Learning to see by feel

Sophie has suddenly been receiving books in our mailbox from the CNIB library.  I don't know why they started arriving but I think it has to do with her birthday a few weeks ago.  I signed her up with the CNIB library when she was a baby and I was told that she would receive some touch and feel board books for us to borrow, but they never came and it kind of went off my radar after a while.  Then they started arriving recently and we now have about 6 books to use.  I wonder if one of their programs start at age six and we were on a list already.  Regardless, it has been fun discovering what is in the mailbox every few days.

The books are all a bit different.  Some are baby board books that have textural elements and some are books for older kids and they have braille as well as textured pictures and simple coloured pictures.

This page has one picture of an item on it.  Sophie does really well with something like this to look at, there is no visual clutter and the colour is nice and stark in comparison to the background.  She also prefers primary colours.  Sophie is diagnosed as being severely vision impaired so any new things to try to improve her vision is great.

The next page has a textural equivalent to the picture.  It is something that Sophie can feel with her hands to get a feel for the shape of the object she just saw.  This book focused on basic household items.  It is wonderful for learning the names of objects that she sees everyday.

Lucas helped Sophie feel the toothbrush on this page.  Love that open hand.  :)

Then there is a braille page for each item as well.  We don't need that page but for many children and adults this is how they learn to read braille. 

Some of the books are more like stories but have the textural aspect on each page as well so that the child can follow along by feel.

This book had some different raised images that went along with a story.  But it is nice because each page is kept simple with only one object on each page.  It helped model what your day might be like.

I am really excited that we are able to borrow these books for Sophie so that she has some new choices in the journey of helping her to learn to see.  I am excited to see what new items are in the mailbox this week.