WordTalk: Enabling Access to Curriculum Resources for Students with Additional Support Needs
Legislation & policy: education
Relevant to education: ICT & SEN
a) Data Protection Act 1998
b) Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
c) Disability Discrimination Act 1995
d) Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001
e) Standards in Scotland's Schools etc. Act 2000
f) Education (Scotland) Act 1980
g) Education (Disability Strategies and Pupils' Educational Records) (Scotland) Act 2002
h) Additional Support for Learning (Scotland) Act 2004
i) 5-14 Assessment & Testing
j) National Priorities in Education
SEED GUIDANCE ON PREPARING
ACCESSIBILITY STRATEGIES
"This guidance advises on:
the legal position and coverage of this planning duty;
the three strands which accessibility strategies must cover;
the main processes local authorities and non-local authority schools should consider in preparing accessibility strategies."
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/publications
The Three Duties (p15)
Access to the physical environment of schools
Access to the curriculum
Improving communication and the delivery of school information
Improving communication and the delivery of school information
62. "The third duty requires responsible bodies to improve communication with pupils with disabilities. Responsible bodies should take steps to improve how these pupils can give their views on any issue about which they have an interest, gather in those views and consider them. Consideration should be given to whether class work or homework could be given in alternative forms and, also, consider how any homework, or other work pupils do in alternative forms, can best be marked/commented on by school staff. Pupils' communication with teaching and auxiliary staff as part of their learning should also be considered under the "access to the curriculum" duty."
Improving communication and the delivery of school information
64. "In particular, this communication duty covers the delivery of information normally provided to pupils in writing. This 'school information' includes any information given to pupils by the school, such as: handouts and worksheets, textbooks, timetables, handbooks, test and examination papers, posters around the school, information about school events. Responsible bodies should ensure that any information that is important to enable pupils to learn or to be able to participate in school activities can be provided in an alternative form if the pupil may have difficulty reading information provided in standard written form."
Improving communication and the delivery of school information
65. "Information may need to be provided in alternative forms, such as:
providing information orally (for example, to ensure that a pupil has understood information provided on posters or in their timetable), in Braille, in large print, in audio formats, through ICT, through sign language (either on video or by using appropriately qualified teachers or auxiliary staff) or through a recognised symbol system (such as Makaton). The responsible body should ensure that this information is provided within a reasonable time so that it does not place pupils with disabilities at a disadvantage in relation to other pupils. Therefore, demands would have to be anticipated in advance and school staff would need make sure that any materials to be provided in alternative forms, such as Braille, large print, audio tape, video signing and electronic files were provided for translation well in advance of the time when they will be needed."
Making resources accessible
Get electronic texts, scan paper resources into computer, download MP3 files
View/read electronic resources
Write/record work using specialist software:
Spellcheckers
Word prediction
Word banks
Speech recognition
Study tools
Make resources and access software available throughout school network
WordTalk
MS Word for Windows 'template' developed by Rod Macaulay
Simple toolbar access to text-to-speech
Talking spellchecker and thesaurus
Small and easy to install and network
Uses SAPI 5 voices
Free distribution, funded by SEED
Talking Word processors
TextEase,
Talking word processor / DTP program with word banks, clip art, sound
Clicker 4/5, £90,
Popular program for creating accessible resources; on-screen grids
Read / Write:Outloud
Talking word processors / study tools
Text Readers for Word
TextHelp Read and Write, £140
Integrated speech output for Word, Internet, PDF; also has word prediction, spellchecker
WordRead, £59
Simple talking toolbar for Word and other programs
Max's ToolBox, £4.75 single one year
Adds speech output and simplified toolbar to Word
Text Readers for internet or anything
TextHelp Read and Write, £140
Integrated speech output for Word, Internet, PDF; also has word prediction, spellchecker.
ScreenReader 4, £30, www.texthelp.com
Simple, easy, good voices,
ClaroRead, £119
Text reader with word prediction and other tools
Penfriend XP, £60, www.penfriend.co.uk
Basic reader, word predictor
TextAloud MP3, 21 euros, www.nextup.com
Basic reader, saves as audio files
Universal Reader, £17.99, Millfield Books
Basic reader, comes with (US) AT&T voices
IE Page Reader Bar, £14,
Reads with Internet Explorer only
Accessible Digital Curriculum Resources
Talking books
MacBeth, Hound of the Baskervilles, Macbeth, The Twits, Harry Potter
Textbooks
Ally Fraser, Ginn, Battle of Hastings
Worksheets
Twits, Harry Potter, Writing Frames, Andy Darvill's JavaLavaPower
The Twits, scanned into Word with FineReader, read with WordTalk
Choose to read the whole document, or a paragraph, sentence or word.
Then click on the text to have it read out.
Writing Frames MS Word
Writing Frame Argument
I think that
because
The reasons for my thinking this are, firstly
so
Another reason is
Moreover
because
These (facts / arguments / ideas) show that
Writing Frame Explanation
I want to explain why
There are several reasons for this. The chief reason is
Another reason is
A further reason is
So now you can see why
Writing Frame Book Report
Introduction
The author's main themes were
I thought the book was
Synopsis
The book was set in
The main characters were
The main points in the book were
Analysis
The writer wrote the book because
I thought the book was
MS Word Worksheets
eBooks and digital resources
University of Virginia eBook library; etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ (free)
Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org/ (free)
Bookshare.org bookshare.org/ (some free)
Amazon; amazon.co.uk (cost)
Stories from the Web storiesfromtheweb.org/
MAPE mape.org.uk/activities/bigbooks/
http://www.newi.ac.uk/englishresources/
BBC, BECTa, NGfL, LTS ….
MP3 & audio books
Audio Books for Free; (and for money!) audiobooksforfree.com/
Project Gutenberg; (free MP3 books) gutenberg.org/
Literalbooks.org; .org/audio/doku.php (free MP3 recordings)
Bookshare.org; bookshare.org/ (Daisy books)
BBC Radio MP3 downloads
Text Readers
For D&G secondary texts in Word…
Text readers for Word:
WordTalk, free
Adds speech output and talking spellchecker to Word; free
TextHelp Read and Write, £140
Integrated speech output for Word, Internet, PDF; also has word prediction, spellchecker.
Max's ToolBox, £4.75 single one year
Adds speech output and simplified toolbar to Word
For internet or anything…
TextHelp Read and Write, £140
Integrated speech output for Word, Internet, PDF; also has word prediction, spellchecker.
ScreenReader 4, £30, www.texthelp.com
Simple, easy, good voices,
Penfriend XP, £60, www.penfriend.co.uk
Basic reader, word predictor
TextAloud MP3, 21 euros, www.nextup.com
Basic reader, saves as audio files
Universal Reader, £17.99, Millfield Books
Basic reader, comes with (US) AT&T voices
IE Page Reader Bar, £14,
Reads with Internet Explorer only
Scanning paper materials
Kurzweil 3000
+ Excellent fidelity; very easy to use; speech, spellchecker, word prediction and study tools; network version
- Cost: £725 colour scan, £500 mono scan, £175 read only; saves files in Kurzweil format
TextHelp Gold/Wordsmith
+ Scans into Word or Explorer; easy to use, speech, spellchecker, word prediction and study tools; network version
- Cost £320/£265; Poorer fidelity than Kurzweil
Standard OCR (Textbridge, FineReader, OmniPage)
+ Low cost (£50-£100); scans into Word/Internet Explorer; network versions
- Poorer fidelity; requires other programs for speech etc
Standard Grade English paper scanned into Kurzweil 3000
Standard OCR Programs
Textbridge, FineReader, OmniPage
Low cost; £40 to £90
Scan direct into Word/Internet Explorer
Scan and copy into Talking Word Processors (e.g. TextEase, Clicker, Writing with Symbols, Write:Outloud
Scan and save in common formats; DOC, HTML, PDF
Image is less faithful than Kurzweil
Requires other programs for speech etc
Standard Grade English paper scanned with Textbridge into Word.
Speech output with TextHelp ScreenReader.
Copyright
The Copyright Licensing Agency has guidelines on Copyright and to allow books to be made more accessible for people with Visual Impairment or those "who are otherwise physically unable to use published formats".
Provided that a person with a visual impairment owns a copy of it, then it is possible to transcribe the book into a more accessible format without seeking special permission.
This means that, provided a copy of the book is owned, it is possible for a school to produce an enlarged version, or to scan pictures and text into a computer to create a talking book for a pupil.
Further details are available from the Copyright Licensing Agency web site:
cla.co.uk/copyrightvillage/vpguidelines.pdf
PDFAloud speech tools
Form fields for answers
Sentence being read and each word highlighted
Exam from SQA in PDF, adapted with form fields for answers, and 'speech enabled' with PDFAloud