World Sight Day

Today (Thursday 13 October 2011) is World Sight Day, which takes place annually on the second Thursday of every October, to focus global attention on blindness, visual impairment and the rehabilitation of the visually impaired. Booktrust wants every child to experience the joy of stories, books and reading. That's why over the last few years we have worked in partnership with RNIB, the National Blind Children's Society, health professionals and children's book experts to develop resources for children with sight impairments which are delivered through our free book packs, Bookstart, Booktime and Booked Up.

Bookstart packs are universally gifted to every child aged 0-4 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and in addition, Bookstart offers Booktouch, a pack for parents of children with sight impairments. The packs are free and contain two tactile and brightly coloured 'touch and feel' books, to engage babies who are fully or partially blind and a CD of rhymes to add further sensory interest and help children develop a love of stories, songs and rhymes. The packs, which were developed with advice from the Royal National Library for the Blind, also contain tips and ideas on ways to share stories with sight impaired children and a list of recommended 'touch and feel' books to encourage further book sharing.

Booktime is our next programme designed to support every child on their reading journey. It is available to children in England and Northern Ireland and is gifted when they start primary school. Booktime is run in partnership with Pearson and provides each child with two books in a neat backpack, to encourage shared reading for pleasure in the home. Booktime also provides alternative format books which can be requested for children with additional needs, including visual impairments. These include touch and feel and lift the flap titles, as well as a 'noisy' book. Booktime are currently working with the RNIB to produce Braille and large print versions of this year's books which we hope will be available soon.

Booktrust's support and encouragement for children with visual impairments continues to secondary school, when Year 7 pupils are offered their choice of a free Booked Up book. Booked Up work with the RNIB and National Blind Children's Society to make all 12 of the core titles available in both Braille and giant print and are able to tailor the books to the specific needs of each child, including font size, type, paper colour, and more. One of this year's titles is available as an audio book (How To Train Your Dragon) and another of the books is accompanied by a CD (The Dragon Machine). In addition, Don't You Dare Dragon has a sensory aspect for children with visual impairments and complex needs.

As well as gifting book packs to children at key stages in their reading development, Booktrust has been campaigning for more inclusive images in publishing, so that children with additional needs are represented in books. This inclusion helps children with visual impairment to feel more at home in their reading journey and furthermore, helps to 'normalise' visual impairment needs amongst other children. Some fantastic inclusive books are already available and we are very pleased that more and more publishers are joining our campaign as there are still too few high quality examples out there.

So, on World Sight Day we will be raising awareness of these book gifts in the hope that more children will benefit from these specialized resources and celebrating the joyful experience of stories, books and rhymes as a cultural, social and educational entitlement for every child, including children with visual impairment. We will also continue to work with authors, illustrators and publishers to ensure the inclusion of positive images of disability in books as we are sure that this contributes towards a society which is more understanding, welcoming and inclusive.