Out of 500,000 legally blind people, only 80,000 read Braille. Why so few?
There are a number of reasons. One is that a large percentage of people become blind in their elder years and may not want to learn how to read again. It takes a lot of motivation. Another reason is that in our society, we don’t believe that blind people have the same right to literacy as sighted people do. Why do you say that? When a sighted child goes to school, they are automatically put on a literacy track. Reading and writing are a key part of their early curricula. When a blind child goes to school, many of those schools assume that tape recorders can do the job. What’s wrong with tape recorders? Well, suppose your child is entering first grade, and the teacher gets up and says, “We have a wonderful announcement to make: We don’t have to put your child through the rigors of learning how to read, because we’ve got everything on tape.’ You wouldn’t be very happy. Why? Because there are some very important differences between reading and listening. What are some of them? Reading is
