Bookshare.org is an accessible online library for electronic texts. The membership fees are waived for students in educational facilitates. The students must also qualify for the membership based on the requirements of being orthopedically or visually impaired, or having a reading disability. Students with an IEP or 504 plan with those impairments can also qualify. Some resources are only available to students with an IEP, not a 504, but there is still an abundance of resources for both groups of students. Memberships may be obtained through an organization or an individual. There is minimal paperwork involved that must be faxed in in order to be granted a membership. Once you have a membership you can view great directions on using, reading, and downloading books and other tools. This website is a great resource for students to help with reading. There are many available links to help with tutorials and downloading materials.
Resource 2:
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) transforms a picture of text to readable text. If using a scanner, it is a picture of what you scanned and the process by which software goes into a document and changes it. The scanner or software turns the "picture of the letter d" into a letter d in the text document. Most scanners have this feature as part of the scanning process, and some softwares that will also turn non text documents into text documents. This is helpful for students who needs documents read to them. They are able to convert them to text documents and then use text to speech software to have them read aloud.
Resource 3:
This is an approach to help students with reading difficulty. Having consistent format for internet and other reading materials is helpful for students. By having a consistent format, students can focus more on the material in the reading rather than how the material is presented. Some software provide toolbars that do not change to that students are able to navigate more easily. Consistency is key with working with students with various disabilities.
I also talked about bookshare on my blog and I think it's a great resource! It's great that they offer this resource for FREE for students who have different disabilities. Bookshare has highlighting capabilities and enlarging font, which is great for people who are visually impaired or with reading disabilities. I really liked your last resource for an approach to help students with reading difficulties. You are so right that having a consistent format will allow student to focus more on the material!
ReplyDeleteI think it's a great resource too! I also love that it is free! The features that Bookshare offers are really great, highlighting and enlarging font capabilities. I hope to use this resource in the future with any of my students that have reading difficulties.
DeleteBookshare is a great resource for all students! I think you did a fantastic job in explaining how it could help all students. I also think that it is great that it is a free resource for all students with disabilities enrolled in an educational environment!
ReplyDeleteThank you Tom! I like the resource too and hope to be able to use it soon with my students. I love that it is FREE!
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