Digitised books for visually impaired schoolchildren to be released soon

Sources said the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) held a meeting with teachers in this regard recently. 

Accordingly, a series of training sessions would be organised for the persons involved in the development of textbooks for Tamil Nadu schools, textbook authors, and educationists. Initially, it has been planned to launch about 190 audio-supported digitised textbooks. 

A senior official from SCERT said that Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) would be used to create digitised textbooks, which would address the needs of visually impaired children. 

“Based on the insights gained in a series of meetings held in the recent past, it is proposed to address the learning needs of the special children making optimum use of DAISY software,” the official added. Noting that the software reads only English content, the SCERT official said, “Now it is being modified to read Tamil content also.” 

According to the official, the proposed audio textbooks would benefit not only visually impaired children but also those with other learning disabilities such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, cerebral palsy and autism. 

Apart from the preparation of digitised books for all the classes, the SCERT is also developing a series of videos to enable the special children to practice the sounds of Tamil letters, with appropriate pronunciation along with gestures. 

“This video package will involve all the five senses and reinforce learning as students will look at letters, move their body parts, pronounce the letters and listen to their own sounds, helping them learn better,” the official said. 

Stating that songs blended with Tamil music, traditional art forms, cultural factors were embedded in this video package, the official said, “Debates and culture festivals are conducted to train the children in developing oratorical skills and pronouncing tongue-twisters.”