can be of great assistance. With a good text to speech program, almost any text that is displayed on a computer screen can be read out loud. Free text to speech software such as Read Please (
www.readplease.com ) or Natural Reader (www.
naturalreaders.com ) make reading text available to all, but have limited features. Of course more robust text to speech software is available for purchase. Some of these software programs commonly used in Michigan school districts are Read OutLoud, Kurzweil 3000, and Premier’s Universal Reader. These programs are quite sophisticated and in many ways superior to the free text to speech programs. They include a choice of quality, synthesized voices and a variety of supportive features. As with any synthetic or computer generated voice, it helps to keep in mind what someone told me, “The only people who find digital voices unacceptable are those who can already read the text.”
As schools move toward more portable technology, students need access to reading support for devices such as the iPad or the iPod Touch (iOS). Often users in need of help for reading on these devices first investigate Apple’s built in Voice Over app. It can be found in Settings→General→Accessibilities. Designed for students with impaired vision, those with normal vision tend to find Voice Over confusing and difficult to use because of its auditory overload. Speak Auto-text in Settings→ General→Accessibilities, while not used for reading text, does provide a different useful function for struggling readers by reading aloud replacement words suggested by Auto Correct or Auto Capitalization. A more likely choice for reading help on an iOS device is Web Reader. With this app students can have PDF and websites read aloud. Speak It! is another app used for reading files on iOS devices. With Speak It! users can purchase different reading voices, make MP3 files of the audio readings and then save or email these MP3 files. This app does not require Internet access when using it as some other text reading apps such as Write and Say and SpeakText. While the popular app, GoodReader, does not read text aloud to readers, it is a master at handling large text files and provides features useful to reading text on iPad/iPods including the support of hyperlink movement between sections of text, text highlighting and annotation of PDFs and web files.
It would be great to see textbooks developed for the iPad or iPod Touch that take full advantage of the built in abilities of iOS to provide reading and word supports through text readers, talking dictionaries, thesaurus and the Internet. One can only hope that textbooks publishers will soon ship textbooks with the same supports used in apps such as: Shakespeare in Bits, with full play, animated action and simplified text versions to assist readers; vBookz, an app that provides built in text to speech for out of copyright classics such as Gulliver’s Travels and The Divine Comedy; and the tremendous number of animated story books like Toy Story or MeeGenius that allow stories to be experienced interactively as well as listened to or read by the reader and The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessomore and Moving Tales’ The Unwanted Guest as well.
MACULJOURNAL |
Teachers and students would welcome a textbook with embedded video, interactive graph information and photographs to support the text as is available in the iPad book, Our Choice or the book Strange and Wonderful World of Ants which uses an adjustable reading slider to provide similar content in three reading levels on a single page. Having Internet access, like that found via apps Quintura Kids or Qwiki, available right within the pages of your textbook would be an awesome addition, as would having links to related videos and podcasts from places like Khan Academy or iTunes U right on the page.
Up to this point, the supports described in this article are available to all learners. But there are services such as Learning Ally (formally known as Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic) and Bookshare that specialize in providing print material in alternate format to students with a diagnosed print disability. These sites are particularly good for acquiring textbooks that might not have accessible versions available from the publisher or whose accessible version might not have been purchased by your school district. Use of these services, as well as the book files themselves, is strictly governed by copyright law. They are not available for use by all special education students, but only those with certain qualifying disabilities. Depending on the book and the service used, books are available in audio or digital text formats and in most cases are free to qualifying students. The files sometimes require a specialized listening device or specialized computer software. Digital text format can be read out loud on the computer or downloaded to a more portable device. Released this summer, Read2Go is an iOS app with many nice features specifically designed to read aloud and manage Bookshare files for their print disabled users.
For educators working with students with disabilities, these sites are worth investigating as a source for meeting the IDEA requirement that print material to students with disabilities be provided to them in an accessible format. While these sites’ materials cannot be used by all special education students requiring alternate format material, they should be made available to those who do qualify for them. See the Learning Ally (
learningally.org), Bookshare (Bookshare. org) and Michigan Integrated Technology Supports (mits.
cenmi.org) websites as well as someone in your district who is knowledgeable in assistive technology for additional information.
Even though it’s been several months since you passed out textbooks to your students, it is not too late to make sure that everyone is able to read it. Even if ‘Reading it’ means different activities for various students. To paraphrase what one of my students said recently: It is a wonderfully, frustrating time to live in this world with a disability. You can do much more than in years past, but you can see so much more you could do with just a little better planning by programmers and publishers.
Rose McKenzie is an assistive technology coordinator for Jackson County Intermediate School District, and the director of the MACUL SIG Special Education. This article includes information gathered from a MACUL grant implemented in JCISD during the 2010-11 school year.
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