As part of a class assignment, we completed the webinar “Assistive
Technology Solutions for Reading” from Tools for Life: Georgia’s
Assistive Technology Act Program (Which can be found HERE). This
presentation provided a number of great resources that teachers can us to help
the students in their classrooms. Below I will review and explain three of the resources
that I found to be helpful!
Audible.com
I have found that Audible.com is a great program for audiobooks! I have personally used audible for their FREE 30-day trial in the past to listed to course required novels. This website is run through Amazon and provides over 150,000 different books in audio format. I think that these audiobooks are a great resource to have in the classroom for students with a variety of disabilities including visual impairments and specific learning disabilities in reading. These can be used alongside the hard copies used in the classroom or as stand alone versions of the text. These are a great resource to incorporate into a UDL lesson! After the free trial, you can access Audible.com for $14.95 a month.
I have found that Audible.com is a great program for audiobooks! I have personally used audible for their FREE 30-day trial in the past to listed to course required novels. This website is run through Amazon and provides over 150,000 different books in audio format. I think that these audiobooks are a great resource to have in the classroom for students with a variety of disabilities including visual impairments and specific learning disabilities in reading. These can be used alongside the hard copies used in the classroom or as stand alone versions of the text. These are a great resource to incorporate into a UDL lesson! After the free trial, you can access Audible.com for $14.95 a month.
This website is another great resource for struggling
readers, ELL students, and students with a variety of disabilities. As its name
implies, this website makes sentences, passages, webpages easier to read by
rewording difficult vocabulary to make it more understandable. This gives teachers the ability to provide the same information on different reading levels! The display of
information is also customizable. Students can have the passages’ words completely
replaced with simpler words, they can have the words highlighted and then click
for the reworded version, or they can have both displayed at once. The best
part of all: Its FREE to use!
Visual Schedule Planner
The Visual Schedule Planner was an amazing resource that could be really beneficial for students with a variety of disabilities. This application allows the creation of task lists for the students to complete either through daily, weekly, or monthly task lists. The students then use the application to complete the required tasks on the list, checking them off after they are complete. Another great feature is that the application has a timer built in to help students stay on task! Also, this application has a feature that reads the events to the students. This app is really great for a variety of students for helping stay on task, helping break down directions into smaller steps, and for the overall simplification and organization of daily tasks. For those of you that may be interested in the Application, it can be bought through Apple products for $14.99.
I really like the Audible.com site, and also like that you have used it before! Using it to read a required textbook is a good idea. I can also see how it would be very beneficial to students. The visual schedule planner is also very cool; I would totally use that myself! The timer is a great feature as well!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your response! I tired to choose from the webinar that the applications and resource that I could actually put to use!
DeleteI also blogged about Audible.com! I thought that it was a really cool way to help students that may have reading difficulties in the classroom. I also thought that it was awesome that they have different celebrities that narrate the books! It's also really cool that you were able to use it before!
ReplyDeleteTom, thank you for your response! Isn't this website awesome! I even really love it for myself! There are a lot of great books on there!
DeleteI have never heard or used rewordify but from this post I have learned so much about it! It sounds like a really great site for students to really understand text. Having words or phrases reworded for better comprehension would be beneficial for so many different types of learners! Thank you for sharing this site!
ReplyDelete