countered with, “No, they belong in my pocket.”

This year, Bowen gave some of the extra books as holiday gifts to 
encourage parents to read with their kids and to show them how they 
might create similar educational items. Although more commercial tactile 
books are available now, they are costly.

 From a cadre of 14-16 Sisterhood volunteers, the “touch-and-learn” 
bookmakers have dwindled to four. With so many women working these days, 
Harris says, it has been hard to recruit younger members to take up this 
worthwhile project.