In my previous blogs, I have talked about various technology tools or websites that can be used to help with students' reading comprehension. An overview of technology that can be instrumental in supporting reading comprehension would not be complete without some mention of assistive technology. According to greatschools.org, "There is a wide range of assistive technology (AT) tools available to help individuals who struggle with reading. While each type of tool works a little differently, all of these tools help by presenting text as speech. These tools help facilitate decoding, reading fluency, and comprehension. AT tools that assist with reading fall into several categories: audio books and publications, optical character recognition, paper-based computer pen, speech synthesizers/screen readers, and variable-speed tape recorders (Stanberry and Raskind, 2010)." (For a general overview of each of these categories, visit http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/assistive-technology/948-reading-tools.gs?page=all.) Since this article's publication in 2010, there have been changes and advancements in AT, but the type of AT I am going to focus on is still in use: audio books.
I have personally seen audio books used to help students with fluency, but more importantly, with reading comprehension. Too often, students can get wrapped up in the mechanics of reading: pronunciation, sentence set-up, identifying the subject or verb, or defining and contemplating every single word. When they become so concerned with each little part of the sentence or sentences, they lose out on the meaning and can have a harder time comprehending what is being said. When they read along with an audio book, it keeps them moving. It identifies words for them that they might struggle to pronounce, and helps them keep things in context (or use context to understand the meaning of difficult words). Students can control the audio, pausing or rewinding as needed. "Recorded books allow users to listen to text and are available in a variety of formats, such as audiocassettes, CDs, and MP3 downloads. Special playback units allow users to search and bookmark pages and chapters. Subscription services offer extensive electronic library collections (Stanberry and Raskind, 2010)." While it is true that you can pay for subscriptions to different collections (such as Audible.com), can buy audio books to load onto popular devices such as Nooks or Kindles, or can be granted a free subscription to websites like Bookshare (if you have a documented disability), using audio books is actually easier and cheaper than one would imagine. Most libraries now offer a selection of audio books; some teachers have even invested in the audio version of popular books to add to their classroom library. Some bigger libraries (such as the Sioux Falls Public Library) even offer digital copies of audio books to be "checked out": you are given a code to access the digital file, and you can access it for a set amount of time. Students can hook their headphones up to their laptop or desktop computer at home and follow along in their printed book. I have even seen students "rip" audio CDs to their iTunes account, download the book onto their MP3 player, and take their audio and printed book along on car trips. There are also special MP3 players that resemble regular players, "but they only have one thing on them: a read-aloud version of a book... the format of these MP3 books is attractive to tech-savvy students (Cook, n.d.)." (You can see a version of these players at http://recordedbooks.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=rb.playaway.) Using an MP3 player is also nice to "camouflage" the fact that the student is using an assistive technology; to peers or others, it looks as if students are multi-talking: listening to music as they read their book, when they are really listening to and reading along with audio versions of their books.
Downloading audio books from CDs to your computer, as well as finding the audio to popular books online (YouTube has many audio recordings of books), is a cheap and easy way to use this assistive technology, but it walks a fine line of copyright infringement and/or when dealing with distribution rights. Knowing what rights you have (for personal use, for non-commercial reasons) can help you determine whether or not using audio from certain sources is legal or morally sound. When obtained in the correct manner, recorded audio is an excellent assistive technology to help readers with reading comprehension.
Cook, J. (n.d.) How to Improve Reading Comprehension with Technology. Retrieved June 19, 2014, from eHow: http://www.ehow.com/how_5877429_improve-reading-comprehension-technology.html
Stanberry, K. and Raskind, M. (2010). Assistive Technology Tools: Reading. Retrieved June 19, 2014, from Great Schools: http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/assistive-technology/948-reading-tools.gs?page=all
www.audible.com
www.bookshare.org
http://recordedbooks.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=rb.playaway
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