WordTalk: Enabling Access to Curriculum Resources for ... - UDL4All

WordTalk: Enabling Access to Curriculum Resources for Students with Additional Support Needs

Legislation & policy: education Relevant to education: ICT & SEN a) b) c) d) e) f) g)

Data Protection Act 1998 Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 Disability Discrimination Act 1995 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc. Act 2000 Education (Scotland) Act 1980 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/publicati ons

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 1. Get electronic texts, scan paper resources into computer, download MP3 files 2. View/read electronic resources 3. Write/record work using specialist software: • • • • •

Spellcheckers Word prediction Word banks Speech recognition Study tools

4. 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, www.text-reader.com/ – 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

Writing Frame – Explanation

Writing Frame – Book Report

I think that

I want to explain why

1 Introduction a The author’s main themes were

There are several reasons for this. The chief reason is

b I thought the book was

because The reasons for my thinking this are, firstly so

2 Synopsis a The book was set in Another reason is b The main characters were

Another reason is A further reason is

c The main points in the book were

So now you can see why

3 Analysis a The writer wrote the book because

Moreover because These (facts / arguments / ideas) show that

b I thought the book was

MS Word Worksheets

eBooks and digital resources • University of Virginia eBook library; http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ (free) • Project Gutenberg www.gutenberg.org/ (free) • Bookshare.org www.bookshare.org/ (some free) • Amazon; www.amazon.co.uk (cost) • Stories from the Web www.storiesfromtheweb.org/ • MAPE www.mape.org.uk/activities/bigbooks/ http://www.newi.ac.uk/englishresources/ • http://www.firstschoolyears.com/ • BBC, BECTa, NGfL, LTS ….

MP3 & audio books • Audio Books for Free; (and for money!) www.audiobooksforfree.com/ • Project Gutenberg; (free MP3 books) www.gutenberg.org/ • Literalbooks.org; literalsystems.org/audio/doku.php (free MP3 recordings) • Bookshare.org; www.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, www.text-reader.com/ – 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 •

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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: http://www.cla.co.uk/copyrightvillage/vpguidelines.pdf

Exam from SQA in PDF, adapted with form fields for answers, and ‘speech enabled’ with PDFAloud PDFAloud speech tools Sentence being read and each word highlighted Form fields for answers