NCERT Solutions for Class 4th English Chapter 6 A. Answer the following. — Let us Think
Book page 58 Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
Describe the Braille alphabet.The Braille alphabet as your book prints it on page 56. Each letter has its own block of six dot places — two across and three down. A solid dot is raised and can be felt; an outlined dot place stays flat.
Answer
The Braille alphabet is an alphabet made of raised dots, which you read with your fingers instead of your eyes.
Here is how it is built:
Each letter gets one small block of six dot places — two across and three down.
In each letter, some of those six places are raised and the rest stay flat.
The pattern of the raised dots tells you which letter it is. For example, one dot at the top left is a. Two dots down the left side is b.
There is one Braille symbol for each of the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet, as the book says on page 57.
You read it by moving your fingers along the line of dots. So the book calls Braille “a method of reading through touch”.
Braille needs more space, because the letters cannot be written too close together. That is why a Braille book is thicker than a regular printed book.
One Braille cell has six dot places. We give them numbers 1 to 6 so that we can talk about them easily. In a letter, some of these places are raised and the rest stay flat.
Why six dots and not more: A fingertip can feel only a small patch at one time. Six dots fit neatly under one fingertip, so the whole letter is felt in one touch. More dots would spill outside the fingertip and slow the reader down.
Look for the pattern: The first ten letters, a to j, use only the four top dot places. Add the bottom-left dot to each of them and you get k to t. That is why the chart is printed in three neat bands.
Q2.
Why was ‘Night Writing’ not a success?
Answer
Because it was too difficult. The book says plainly: “However, it was too difficult and, therefore, not a success.”
What made it difficult:
Night Writing used raised dots and dashes. A dash is a long line, so each sign took up a lot of room.
Because each sign was big, a finger could not feel a whole sign in one touch. The reader had to move the finger about to work out one letter.
That made reading slow and tiring.
Why it was made at all: Capt. Charles Barbier de la Serre was an army man. He made Night Writing so that soldiers could read messages in the dark, without lighting a lamp that the enemy would see. It was a good idea — it was just too hard to use.
The good that came of it: Night Writing failed, but it gave Louis Braille the idea. He kept the raised dots, threw away the dashes, and made each letter small enough for one fingertip.
Q3.
What did Louis Braille do to make reading easier for the blind?
Answer
He took Night Writing and simplified it, and gave the world the Braille alphabet.
What he did, step by step:
As a teenager at the Royal Institute in Paris, he became interested in Capt. Barbier’s Night Writing.
He removed the dashes and kept only the raised dots.
He made each letter fit into one small block of six dot places, small enough for one fingertip.
He gave one symbol to each of the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet.
Now a person who cannot see could read a whole book by touch, and write in it too. The book ends this part with a beautiful line: “Thus, a blind person taught the world to see.”
The Braille alphabet as your book prints it on page 56. Each letter has its own block of six dot places — two across and three down. A solid dot is raised and can be felt; an outlined dot place stays flat.
Why this was such a big change: Before Braille, a blind person had to be read to by someone else. After Braille, the same person could pick up a book and read it alone, at any hour, as many times as he liked. That is the difference Louis Braille made.
Remember: He did not start from nothing. He took an idea that had failed and made it simple. Making a thing simpler is itself an invention.