American Printing House Partners With Imagination Library

The American Printing House for the Blind on Frankfort Avenue has partnered with the Dollywood Foundation to print books that will be distributed to children under five across the country.The foundation’s Imagination Library program sends a free book each month to promote reading before entering school.  The program will now be able to offer their books with a Braille overlay for children or parents who are blind.Six-year-old Cameron Burkett is blind, and her father, Bradley, says she has struggled to learn to read with limited exposure to Braille books.“There was a little book, it was only like 8 to 10 pages and she memorized the whole book," Burkett says "and I caught her because she was feeling her fingers across it and she was saying the end of the sentence before her fingers would go across the Braille.”Bradley Burkett says these books would really have made a difference for his daughter.“If she would have had them when she was younger," he says "just starting to feel it getting use to the words when they’re being read to her, she would have probably started learning sooner, but for other kids, for free Braille books, cause you can’t just go to Wal Mart and get them; like for other kids it’ll be awesome for them.”American Printing House embossed over 18 million pages of Braille last year, but also does extensive research and development on other educational materials for blind children.