Assessing Student's Needs for Assistive Technology (ASNAT)

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Chapter 5 – Assistive Technology for Reading, Studying, and Math Electronic books can also be created using many software programs. Kid Pix ® 2, HyperStudio ® , BuildAbility, IntelliPics Studio ® , My Own Bookshelf and PowerPoint are examples of commercial software that can be used to create electronic books for beginning readers. Another software program, which is free, is also an excellent tool for creating electronic books. Scan ‘n Read can be downloaded from http://www.switchintime.com. It is a delightful, easy to use program for the Macintosh operating system. Check it out. (You will also find several other free programs on the website.) Several excellent websites also provide access to electronic books. The Starfall Learn to Read website http://www.starfall.com/ is a free website featuring a multitude of stories appropriate for Early Childhood through second grade. Stories are categorized according to early emergent reader and advanced emergent reader. The website allows the user to highlight words and have the words sounded out for the reader. The International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) is a five-year project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to create a digital library of international children's books at http://www.icdlbooks.org. One goal of this project is to create a collection of more than 10,000 books in at least 100 languages that is freely available to children, teachers, librarians, parents, and scholars throughout the world via the Internet. This website provides scanned images of the books and does not actually read the book aloud for the student. ♦ Using the Computer to Read Text In the area of reading one of the most exciting development in recent years has been the use of Optical Character Recognition to allow a computer to translate scanned text into spoken words. Talking word processing, text reading, and screen reading software all allow the user to highlight letters, words, or phrases and have them spoken by the computer. Some talking word processing programs such as IntelliTalk II ® or Write:OutLoud ® can be used for this. However, these are primarily designed to assist with the writing process rather than reading. CAST eReader is a program designed to assist with reading. It is available for either Macintosh or Windows. Both eReader and the talking word processing programs listed above, provide single word pronunciation to help the student who ‘stumbles’ over only some of the words or reading tracking and reading pacing support for the student who needs to have whole blocks of text read. CAST eReader is also useful to low vision and blind users. CAST eReader works well for reading digitized text, HTML, and Daisy files that use human voice on MP3 files. All of these programs allow the student to change the background color and text color as well as size of text and type of font. Another is textHelp’s Read and Write Gold for the PC and Read & Write for Mac. These provide dyslexic spell checking, screen reading, context enabled word prediction, speaking phonetic spell checker, homophone support, pronunciation tutor, voice recognition, fact finder and more. ReadPlease is a free text-to-speech software program. ReadPlease will read any web page, MP3,Wav, or text file. It also includes a ReadingBar for Internet Explorer that lets your browser speak with AT & T Natural Voices. Still other programs are even more sophisticated and allow the student to change the spacing between words, spacing between lines, add voice notes and typed notes. Two examples of these are WYNN (What You Need Now) from Freedom Scientific and L & H Kurzweil 3000 from Lernout & Hauspie. WYNN has a very user friendly interface that many students with learning disabilities find easy to use. Kurzweil 3000 has its own Optical Character Recognition program along with powerful word attack tools. Both of these programs are worth considering if you need to scan large amounts of text for Assessing Students’ Needs for Assistive Technology (2004) 114
Chapter 5 – Assistive Technology for Reading, Studying, and Math secondary students in general education classes. TestTalker is a new program from Freedom Scientific designed to assist with test taking, worksheet completion, and study of written materials. TestTalker maintains the integrity of the written test by not modifying the test, but providing the accommodation of a bimodal presentation of the unmodified written information. TestTalker supports true/false, multiple choice, fill-in, and extended answer tests. It includes a PDF converter so teachers can simply open a PDF file in TestTalker without needing to scan. Text-to-Audio © by Premier Assistive Technology, Inc. is an easy to use tool that converts documents to files. Text-to-Audio © can create 10 different types of audio output files including MP3 and Wav. It compresses files as it creates them. Text-to-Audio © uses AT & T’s Natural Voices to produce high fidelity digital speech audio. The Wav or MP3 files that are created can be played back using an MP3 player. ♦ Scanners In order to use software to help in reading, the text to be “read” must be entered into the computer. It can either be typed in or scanned in using a scanner. Scanners come in many sizes, types and prices these days. Flat bed scanners are usually the best choice. They have come down in price in recent years and a very good one can be purchased for $60 to $400. Look in computer stores or mail order catalogs for an idea of what is available. When you consider purchasing a scanner, be sure that it comes with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The OCR software is what allows the scanner to “read” the marks as text. With OCR software, text can be recognized as text and moved into word processing or talking word processing programs. Thinking about Literacy Our understanding of the development of literacy has changed dramatically in the last few years. It was previously thought that language developed first and reading and writing skills did not develop until a child entered school. We now know that it is a much more simultaneous process and that early literacy experiences provide the foundation for later reading and writing. We are not suggesting that young children be pushed to read and write before they are ready, but rather that they have literacy rich experiences throughout their early years. As the following chronological breakdown of the development of literacy shows, the early components of attending and listening are critical in later making reading and writing possible. The Development of Literacy Demonstrate joint attention with adult caregiver to activities, books, games, and songs (3-12 months) Develop an interest in books and stories (1-2 years) Associate pictures with spoken word (1-2 years) Realize text conveys meaning (3-5 years) Recognize speech to text boundaries (4-5 years) Develop sound manipulation skills (4-6 years) • Initial + final sounds • Initial letter names/sounds Recognize, name, and write the alphabet (4-6 years) Apply phonics (5-6 years) Sound blend words (5-6 years) Read and spell words (5-6 years) Assessing Students’ Needs for Assistive Technology (2004) 115
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Chapter 1 - Assistive Technology As
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Chapter 9 - Documenting Assistive T
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Chapter 10 - Funding Assistive Tech
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Assistive Technology Vendor Table C
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Assistive Technology Vendor Table M
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Assistive Technology Vendor Table N
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Assistive Technology Vendor Table C
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Assistive Technology Vendor Table V
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Appendix Additional Vendors: Assess
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WATI Product Catalog WATI PRODUCT C
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WATI Product Catalog Assistive Tech
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WATI Product Catalog School Profile
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WATI Product Catalog Wisconsin Assi
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Assistive Technology Assessment For
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Assessing Student's Needs for Assistive Technology (ASNAT)

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