Promoting a reading environment for children with dyslexia in Japan

Abstract

I work in a public library in Chofu City as a librarian and I have a child with dyslexia. 10 years ago, I went to my library to see the person responsible for library services for people with disabilities to get advice for my daughter, who was having difficulties in reading, and came to know about DAISY multimedia books. But at that time, DAISY multimedia books were not available for my daughter since there was no library service for children and young adults with dyslexia in Japan.

To solve the situation, I established a group of volunteers called “Chofu DAISY” in order to produce DAISY multimedia books for children. I also became the representative of the group to create a better reading environment for these children. I disseminated information about people with dyslexia, and about their problems in reading printed books since dyslexia was still not well recognized in Japan. I promoted DAISY multimedia technology which is useful in helping those children to read. With this purpose, my group organized many lecture meetings and requested libraries to provide DAISY multimedia books and a PC to read them.

Today, I can find a PC to read DAISY books and a bookshelf full of those books in my library. However, very few library users know about this useful information. So, my challenge is to encourage children with dyslexia and their parents to ask libraries to provide more books in readable format. The Japanese copyright law allows them to do so. Finally, I would like to reiterate the critical importance of accessible publications.