Audiobooks available for those with reading difficulties

Residents at the Margate Retirement Village learnt of an audio library for anyone with reading difficulties.

Non-profit organisation Tape Aids visited the village to teach residents about hear-to-read activity centres that house print and talking books for early childhood development.

Residents were also encouraged to become members of the library or help others by being volunteer members.

The retirement village has a long relationship with the organisation.

Elza-Lynne Kruger, the organisation’s national director, said Anne Woodman was the Tape Aids librarian at its Margate Service Centre in 1981.

Over the past decade, said Kruger, Sharon Lombard has been looking after members’ reading and educational needs at its centre located at the Margate Retirement Village.

“If you know anyone with reading difficulties, whether young children or elderly acquaintances, help them open new worlds by becoming members of Tape Aids Avid Readers’ Audio Library. This library has thousands of talking books recorded by hundreds of volunteer narrators and proofreaders who have been assisting the organisation since 1958,” she said.

Kruger said Tape Aids advocates for the blind in education with its dual reading method, especially for learners with various forms of dyslexia and autism or attention deficit disorders.

She added that it is open to anyone who cannot read in the usual manner.

“Many of our library members say that their lives would not be worth living without the companionship of Tape Aids books, whose narrators take the place of lost or absent family members. Also, if you enjoy reading aloud, why not become a volunteer member? You will be equipped with a microphone and trained on the audio software so you can record and proof from the comfort of your home,” she said.

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