Voice 1 Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Adam Navis. Voice 2 And I'm Marina Santee. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1 A girl sits down. She opens a book. Her eyes are closed. She raises her hands and places them gently on the paper. Then she moves them across the paper again and again. Most people would not see any words on the page: only hundreds of raised points. The girl is reading- with her hands! She can do this because the book is written in Braille.
Voice 2 Today's Spotlight is on Louis Braille. He created a system that permits blind people to read. This system, named after him, is called "Braille." Before Braille, most blind people could not read. This limited their education. Braille gave blind people the chance to learn. It also let them write, teach, and even use the Internet.
Voice 1 As a three year old boy, Louis Braille wanted to be like his father. He went into his father's workshop and began using the tools. But he could not control them. He accidentally hit his own eye. He immediately lost sight in that eye. But the injury became infected. It spread from one eye to the other. Soon, Louis was totally blind.
Voice 2 Louis Braille went blind in 1811. He stayed in school and tried to learn only by listening. He was very intelligent, but he knew that he could not learn everything this way. He needed to read. If he could read books, he could learn a lot of information in a very short time. He could learn things his teachers did not know.
Voice 1 With the help of his local priest, Louis began to attend the Royal Institution for Blind Youth. It was in Paris, France. The school taught children basic skills. They were even taught to read, using a system of raised letters. With this system, they could read, but it took a lot of time. The other problem was that books were difficult to produce. The school only had fourteen [14] books. They were also very heavy. One book weighed around forty five [45] kilograms. Louis knew that there had to be a better way.
Voice 2 The better way came when a captain in the French army visited the school. He shared his system called "Night Writing". It permitted soldiers to share secret information without talking. It was a system of twelve [12] raised points. Soldiers felt the points with their hands.
Voice 1 Louis could not understand how to use "Night Writing". It was too complex for him. Also he did not like that a person reading it would have to move his hand to read a single letter. But he knew that this was still a good idea. So he made the system simpler. He reduced the number of raised points from twelve to six. This way a person could read a single letter without moving his hand. He could read much faster than the old system.
Voice 2 In 1824, Louis finished his system, which we know by his family name: Braille. He developed this system without being able to see. More amazing was that he was only fifteen years old!
Voice 1 Louis lived the rest of his life making his system better. He developed a way to represent mathematics and music notes. He became a respected teacher at the Royal Institution for Blind Youth. He wrote several books that taught his raised point system. Sadly, it was only after his death that people recognized the wonder of his system. It is simple, beautiful, and clear. But more importantly, it permits blind people to read at the same speed as people who can see.
Voice 2 Understanding how someone can read with their hands can be difficult for someone who can see. Braille is not actually a language, it is a way of representing letters. In this way, Braille can be used to write in many languages. A book written in Braille looks like line after line of raised points. But these points form letters and the letters form words. A reader slides her fingers over the points. She can understand what it says in the same way that people who can see can understand what they read.
Voice 1 One company that makes computer programs for blind people describes it this way: Voice 3 "Each Braille letter is made up of six point positions. They are set in two columns of three points each. A point may be raised at any of the six positions, or any combination. There are sixty four [64] possible letters. A letter may be described by naming the positions where points are raised. The positions are numbered one through three on the left and four through six on the right." "Sixty four letters cannot cover all possible print signs. So it is necessary to use a series of Braille letters for some purposes. For example, a single point in the bottom of the right column shows that the letter is a capital. There is also a series that shows that the following letters should be read as numbers" Voice 2 Braille has remained almost unchanged since its creation two hundred [200] years ago. But it has also grown with new technology. There are tools that permit a student to write by hand in Braille. There are also computer programs and special printers which print Braille. There are even electronic moving readers that let blind people read a computer and use the Internet. And of course, the number of Braille books continues to grow.
Voice 1 In spite of his own blindness, perhaps because of it, Louis Braille opened a path. He permitted blind people to operate in society with greater ease. He did not let his own condition stop him. And his invention has given many other blind people the chance to learn and progress in life.
Voice 2 The writer and producer of this program was Adam Navis. The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. Computer users can hear our programs, read our scripts, and see our word list on our website at http://www.Radio.English.net. This program is called "Louis Braille: Opening Books to the Blind." Voice 1 If you have a comment or question for Spotlight you can email us. Our email address is Radio @ English . net.
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