Teachers Guide to Providing Access Through The Use of Text …

Snap&Read, Natural Reader, Voice Dream Reader, Speechify are just some of the many options that are available. • Accessible Media Producers: Learning Ally and Bookshare, both include embedded text readers. • Several curricular products include built-in audio support tools for all learners using a UDL framework. This is where developing an individualized plan for a student is necessary. Each student is unique and their needs and comfort with each tool may be different. When developing an individual plan, it is important to focus on the specific needs of the student as they may vary (e.g., a student might prefer to have a paper copy of a novel to scan as the TTS reader is reading from the computer screen while another student may prefer to have word-by-word highlighting activated and read directly from the screen). Relying on built-in audio support within curricular products solely may not provide enough access for the student to perform other tasks throughout their day, so a combination approach may be beneficial. Considerations for all aspects of the students day must be taken into account when developing a plan. Access barriers can exist in the format of curricular materials themselves, therefore in conjunction with the determination of which tool best supports the student for TTS accommodations, determination must also be made for accessible educational materials (AEM). The term accessible format is defined within the Chafee Amendment (an amendment to the US copyright act) as “an alternative manner or form that gives an eligible person access to the work when the copy or phonorecord in the accessible format is used exclusively by the eligible person to permit him or her to have access as feasibly and comfortably as a person without such disability.” The team must look individually at the materials used across the curriculum and determine what barriers to access exist and what accessible formats are needed. For instance, a student may need access to several print-based novels in the ELA curriculum, and the school may only have these books in a paper-based format. Hence, a barrier exists for the student and they will need the novels in an alternative accessible format. The National Center on Accessible Educational Materials for Learning at CAST provides several resources that will be helpful in making this determination. One of which, the AEM Navigator tool is a planning resource that can assist teams in making decisions related to determining a student’s need for accessible formats, selecting the format(s) needed, acquiring materials, and determining the supports needed across a student's day and environments. As noted in the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials guidance, there are several outcomes that are possible from this determination. First, it may be determined that the learner is able to read and access information within the same format of the instructional materials that are currently being used widely within the curriculum. Therefore, in this case, accessible formats are not needed. Second, it may be determined

that the learner is experiencing difficulty in accessing some or perhaps all of the text-based materials due to the formats that are currently being used within the curriculum itself, and the team then decides that the student needs access to curriculum materials presented in a different format. Third, it is sometimes possible that the evidence will show that the learner needs more modified content in order to successfully access the curriculum. Perhaps, the student may require access to materials that are of a lower reading level or changes within curricular expectations themselves may be necessary. In these instances, the learner may yet need some modified content in one or more accessible formats however the team feels that providing the current grade level accessible content alone is not going to be enough to solely support the student. This issue is sometimes the case with some of the learners who are on the Essential Elements track of the Common Core Curriculum. These students may need a combined approach in order to best access the content of the curriculum. STEP 3: Once decisions have been made for a TTS tool, the desired tool is deployed and a trial will then be implemented. If needed, AEM will also be acquired. These materials can be acquired by accessible media producers (AMPs), publishers themselves or materials can be converted by staff in-house through the use of scanning with optical character recognition or audio recording. The National Center On Educational Materials recommends first checking to see if the necessary materials are available through an Accessible Media Producer (AMP). Accessible media producers (AMPs) are services that convert books into more accessible formats through the Chafee Amendment in the US copyright act (1996). The two main AMPs are Bookshare a Benetech Initiative and Learning Ally. Students will need to qualify for these services based upon factors defined by each AMP. A recent check of Learning Ally noted that a student must have a “qualifying IEP or 504 plan or have been diagnosed with a print based disability” in order to qualify. Likewise, a recent check of Bookshare noted that “an expert must confirm the presence of a print-based disability that severely inhibits or prevents the student from reading traditional print materials” in order to qualify. If the student qualifies for an exception in the copyright law via the Chafee Amendment and the desired materials are not available through the AMPs, a direct request can be made through the publisher themselves. In house conversion can also be an option. Tools are available to make this process easier such as the Audio Maker tool by Read&Write (Text Help). This tool allows web content to be clipped and turned into audio. Also school copiers that are newer will have an option for optical character recognition (OCR) scanning directly through the copier itself. It is important for teachers to understand that without OCR, the copier only creates an image of text, not the actual text itself. Thus, if a text is scanned to PDF at the copier without OCR, modifications must be made to make the document accessible.

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