January is National Braille Literacy Month. January was chosen for this celebration because it is the birth month of Louis Braille, the inventor of the system of raised dots that made it possible for people who are blind to read and write for themselves with independence and freedom.
He became blind at the age of three. He attended the local school until 1819, when he was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth. Soon after enrolling at the school, he started to develop his reading code. In 1824, at the age of fifteen, he invented the braille system. In 1829, he published his work in Method of Writing Words, Music and Plain songs by Means of Dots for Use of the Blind.
The initial idea for a raised system of dots came from a military code called "night writing" that was used by French soldiers to communicate in darkness. It was based on a pattern twelve dots arranged in a "cell." Unfortunately, the fingertip could not feel the entire raised symbol with a single touch. Louis took this idea and adapted it by reducing the number of dots to six so that the fingertip could cover the entire cell with one touch.
The initial idea for a raised system of dots came from a military code called "night writing" that was used by French soldiers to communicate in darkness. It was based on a pattern twelve dots arranged in a "cell." Unfortunately, the fingertip could not feel the entire raised symbol with a single touch. Louis took this idea and adapted it by reducing the number of dots to six so that the fingertip could cover the entire cell with one touch.
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