Teachers- is your classroom accessible to all of your students? Parents- does your child struggle to read standard print? Now is the time to speak with your curriculum committee about acquiring textbooks in formats that everyone can read.
You may recall an earlier post we wrote about accessible formats for digital media, which also had a follow-up post. Both posts are great resources for people who have difficulty reading standard print, whether they have vision loss, dyslexia, or a learning disability. We would now like to focus on accessible classroom textbooks, and what kind of assistive technology you can use to read them.
This text reader has a built-in accessible web browser, text-to-speech technology, access to NIMAS and DAISY, works with both Mac and Windows, and only takes about 30 minutes for teachers to learn how to use. Don Johnston Incorporated offers the Read : OutLoud 6 for single computers, 5-9 computers, or school-wide, where all students and teachers can access it, and use it at home.
This software converts your files into accessible formats. You can scan a printed document and convert it into files like DAISY, MP3, Braille, and large print. If you have a bunch of Kurzweil files that you can’t use on a text reader, the EasyConverter will change them into standard formats. Sign up to be notified when it becomes available.
This portable reader is ideal for highlighting, adding bookmarks, and looking up definitions. It has built in text-to-speech, study tools, and students can change the text and color to their preferences. This assistive technology device is available to try out here at the INDATA Loan Library.
With this device, students can actually take a picture of pages from their textbooks and have it converted to accessible text. As it reads the content aloud, it also highlights each word on the screen. Intel Reader creates DAISY 3 files, which are compatible with the Read : OutLoud and ClassMate Reader. This reader is also in the INDATA Loan Library.
If none of these products suits you, consider some of the following:
Or check out our blog post on e-readers.