Reading
Print disability- is something that impairs a person from reading the material such as a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability. A print disability prevents a person from gaining information from printed material in the standard way, and requires them to utilize alternative methods to access that information.
Low Technology Reading Tools
Tool 1: A highlighter/ pen could be a great low technology tool that could help students with learning or cognitive disabilities red and understand what they read. The student could underline the key or important information in the text. They could underline or highlight unfamiliar words so they can look them up in a dictionary or online. It is also useful tool to help comprehension. Students can look back at the text and see the information they highlighted or underlined. They can re-read it to help them better understand it. It is a cheap and easy way to aid in comprehension. It does require the teacher to instruct the student on how to find the key information within the text but the device itself does not require training.
Tool 2: Bookmark or transparent ruler are great tools to help the student keep track of what they are reading. This is a great tool to use if the student has trouble keeping track of where they are in the passage. It allows the reader to block out everything else and focus on the part of the text they are trying to read. This is a good tool for students with cognitive or learning disabilities. The teacher does have to demonstrate tracking skills with the student prior to implementation.
Medium Technology Reading Tools
Tool 1: Audio Books are great tools to use for students with a vision impairment or who struggle to read. They can be used on multiple devices and most books today have an audio book format option. An audio book does require some type of device to play the book and use the available features. Audio books can be played on Ipods, computers, and tablets. Audio books can be bought online or can be found online using a variety or sites such as http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks, https://librivox.org/, or http://www.loyalbooks.com/. These sites provide audio books for free. You may have to look through multiple sites to find the book you want. Each site has different books and different versions of the audio file. Audio books are pretty simple to use and do not require much training. If possible the student should have the text in front of them to follow along.
Tool 2: Full Page Magnifying lens with LED light is a full page magnifying lens (size of the book) that has a back-light. It increases the size of the text and has a light to make it easier for the student to read. This is a great tool for a student who has difficulty reading smaller print. This device increases the size and illuminates the text making it easier to read. It is a simple device to use and does not requires any training.
High Technology devices
Tool 1: Achieve 3000 is a great program and is an examples of High Technology reading tools. Achieve 3000 allows the teacher to select texts on a students level (based on assessments) and assign various texts to read. Their are multiple assisstive technology features within the program. A student can click on any word they are confused by and the program will read the word aloud and read the definition. The text can be read aloud if the student struggles to read or has a visual impairment. It has links to video to help explain some of the vocabulary and more difficult terms used in the reading. This program is expensive and requires a subscription to Achieve 3000. It also require access to a computer and training for both the student and teacher.
Tool 2: Electronic books are a great resource to utilize in the classroom. Electronic books require some type of device such as a kindle, Ipad or a computer to read the books on. E books allow the reader to instantly look up words if they are confused by its meaning. It also allows the reader to change the size of the font if the font is to small. Some E book readers will read parts of the text out loud or provide a link to hear the pronunciation of a most words. Some great free E book sites are https://www.gutenberg.org/, http://www.free-ebooks.net/ and amazon has some free e books available to download. Most do require that you pay for the book but they are cheaper then buying a hard copy of the text. https://www.gutenberg.org/ and http://www.free-ebooks.net/ have free E books but they do not have everyone. You may have to search multiple sites or buy it through amazon or another pay site.
Resources/ Links
Dell, Amy G., Newton, Deborah A., Petroff, Jerry G., (2012) Assistive Technology in the Classroom.
http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/
http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/