A child’s thirst for knowledge – Ted’s story
17th July 2018
Ted has Stickler Syndrome which caused his retinas to detach resulting in him becoming blind when he was a toddler.
Ted has been borrowing from the Living Paintings library since he was 4 years old. And more recently Ted, 11 years old, has completed a marathon over 26 days to raise money for his favourite charity – us! Ted raised an awesome amount of just over £21,000.
Natalie, Ted’s mum, shares what Living Paintings means to Ted and the family:
“Your resources have given him an incentive to keep trying to read braille which over time has meant his braille reading has become so strong.
Ted shows curiosity in learning and listens to, and feels, books above his age level and gets lots from them.
Borrowing resources from Living Paintings library has meant his enjoyment of stories and factual books, and therefore his knowledge is much enhanced by having the key aspects literally explained to him by his fingers. Ted really enjoys listening to the audio of Roald Dahl books and putting a shape to the characters like James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Feeling the feely pictures makes listening to the audiobook even better!
Your resources also support him in school and this enables him to be more involved within the class setting. I remember when Ted’s class was learning about the artist Van Gogh, so his teaching assistant borrowed Camille and the Sunflowers featuring Van Gogh, which really helped to keep him more involved within the class. He frequently contributes to class activities and discussions and enthusiastically answers questions in class.
Borrowing Living Paintings resources also enables him to understand subjects in greater detail, which means he is more confident discussing them and answering questions more. He has become more interested in a wider scope so he learns about things that would otherwise be too abstract for him.
The Touch to See concept is superb for our son. He has a thirst for knowledge and books and the feely pictures are brilliant. We have used them on subjects he’s already aware of (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for example) and also where he has no real knowledge (the solar system) and he gets a lot from them.”
