Learning Ally records texts for students who are visually impaired
BY MIKE NOLAN mnolan@southtownstar.com July 24, 2011 6:18PM
Brighter and more spacious environment along with window views and updated recording booths highlight the new location of the Learning Ally at the former Orland Park Police station in Orland Park, Illinois, Thursday, July, 21, 2011. | Joseph P. Meier~Sun-Times Media
Article Extras
Updated: October 31, 2011 10:43AM
Inside Learning Ally’s Orland Park studio hangs a sign that reads, “Remember the books that put you to sleep in college? Here’s a chance to read them again.”
Books, specifically textbooks, are read aloud by volunteers tucked inside soundproof booths. Their spoken, recorded words will help blind and otherwise visually and physically impaired students who can’t read the texts on their own.
“A book read here can go to any school in the country,” Shelley Chenoweth, area director with Learning Ally, said.
Formerly called Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic and renamed Learning Ally this spring, the New Jersey-based nonprofit has 21 studios around the country and a digital library of more than 65,000 titles.
With the help of Lois Klein — for whom the Orland studio is named after and its earliest benefactor — local volunteers initially worked out of the Palos Hills Library, then moved to Orland Plaza in 1957. That’s the property Orland Park wants for its Main Street Triangle development project.
“We had outgrown the space (in Orland Plaza), but the village’s plans pushed us in the direction of moving,” Chenoweth said.
Working with the village, the organization was able to secure a 10-year lease, for $12 a year, and move earlier this year into the former police station.
All of the Orland studio’s volunteers — there are 120 of them, and more eager readers are on a waiting list — have to audition, and those who make the cut undergo three months of training. For those who aren’t picked there are other jobs, such as editing, Sandy Elhenicky, production director, said.
And it’s not just reading the words, it’s also trying to describe to the listener any charts, maps or graphics contained in textbooks, she said. Learning Ally tries to match readers with their particular background or expertise. A couple of former math teachers, for instance, are tag-teaming on a geometry book.
Then there is Ursula Wenk, who emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1958 and who’s been a volunteer reader since 1963.
The Orland Park resident was living in Chicago’s Beverly community when a friend urged her to volunteer.
“My English was not that fabulous,” she said.
Wenk worked only on German language texts and Klein, who was also fluent in German, helped Wenk improve her English, drilling her mercilessly on certain words.
“I wanted to hurt the woman,” Wenk said, sounding only half-joking.
While the demand for having German language texts recorded has waned, she is still the go-to reader for history texts pertaining to Nazi Germany.
“Some have German words or pronunciations in them,” she said.
But in the process she’s also learning more about the atrocities of the Third Reich than she cares to know.
“Some of it is so gruesome,” Wenk said.
Originally helped blind WW II vets
Founded in New York City in 1948, the organization initially had volunteers who read to returning GIs in World War II who had lost their eyesight in battle.
Textbooks are supplied at no charge to the group, which funds operations through fees charged to schools and individual members, Chenoweth said. Learning Ally’s Illinois operations — there is also a studio in Chicago — receive $860,000 annually in state funding, she said.
The Orland studio’s move to its new home afforded space for more recording booths — nine vs. seven in the former location — plus offices, a conference room and kitchen.
“It’s probably four times the space, Elhenicky said.
This spring, the organization changed its name to Learning Ally to reflect the growing number of people using its books, Chenoweth said.
“Even more people need our services now,” she said. “It’s not just the visually impaired. We have some people who are physically disabled and not able to turn the pages of a book.”
The technology to bring the books to them has come a long way.
In the early days, books were recorded onto records, then came reel-to-reel tapes, followed by cassettes, CDs and ultimately downloadable, digital files.
As a teacher of visually-impaired kids for many years, Carol Shipp relied on the organization for audio texts. Six years ago, the Oak Lawn resident began working as a volunteer reader.
“It’s kind of giving back,” she said.
Reading to yourself is one thing, but isn’t it sort of weird reading a textbook out loud into a microphone?
“I spent my whole career directly reading to students,” Shipp said. “This was not a stretch for me.”
But it’s not as though you’re reading a gripping fiction novel or murder mystery. On the shelves are books that are either in the process of being read and recorded, or awaiting a willing reader. They bear compelling titles such as “Modern Livestock & Poultry Production,” and the 1,648-page “Automotive Technology.” Nobody’s yet stepped up to claim that one.
Books are sent to studios from the New Jersey headquarters, each carrying a recording deadline. The more complex the book, the longer it will take to record. The one Wenk is finishing up — yes, it’s about Adolf Hitler — she started in late March.
Wenk, 75, said she devours biographies and mysteries when she’s not volunteering at the studio, where she spends four or five hours a week.
“I just don’t think I’m going to stop until I can’t read anymore,” she said.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment