Join the dots: Alex and Lilani discover the world of letters

The series of booklets “Join the dots: Alex and Lilani discover the world of letters” is the first inclusive and scientifically proven learning aid that introduces blind pre-school children as well as children with and without visual impairments to writing in nine volumes. It has been developed and designed by an international team of researchers at Bern University of the Arts HKB and Heidelberg University of Education PH HD.

The inclusive series of learning aids
Sighted children of pre-school age discover typographic signs and symbols every single day and are confronted with normal print in a wide variety of situations and ways, either on their own or accompanied by adults. When stories are read aloud to children, sighted children have the advantage that they can actually see the letters and in time, usually before they even start school, they are able to identify or reproduce one or two of them. This is not possible for blind children in this form and with such variety, because they rarely encounter Braille in their surroundings. This means that blind children are much less likely to come into contact with writing before they start school, and this contact is generally never accidental. This is a significant disadvantage compared to their sighted comrades. These circumstances, and the fact that there are no specially designed learning aids that allow both blind and sighted children of pre-school age to learn to read together, either in educational institutions or through easily accessible books, gave rise to the idea of an inclusive learning aid.

Layout and design of the nine volumes
The volumes are in line with the “Emergent Literacy Approach.” The content of each volume follows on from the previous one, and each volume is a self-contained unit. Each development level is dealt with in three volumes:
• Volumes 1 – 3: Development level 1: focussing on pattern differentiation and tracing lines
• Volumes 4 – 6: Development level 2: focussing on shape recognition
• Volumes 7 – 9: Development level 3: introduction to letter and word recognition