Assistive Technology and Reading

In my previous blog, I wrapped up discussing assistive technology and writing by looking at the devices offered for students during the writing process. Today, my focus is on assistive technology and the reading process by looking at a webinar. Click here to visit the webinar for yourself.

Reading is another area all students struggle with but can prove extremely dificult for students with disabilities. The webinar offers software and approaches that may be used to help students with disabilities approach reading.

Bookshare is a online library for people with print disabilities that incorporates text to speech software. Membership is free for students and adults that qualify after filling out a short form. There is a training offered to assist users in getting the most out of the website. It offers many different ways for users to read books by downloading software to have it read to them or embossed downloading braille for readers with visual impairments. Embossed Braille allows users to create a hard copy of the book in braille. After being introduced to BookShare in the webinar I researched it online. The website is amazing and offers many books, magazines, and newspaper in different forms for people with  print disabilities. I was completely impressed by the resources available now because of technology. Please view the video below to see a student using BookShare.

 Kurzweil is another program that proved beneficial for students using text to speech software. It allows users to pick certain voices that do not sound robotic, the teacher to control how much text students read at a time, and users to control the pace the text is read. Information may be highlighted and extracted to create a new document with page numbers to help students organize for a writing or assignment or to answer questions. 

Please watch the video below to see Kurzweil being used.

I hope you have learned as much as I have with the use of AT with reading.Please tune in next time as we will discuss more with AT and reading. Until Next Time!