After listening to the reading webinar about assistive technology for reading I gained some valuable insight on commonly used tools as well as commonly used features. I also never heard of Bookshare which is an accessible online library for electronic text. This is a great option for students with
learning disabilities, reading difficulties, or who have dyslexia. This is available for all students who have IEPs, 504 plans, and who receive specialized services. Moving forward I will look to use this valuable resource with my students in the future to provide a more enjoyable reading experience.
The Text to speech reading support checklist provided in the webinar was very helpful, and I was not cognizant of the importance of some text to speech features such as the quality of the voice. High quality voices are important because they provide inflection. To ensure a high quality voice users should steer away from Microsoft voices and instead try to obtain an acapella voice.
An approach I will utilize in the future is adjusting the rate of speech when using text to speech software. Slowing down the rate when a student is first getting acclimated to the software can make for a smoother transition and easier comprehension.
Resources Below
http://www.gatfl.gatech.edu/tflwiki/index.php?title=Webinar_Archive
Images Found At
http://www.techmynd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/text-to-speech-sitepal.jpg
http://www.ngcybit.it/iTunesApp/images/site_documents/textToSpeech2.png
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