Accessibility Tools


 Accessibility Tools 
Tool for visual impairments or reading disabilities

As an Elementary reading teacher and future librarian, I spend a lot of my time trying to encourage all of my students to read and become emersed in books. I teach a variety of students each year and I have taught several students with dyslexia or other reading disabilities. Reading does not come easy to these students, but I have found that they still love a good story. A tool that I have used in the past to help these students is Librivox. 

Librivox is a free collection of Audiobooks. These books are read by volunteers and are able to be downloaded by anyone. I like to encourage my students when listening to audiobooks to follow along in the text. This strategy can help build vocabulary and fluency. Having students with reading disabilities listen to audiobooks and follow along has helped my students become more willing readers. I use an audio recording of the Secret Garden each year from Librivox and my students love to hear the book read in a British accent.

Librivox is available at Librivox.org. Once at Librivox, readers can search for specific book titles or scroll through the audiobooks available. The reader can look through the catalog by author, title, genre, or language. Once the reader has found a book they can click download to have the book available on their device. Librivox created a short tutorial video in 2012 that is still useful linked here. I highly recommend using Librivox for reluctant readers and readers with visual or reading disabilities. 

Tool for Hearing Impairments

This week, I found a new tool that I do not yet have experience in the classroom with, but I am excited to try it. In my experience in the classroom, I have taught two different students with hearing impairments. This week I found a Google App called Live Transcribe. This App can be downloaded to Android phones or Google Chromebooks. It will transcribe lectures or conversations for students with hearing impairments. This is a great tool for students during class lecture or group projects so they can follow along easier through reading the conversation. I found a great video explaining how to use Live Transcribe and some of the features here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Explore

Image
Beth Regan is currently the library media specialist at Devon Forest in Goose Creek.  Implementation   Mrs. Regan promotes new knowledge and exploration by encouraging her students to read. She has a monthly BINGO card for reading. She motivates students to read different types of books and step out of their comfort zone. Some examples from her BINGO card include looking in almanacs, or books from rarely visited sections. She says that students are often reading the same books in the same series and this helps them find other books they are interested in that they didn't realize they would enjoy. She engages with her students through book clubs. These groups allow her to meet with smaller groups of students to read and complete activities based on the books being read. I think it is important to not only promote inquiry with books but also inquiry-based lessons. Collaborating with teachers to promote inquiry within the content they are working on also. Completing projects like...
Read more

VR/AR Technology: Google Arts and Culture

Image
Google Expeditions I found out this week that Google Expeditions is over. I read about it and I refused to believe it, so I opened my Expeditions App and it could not download or open any of the content. It was at this moment that my heart shattered. I loved teaching science with Google Expeditions. I moved to ELA and social studies for the last two years, but I still used Expeditions after winter break to explore battlefields and historical places beyond South Carolina. I have now accepted that I will not be doing that this year. It is with this new knowledge that I began searching through Google Expeditions' replacement Google Arts and Culture.  Google Arts and Culture  When I began searching through the content on Google Arts and Culture I was slightly unimpressed. They did not move some of the science content that I was used to using. Then I began to look for content that I can use with my reading and social studies units. There is so much content. I do a Greek Mythology ...
Read more