- Audible.com is a great program that has been set up by Amazon that provides over 150,000 different books in audio format. These audiobooks are a great resource for every classroom. They are helpful for all students, but especially those who have vision problems and those with dyslexia. Students with vision problems will benefit from this because if they are not able to see books that are to read in class, they will just be able to listen to it. Audible.com will also have students interested in what they are reading because they have celebrities, authors, and professional narrators narrate their books. A membership to Audible.com cost $14.95 a month, or if you want to buy it by the book, it will cost you a different range of prices for each book. But if you sign up now you can get a free 30-day trial!
- Voice Dream is an App that can be found on the AppStore for all IOS devices. This program is a text to speech program that can help any student with their writing. The program also works with voice dictation. This program also highlights the words on the screen as it is reading them. The program allows you to import files from BookShare, Dropbox, Gutenberg, Microsoft Office, and PDFs. There are also many different voices that are available to choose from. This program will be great for all students who may have reading disabilities, especially those with dyslexia. They will receive help with reading, writing, and fixing grammar. This helpful product is cheap too! It only costs $9.99!!
Resource 3 : Reading Pens
- Reading Pens are a very cool tool that I have never seen used in the classroom. Students will hold the pen and follow along the text using it. As they follow along with the text, the pen will scan the text, and give the students the option to hear the words spoken aloud, define the words, and the correct pronunciations of the words, all within seconds. These pens are a great tool for any student who has a reading disability, especially those with dyslexia. There are many different brands of reading pens, but the most popular are Wizcom, IRISPen, PenPower, and MoralRegion. These pens cost around $200, but can be well worth the cost!
I agree Tom, reading pens are a very cool tool if you are lucky enough to have them in the classroom. I think students would really benefit from a resource like this instead of relying on the teacher or a partner to read sentences or directions to them. I bought my nephew one when he was little but it was just the LeapFrog brand so it only read the LeapFrog books, but it was still a great concept and nice to see him following along with a book at such a young age.
ReplyDeleteTom I really enjoyed the resources that you mentioned in your posts! There are a lot of really cool assistive technology resources that are available to our students! I personally really love audible! I use it even for myself. Sometimes it just helps when you hear someone else read the book aloud! Thank you for sharing your resources!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of the reading pens being used in a classroom. The only thing that is similar to this that I have seen is the Leapfrog reading pens for very young children. I wonder if this idea came off of that smaller idea of helping young kids to read. I would love to see one of these pens in action!
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