Stories come alive for Vision Impaired children in Australia: The Feelix Library

'Children who are blind or have low vision need hands on materials to hold them captivated and listening' 

Imagine you are a grandparent and you have your loved grandchild on your knee. You take one of your favourite stories from the table and start to read. But when the child reaches for the book he or she feels only flat pages and grabs the book and throws it on the floor. The book is meaningless for the child because it does not have a tactual component to hold the child's attention. This is why the Feelix Library began. 

Children who are blind or have low vision need hands on materials to hold them captivated and listening. It is then they will hear the lilting language patterns and rhymes that will help them develop language and eventually literacy. Real things in their hands and then braille under their fingers help promote learning of concepts and story line. Also they begin to learn very early, that the dots under their fingers represent the words coming out of mum's or dad's mouth. 

Feelix is about providing equity for pre-school children who are blind or have low vision, by allowing them the same experiences that sighted children get through stories. Also it strives to allow them the opportunity to be experienced with braille and large print so that they are on an equal footing with their sighted peers when they start school. By the time they start school they will have had braille books at home, in their Child Care Centres and in their Kindergartens. They will have an expectation that this is the way they will learn. Already they see themselves as capable and are becoming self-advocates when they are 5-6 years old. 

In each little Feelix suitcase there is a picture book with print and braille, a CD or daisy recording of the story, some hands on materials that open the world of the story to the child.  In older stories a tactile handbook is included that tells the same story in simple tactile pictures. A small suitcase contains all these components. It is designed to aid organisational skills in keeping things together.

 The tactile graphic component of the handbook is to encourage searching interpretive fingers. We hope that with parent and sibling support children will flip through the tactile book and retell the story in their own words, in the same way as a sighted child flips through the illustrations of a book and reads a story. This early retelling and connecting memorable parts of a story is a vital step in the road to literacy. 

Feelix story kits are sent to children from birth to seven years. They are sent and returned Freepost, as braille materials. Contact: http://www.visionaustralia.org/