Turdish

As technology increases, so does concern that overuse of the technology will be a detriment to children.  When I was a child, the television was the culprit—and still is to a degree today, although it's known more generally as, "screen time" now.  Did my brain rot out from watching television after school and on Saturday mornings?  I still seem to retain most of my faculties, as do most of my contemporaries, although that evaluation could be relative I suppose. 

I've heard concerns voiced by some that listening to audiobooks isn't as good as reading the text itself.   And I agree that exclusively listening to written works isn't good.  There are statistics that show a growing number of blind children are bypassing learning braille because so much is available in one verbal form or another.  I haven't looked into those statistics, so I can't speak authoritatively on them, but I can see how it could be the case in some situations. 

In the United States, children are required to go to school, and public schools hopefully have the foresight and/or requirement to teach braille to children.  Internationally or in situations where a child doesn't have the opportunity to learn braille, audio information is at least better than no information where braille education isn't an option. 

Reading is essential for spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and learning about written language.   I'm a big advocate of braille, learning it myself and requiring my daughter to do some reading in braille daily, even during the summer.   

But for leisure time, there's nothing like relaxing and watching a movie.  Or, in the case of my daughter, listening to a movie.   Movies or television shows have the inherent problem that a portion of the content is delivered visually.   An epic montage scene in which the protagonist rises above their situation by figuring out how to solve the problem, set to uplifting music, is great if you can see, but give zero information to someone who is blind.   

Books are different.   Everything you need to know is in the words.  Audiobooks are almost the equivalent of movies to my daughter in that way.  We've let her spend much of her time listening to audiobooks lately.  So, has it been a good thing or a bad thing?  Has it, "rotted her brain" as the saying about too much television watching went when I was a child?  I don't think so. 

In fact, I think it's done the opposite.  Today, my daughter and I went to a park for a play date with another VI student from her school.  On the way, she wanted to tell me stories she made up as we drove along.  I was able to jot down some of what she said, snippets mostly, thanks to autopilot.  Her vocabulary and wording have improved dramatically.   

The first story was titled, "Turdish" and was about some turtles and fish we were going to be feeding at the park we were heading to.   She started the book saying, "Prolog," and then explaining what had happened before the story began.  She launched into Chapter One and ended after a few chapters.   Then she said, "About the author" and described herself, saying, "she loves audiobooks and art.  She tells lots of stories.   Some are ones she forgets, but others are too important to forget, like this one.   Then, she said, "Illustrator" and my name.  She talked about me, as her mother, and how I liked crafts and audiobooks too."

Next, she asked if I wanted to hear a story titled, "The Brave Duckling" or one called "Chicken goes Squawk".   I opted for the duckling story since there might be ducks in the lake we'd be visiting (there were).  I didn't get the whole story written down, but here are some of the phrases she used:  "spiraling to the ground," "she wriggled free of his grasp," "by now they had grown up, but they were bound to have their own lives."   I was impressed with the descriptive words she used in her story narrative, giving me a clear image of the ducklings, their mother, and their life in the pond. 

On the way home, she wanted to tell another story, this time about a boy and his sister who had magical things happening to their bodies, such as the girl's hair growing seemingly without bound and turning into solid silver strands.  The boy's fingers and body grew as well.  Here are bits of the story I was able to capture (autopilot is great, but I have to still drive):

Granuald marched into the room.   He looked at his sister.  She had jet black hair like her father.  She was frail, but beautiful with long, dark hair.   She looked at her hair and saw it was growing.   It was growing fast—much too fast.  She noticed her hair wasn't dark anymore but had turned silver.  Her eyes softened when she saw her brother.  He gazed into his sister's sparkly eyes.   Her eyes were so dazzling.  They were twinkling.   Granuald looked and saw his fingers were growing longer.  His whole body was stretching out.  He was getting more buff.  His sister looked into his eyes and noticed they were twinkling.   The blue part of his eyes was now pure gold.  When she looked into his glittering gold eyes she knew.   They had to escape.   When she realized the man was a policeman she grimaced and turned away.   She frowned.   She had a weapon, she realized.   She could use her hair, now pure strands of silver.  She flung her head around, wrapping her hair around him. 

The story above was a bit rambly, and I'm not sure where she was going with the two siblings who's bodies had transformed into physical silver and gold and why they needed to run,  It ended abruptly as we arrived home.   What I find interesting is the descriptiveness of her storytelling.   I wasn't writing prose like this when I was a rising third-grader.   I don't know that I was even writing at all.   

My daughter's vocabulary and language skills are improving, not degrading, as a result of listening to audiobooks, which make them a good thing as far as I'm concerned.  We're just as focused on braille, but my daughter's teachers are making sure she's getting the best education she can on that front.   As the phrase goes, "it's all good."

The Big Boy Update:  My son couldn't get to sleep last night so he came downstairs after ten o'clock to talk to his father.   He was given a choice: go upstairs and read or turn off the light, or watch the remainder of the movie Goonies with his father.   We've been trying to get him to watch this movie for some time now, being pretty sure he'd like it.   He begrudgingly started it a while ago but wanted to quit before the good part where the children hunt for the pirate's treasure got started.  My son opted for the movie choice.   He loved it.   There were a few scary parts, but he laughed and thought the children finding the hidden ship and treasure was just as good as we'd hoped he would.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a good time at the park today with Adeline, a VI friend from school who's one year older than she is.   They are similar in temperament, stubbornness, coping with the loss of their sight, intelligence, and percentage of vision remaining.  In short, they're a good match for each other.   They played together while Adeline's mother and I talked about life with a blind child, sharing stories and giving advice from what we'd each respectively learned.  It was a very good, albeit hot, day in the park.   They had such a good time, the girls asked if we could do another gettogether next Sunday.