2. Assistive Technology Considerations for Literacy There are several factor to consider when choosing AT devices for individuals with reading difficulties. Students may struggle with vocabulary, word decoding, comprehension, physical access, and fluency. It is important to identify the specific need before choosing a device or strategy.
3. Low tech assistive technology for literacy There are some low tech ideas that can help students find success in reading. Students are explicitly taught reading strategies to use while reading. However, some students may need reminders of these strategies while decoding text. Something as simple as a bookmark can provide students with a visual reminder to apply word attack strategies.
4. Low tech Foldables Foldables can be used to help students retain and understand vocabulary. The Foldables are a fun way to define and illustrate new vocabulary. The following websites shows tons of ways to use Foldables in the classroom. http://www.mswinston.com/fold.pdf
5. Some Low tech ideas for physical access Page up Portabook The Portabook and Page Up can assist students by holding books in paper in the an upright position.
6. Low tech color overlays for decoding Colored Overlays or Reading Helpers can impact some students’ reading abilities. Some students have shown improvements when using overlays of contrasting colors. The overlays and Reading Helpers come in a variety of colors. Students’ preferences vary. Students claim the words seem brighter, still, and in some cases bigger, when using colors other than the standard white.
7. Using Color for Comprehension Low tech for Comprehension Highlighters, highlighting tape and post its can be used to identify key information in text. Students can be taught to use highlighting techniques to identify important people, places, vocabulary, and key words.
8. Visual Modifications Software programs such as Boardmaker Plus and Picture It can add pictures to text. The pictures can help strengthen vocabulary and aide in comprehension. Software such as these are considered to be mid tech assistive technology tools.
9. High tech solutions for physical access Flip It- This is a page turner that can be used with a switch. The Flip It provides individuals with a way to independently turn pages in their books. This is very expensive and can be purchased through Enablemart. With the move towards digital text there is not as much need for a page turner for printed material. It’s still good to know there is one out there.
20. PowerPoint-can be used to create modified books. Digital pictures or images from the computer can be saved in slides. The text can be read aloud and recorded for each slide. Hyperlinks to videos or images can be added to slides to aide in comprehension. Text can be easily modified to meet individual needs of students. Last, student can use a switch to progress through the slides if needed.
21. Portable Audio Books Playaways- Are preprogrammed MP3 players with digital audio books already preloaded on them. They are great because they are portable and easy to use. The cost per Playaway is around $54.75. Auible.com-is a website that offers subscriptions to purchase digital audio books. There are over 75,000 titles to choose from and can be used with over 500 audio mobile devices. Students can download books to their IPods, Smart phones, GPS devices, or MP3 players. This is great for older students who may not want to appear different and access audio books.
22. Text Readers or Text to Speech Text readers are computer programs that interprets and reads digital texts aloud. Text readers use a synthesized voice that can in most cases be adjusted. There are several types of text readers out there. Some text readers are free and only read the text on the screen, while others offer study tools and other options to improve comprehension. Free Text Readers Readplease- is a text reader than can be used with Windows operating systems is uses AT&T Natural Voices http://www.readplease.com/ Natural Reader- Is a text reader by Microsoft is reads web pages, MS word documents, PDF files, and emails. It can also covert written text into MP3or Wav files for your CD player http://www.naturalreaders.com/
23. Ispeak- is a file to audio converter. It loads the word files, PDFs, Appleworks texts, HTML documents, web pages, and uses Macintosh's text to speech feature to read the documents aloud http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/ipod_itunes/ispeakit.html Text readers that cost $$$ Read Write and Gold 9- this text reader not only reads texts but offers tools to support reading and writing. Some of the features include talking dictionaries, talking calculators, fact finder to locate information online with one click, study skills tools, summary feature, word prediction, and homophone checker. This text reader can help students strengthen vocabulary and comprehension skills. The software is available in USB flash drive for easy access in a variety of places. Read Outloud- text reader that is compatible with all common formats, highlighting tools, outline features, built in web browser, reading templates, and a bibliographer. This text reader can offer many tools to help students understand and prepare them for learning new content. Kurzeill 3000- is a text reader that also can be purchased on USB flash drives for portability. The text reader extracts and highlights information for column note taking. The text reader is very similar to the Read Outloud and Read Write and Gold but does not have as many extra study tools.
24. Portable text reading devices The Reading Pen 2, basic edition is a discreet portable scanning translator to improve fluency and comprehension. The pen will read any printed material such as books, magazines, and newspapers. The pen scans the texts and displays the word in large characters and reads the word with text to speech software. The great thing about this pen is it is small, portable, and scans the text right on the spot. This pen is great for students who need help with new vocabulary or a few words. The pen can improve fluency and independence. The Classmate Reader- is a portable text reader that reads a variety of files. It reads digital files and use text to speech to read the files aloud. The Classmate Reader has highlighting tools and can take voice notes. Other features include a dictionary and bookmarking capabilities. This could be used for students while at school completing independent work or at home.
25. Assistive Technology to organize ideas There are some great software programs to assist in reading comprehension. Graphic organizers are great for organizing ideas and helping students focus on specific ideas in texts they read. Kidspiration/Inspiration- helps students build concepts maps to further their understanding of topics. Students can use templates of graphic organizers and use pictures and words to convey their ideas. Bubbl.us- is a free web application to brain storm ideas about text you have read. You can create concept maps using words.
26. Technology to understand Vocabulary Two free websites provide visual thesauruses. The websites offer a visual dictionary of words and use diagrams to connect them to word meanings. This is a great place for students to find synonyms and explore the meanings of words.These are great sites for building vocabulary. Visuwordshttp://www.visuwords.com Visual thesaurus http://www.visualthesarus.com
