New Information Now Available

I want to draw your attention to two new sections on our blog: (1) Information about disabilities and helping all students learn; and (2) Technology resources for parents and students.  You can access these links from this posting, or from their permanent location on the right hand side of the blog.  I hope you find them helpful and useful.  Please let me know if you discover others you would like to share.  I will continue to add to these sections as I come across information that I think will be beneficial for you.

Storynory provides free audio stories.  you can sign up and have them delivered to you every week.  They can even be put on you iPod and played in the car.  This provides a great opportunity for struggling readers to be exposed to literature without getting frustrated.  It is also beneficial for vocabulary development and provides an excellent model of fluency for students who are struggling in that area.

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives provides many math resources like colorful bar graphs and baseblocks that can be easily manipulated with a mouse.  This resource is great for students who are visual learners.  There is a free trial available for download on the website.

Kurzweil 3000 is a comprehensive reading and writing software.  It is beneficial for students with various learning difficulties, including dyslexia, ADD, or English Language Learners.  Kurzweil allows students to scan text and the computer voice will read the text aloud.  It will also highlight as it reads for easy follow-along.  The program will also read aloud text as a student types it.  Unfortunately, this program is very expensive, making it a limited option for most families and even schools.  

Bookshelf is an online library that provides over 37,450 books and 150 periodicals that are converted to Braille, large print or digital formats for text to speech audio.  This resource is free for people with vision impairments or other print disabilities.  It is a good alternative to the much more expensive Kurzweil program.  

Reading Made EZ offers many of the same features of Kurzweil for more a much more affordable price.  It offers assistance to the same population that the Kurzweil program serves, including those with dyslexia, ADD, and English language learners.  This technology features a talking calculator, talking dictionary, scan and read, talking word processor and more!  

Inspiration is a great tool to help students organize their ideas with visual graphics, charts, outlines, etc.  6th-12th grade students who have expressive language disabilities, or those who are visual learners will greatly benefit from this program.  Download a free trial from the website.  There is also a version for younger students called Kidspiration.  Kidspiration can be accessed from the same website as Inspiration.