Louis Braille Inventor of a Gift

1
Louis BrailleInventor of a Gift

• By Catherine Haynes

2
Louis Braille

• Louis Braille was born in 1809 in the little town
  of Coupvray, France.
• His parents were Simon-Rene and Monique Braille.
• His father was the saddle and harness maker in
  the village of Coupvray.
• He was the youngest of four children.

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The Accident

• When Louis was a little boy he loved to watch his
  father work.
• His father told him never to touch his tools.
• When Louis was only three years old, he stabbed
  his right eye with one of his fathers tools.
• Infection spread to his other eye and Louis
  became completely blind.

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The Royal Institute for Blind Youth

• When Louis was ten years old he was sent to
  attend The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in
  Paris, France.
• This was the first school for blind children.
• Later he became a teacher at the school.

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Louis, The Student

• Louis studied history, grammar, arithmetic, and
  geography.
• His favorite thing was music and he was naturally
  gifted.
• He learned to play the piano and organ by ear.
• At the end of each school year Louis
• won prizes in academics and music.

6
Embossing

• Some of Louis Brailles first lessons were in
  embossing.
• Embossing is a system of reading and writing
  where large letters of the alphabet are pressed
  into thick sheets of waxed paper. The raised
  impressions on the other side of the paper could
  be read by tracing their outlines with a finger.
• The problem with embossing was that one page of
  embossed print contained only a few sentences so
  embossed books were too big to be carried around
  and expensive to print. Also, outside of the
  school, embossed books were hard to find.

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Sonography

• In 1821 Charles Barbier, a captain in the French
  Army, spoke to the students at Louis school.
• He had invented a system for soldiers to
  communicate at night without a sound.
• It was called sonography or night writing.
• He thought his invention could be useful to the
  blind.

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Louis Brailles Invention

• Louis and his classmates were very excited about
  Barbiers invention, but soon they found that it
  had many problems and was too hard.
• Between the ages of 13 and 16, Louis used
  Barbiers idea to create his own system using
  raised dots.
• Finally, Louis discovered that the problem with
  Barbiers system was that his symbols were based
  on sounds and there were too many sounds in the
  French language.
• He changed his symbols to represent letters of
  the alphabet and invented a simple code that
  allowed him to represent any letter of the
  alphabet within the space of a fingertip.

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Louis Brailles Original French Alphabet
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The plaque on the outside of the home Louis
Braille was born in reads In this house on
January 4, 1809 was born Louis Braille the
inventor of the system of writing in raised dots
for use by the blind. HE OPENED THE DOORS OF
KNOWLEDGE TO ALL THOSE WHO CANNOT SEE.
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What I Learned

• I learned that before Louis Brailles invention,
  blind people were known as dumb. He invented
  braille so that he and others could do what
  sighted people can do.
• He helped many people like Helen Keller and today
  people all over the world are thankful for Louis
  Brailles invention.
• This is a picture of Helen Keller
• reading braille.

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Louis Brailles Fans

• People all over the world send him messages that
  say Thank you Louis Braille for your gift.
• Here are some of those messages
• Louis BrailleThank you so much your
  invention you were truly amazing individual,
  happy 200th birthday!- MFPS
• Oh the great soul! Your are the light of
  the Blind and the door to knowledge. I offer my
  homage to you on your bicentennial Birth Day.-
  Nabin Satapathy
• DESCANSA EN PAZ Y DIOS TE BENDIGA
  SIEMPRE.- Gabriel Tobon