January 4th is Louis Braille's birthday.
· Louis was only 15 years old when he developed his first alphabet with dots.
· At that time, students in his school in Paris, France used raised letters to read, but there were less than 20 books in the whole library.
· Louis first heard of writing with dots, instead of letters, from a military officer who visited the school and shared the system of dots he used to write secret messages to his soldiers.
· Louis streamlined the pattern to a six-dot arrangement still used today.
· There are 64 different ways to arrange the six dots.
· Louis became a professional organist and a teacher at his school, the Royal National Institute for the Blind.
· Louis published his codes and shared them with his friends and students, but it was only after his death that reading with the six-dot pattern was officially accepted at his school.
· Louis Braille's pattern for writing with six dots are used all over the world to write letters, numbers, foreign languages, computer notation, and music.
LEARN MORE ABOUT BRAILLE:
Click on this link http://www.afb.org/braillebug/Games.asp to:
View the braille alphabet
See your name in braille
Answer riddles in braille
Read a book about Louis Braille that is written in braille and print:
A Picture Book of Louis Braille, by David A. Adler, available from National Braille Press, 88 St. Stephen St., Boston, MA.