At the age of ten, Louis was admitted to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth (Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles) in Paris. This was a significant opportunity for him to receive formal education despite his blindness.

Louis excelled in his studies at the institution, mastering subjects like history, grammar, science, and music. He was frustrated by the cumbersome and inefficient embossed letter system used for reading, which involved raised letters on thick paper.

Charles Barbier, a captain in the French Army, visited the institution and demonstrated his "night writing" system, a code of raised dots and dashes intended for battlefield communication at night. This system inspired Braille's own invention.

Louis Braille began to adapt and refine Barbier's night writing system, simplifying it and making it more efficient for reading and writing. He reduced the number of dots used in each cell from twelve to six, creating a system that could represent letters, numbers, and punctuation.

By the age of fifteen, Louis Braille had completed his first version of the braille system. This marked a major breakthrough in accessible literacy for the blind.