Copyright © 2008 CNIB
You are permitted to copy, distribute and transmit this work
for noncommercial purposes. You may not alter, transform
or build upon this work without obtaining written permission
from CNIB.
A Reader’s Guide is available for free online at
www.cnib.ca/tactilefortots. It is intended to be used in
conjunction with the tactile book ‘Where’s My Ball? A Handson Book’ created by Lynn Yamazaki and Constance Craig,
illustrated and produced by the CNIB Library, 2006. ISBN 0921122-42-X
To inquire about purchasing ‘Where’s My Ball?’, contact:
CNIB Library Sales
1929 Bayview Avenue
Toronto, ON M4G 3E8
Tel: 1-800-563-2642
Email: sales@cnib.ca
Acknowledgements
The CNIB Library acknowledges the support of the Canadian
Braille Literacy Foundation for the Tactile for Tots program.
2
Where’s My Ball? A Reader’s Guide
Table of contents
Why do I need this guide? ........................................................... 4
Before opening ‘Where’s My Ball?’ with a child ........................ 5
How does a ball become a bump? .............................................. 6
Reading ‘Where’s My Ball?’ with a child..................................... 7
Other ways to use the book......................................................... 8
What’s next? ................................................................................... 9
Can I get more tactile books from the CNIB Library? ........... 10
How do I find tactile books in your catalogue? ...................... 11
What else does the CNIB Library offer? .................................. 12
3
Why do I need this guide?
Children with vision, even babies and toddlers, are exposed
to pictures and images whenever they open their eyes.
Children living with vision loss will only experience tactile
illustrations that are placed within reach.
“Don’t touch!” All children are familiar with this phrase, yet it
is through touch that children living with vision loss learn
about the world around them. This guide will show you safe,
fun and important ways to encourage and support a child
living with vision loss as they explore new objects and
experiences through books.
Images make reading and learning fun – that’s why they
make picture books for children! Tactile illustrations give
children living with vision loss similar exciting opportunities
for literacy.
These are just a few of the reasons why ‘Where’s My Ball?’
and this guide are such important tools.
Just as children must be taught how to
read braille, children must be taught
how to understand and interpret
tactile illustrations.
As a child progresses through the
school system, science, math and
geography books will contain images to
help them learn. Maps, graphs, exotic
animals, microscopic organisms…
Children with vision will access these images through sight;
a child living with vision loss can interpret the equivalent
tactile illustrations through touch, but only if they have
learned how.
The techniques that follow are just suggestions.
Rehabilitation workers, teachers and parents should all work
together to find the technique that works best for each child.
4
Before opening ‘Where’s My Ball?’ with a child
Whenever possible, give the child an opportunity to handle
and explore real objects before you introduce them to tactile
representations of these objects. For example, the book
‘Where’s My Ball?’ is about a ball, and the story takes place
in a typical home, with windows, doors and household
objects such as spoons, blankets and apples.
Before you even start to read the book with a child, show
them what these things are. Have they ever handled a whole
apple? Do they get a chance to open doors on their own?
Give them a chance to explore and experience these things
so that they have something to compare to what they’ll read
about in the book.
Once they know what these real objects feel like, they are
ready to learn what they feel like when they are depicted as
tactile illustrations.
Here is
















a list of objects included in the book:
tennis ball
chair
apple
toothbrush and toothpaste
window
sippy cup
door
tennis racket
wooden block
blanket
rubber duck
children’s cutlery: fork, spoon, knife
basket
flower
plastic pail, shovel and sieve
table
5
How does a ball become a bump?
This fuzzy round ball that I can hold in two hands is a bump
on the page? How does that work?
The next step is to help the child understand how threedimensional objects, things that they can pick up and hold
like the tennis ball, are depicted in the book as raised tactile
illustrations.
On the back cover of this guide you’ll find a picture of a
tennis ball. Use scissors to cut along the dotted line and
create a hole slightly smaller than a
standard tennis ball.
Now, from underneath the cover, push
a tennis ball part-way through the
hole. Let the child feel the flat cover of
the guide with the bump of the tennis
ball pushing through the hole.
This tool can be used to help them
understand how something round, like a tennis ball, can be
shown as a tactile illustration.
 This technique was developed by Boguslaw (Bob) Marek, The John
Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. See more information
about his ‘Transfograph’ and other tools for introducing tactile
graphics, spatial relations and visual concepts to congenitally blind
children at: www.hungryfingers.com.
6
Reading ‘Where’s My Ball?’ with a child
While you’re reading:
 Let the child hold the book and help turn the pages.
 Describe out loud what you see on the page – layout,
colours and images.
 Encourage the child to run their finger along the braille
or large print as you read the story aloud.
 Encourage them to get an overview of each new page
by exploring through touch, top-to-bottom and cornerto-corner!
 Encourage them to explore the tactile illustrations with
their fingers (help them to find different textures:
rough, bumpy, smooth, etc.).
 On pages where there is more than one tactile image,
help the child find them all and
distinguish between them.
 Help the child trace the outline
and details of the tactile pictures
and compare them to actual
objects (when possible, put a real
object next to the tactile
illustration so they can feel how
they are the same).
 Use the book to introduce spatial concepts (on, beside,
in, behind, under, between, inside, with and under). To
help you do this, ‘Where’s My Ball?’ uses a full braille
cell (six dots) as a placeholder to indicate a location. ‘Is
my ball on my chair?’ The full braille cell is placed
above the seat of the chair to help demonstrate what
‘on’ means, and where the child should look.
7
Other ways to use the book
You may want to collect some of the items in the book and
add them to a cloth bag to make an ‘experience kit.’ Have
the child pull the real objects out of the bag as they are
mentioned in the book.
Encourage the child to act out the activities in the book –
have them put the tennis ball on a real chair, or ask them to
go to the dining room to check a chair and see if the ball is
there.
Once the child is familiar with the tactile
images featured in this book, try opening
pages at random to see if they can use their
fingers to tell you what the tactile
illustrations on the page are. Or, ask them
to find specific tactile illustrations, such as
the page with the flower on it.
8
What’s next?
Used together, ‘Where’s My Ball?’ and this guide are a start
towards helping you teach a child living with vision loss
important skills for reading tactile illustrations. Remember,
when the child is older the tactile illustrations they’ll be
given might represent ‘things’ that they cannot necessarily
touch (amoebas or maps of the world)!
Learn from others. Read Diane D. Miller’s article ‘Reading
Comes Naturally: A Mother and Her Blind Child’s
Experiences’ (Go to: www.afb.org and type ‘Reading Comes
Naturally’ into the Search Box)
Get creative. 3D Paint Pens and
Wiki Stix can be used to make
tactile images at school or at home.
Think about what other common
household items you can use, and
make books that reflect the child’s
daily experiences.
Make the leap. A map of Canada is an example of the type
of tactile illustrations a child with vision loss may encounter
when they’re older. Can you imagine how frustrating it
would be if a child’s first exposure to tactile images were a
detailed map of Canada? For some children that is exactly
the case. Could YOU put your hands on such a tactile and,
without looking, identify any of its features, or even the fact
that it was a map?
9
Can I get more tactile books from the CNIB
Library?
Yes! You can borrow or buy tactile books from the CNIB
Library. Here’s how:
Borrow – Contact Reader Services toll free at 1-800-2688818 or by email at reader.services@cnib.ca to find out how
the child can borrow tactile books from the CNIB Library.
Buy – Contact the CNIB Library Public Library Sales program
toll-free at 1-800-563-2642 or by email at sales@cnib.ca to
find out what tactile books are available for sale.
10
How do I find tactile books in your catalogue?
To find tactile books in the Library’s catalogue online:
1. Go to visunet.cnib.ca.
2. Select the Search the Library as a Guest link.
3. Select the Advanced Search link.
4. Go to the Search Criteria section.
5. In the edit field labeled “with all of the words”, enter the
key words “tactile books”. In the combo box labeled “in”,
select Subject.
6. If you want to limit your search results to uncontracted or
contracted braille, go to the Formats section and select
the appropriate format(s). Your choices are:
 Braille (contracted or uncontracted)
 PrintBraille (contracted or uncontracted)
7. Activate the SUBMIT button.
8. A Search Results page will display a list of tactile books.
To order tactile books for a child, copy and paste your
search results into an email and send it to
reader.services@cnib.ca.
The child can order books online for delivery by mail if they
log in with their user name and password for the Children’s
Discovery Portal. See ‘What else does the CNIB Library offer’
for information about this service.
11
What else does the CNIB Library offer?
The CNIB Library has lots of cool books, resources and
programs for kids to make reading more fun and accessible
than ever! We have contests and clubs and books in every
size, shape and format.
Anyone registered with CNIB can access the CNIB Digital
Library, and young readers between the ages of six and 14
can also use the Children's Discovery Portal with online
accessible games, moderated chat rooms and lots of ageappropriate information and resources.
Listen to the Audio Introduction to Library Service (17
minutes) at www.cnib.ca/library.
Contact us:
Reader Services
1-800-268-8818
reader.services@cnib.ca
www.cnib.ca/library
12
13