Reading difficulty and audio books

[Guest guest]

Periodically people ask about ways to assist kids who are still struggling

with reading. Since I've been investigating this I'm sending it out in case

anybody's interested. There are many options now available for audio

listening and they are pretty easy to learn. For textbooks maybe RFBD is

best. For older kids an option is the Livescribe audio pen, which records

what the speaker is saying as you take notes, and will read your notes back

to you when you touch the paper. I have included someone elses analysis of

the Livescribe at the end of this email.

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I just signed up for Bookshare - thousands of audio book titles. Its free if

you have an IEP, a proven reading disability or if your school subscribes -

you may be a homeschooler but all you need is a professional, or certified

teacher to sign off on the diagnosis. Bookshare reads the book outloud and

highlights each word as it goes along on the computer screen so they can

follow along. Most of the books are read by a computer voice but you can

play with the settings to make it pretty good. see www.bookshare.org

I investigated RFBD ( Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic ) a while ago and

decided against it because I misunderstood how its obtained - I thought you

had to use their expensive players but thats not so - those are for the

blind. You can download their books off the internet onto many compatible

players that can be bought locally - make sure you read the requirements

first. see www.rfbd.org. However, of all the systems out there, they

probably know more about literacy for disabilities than anyone so maybe this

is worth it. Their website has a lot of good resources on it for teaching.

I've heard the quality of recordings and they are excellent, and read by a

human. They have a large selection of textbooks available and there is an

annual fee to belong but perhaps the human recordings make it worthwhile.

Audible.com is a well known option for a paid selection of books that

some prefer. Ditto Amazon, etc I use the library.

Search on Librivox and The Gutenberg Project. they have hundreds if not

thousands of titles that are in the public domain - like all Dickens, Mark

Twain etc you can download for free to any MP3 player as they are no longer

copywrite protected. We have bought Sanyo and Memorex devices at WalMart

that have 4-8 Gig of memory and FM tuners on them for about $60. I had

never read Dickens in school but have come to love his writing - timeless

great stories. Even things like Black Beauty are in the public domain.

Your local library - here is the resource I dearly love - my library

subscribes to something called Overdrive Media and has about 7000 titles

available to download for a lending period of 1-3 weeks from the internet. I

do it all the time for my kids - you download to your computer and then move

it onto your MP3 player. No need to buy expensive books from booksellers

just ask your library if they have audio books downloadable from the

internet.

A few yrs ago Congress made it a law that all school textbooks have to be

made available in audio format also. I used a copy of a Houghton Mifflin

social studies text, however, it turned out that the publisher had only

adhered to the letter of the law, not the intent. The reader they

selected read too fast and had only moderate diction. And you know the way

elementary textbooks are often laid out - have all the side boxes with extra

info - he read straight down the page through the side boxes and back into

the regular text without stopping. I had a time figuring out where he was as

he jumped around. So before I'd spend money to buy the audio version of a

textbook, I'd try to listen to it first to make sure it is actually useful.

I went to Costco and bought a 750 Gig external drive - a Maxtor for about

$90 and I put all these big book files onto that so it doesn't clog up

my computer. you can get a small Western Digital with several hundred Gig

for about $50 or just use jump drives.

My library has both the audio and book versions of books like Eragon, many

of the Magic Treehouse books, etc. Thats a nice thing to do if you want to

listen and also be reading separately - helps w comprehension I think

The Adventures in Odyssey series has hundreds of radio broadcasted episodes

available to buy, or... if you look thru their website there are maybe 20+

episodes available at any one time to listen to download as a podcast onto

your portable player. Kids love the radio show that comes on every

afternoon and if you miss it you can go to the website and click on todays

show to hear it. - they also have the last 15 episodes to listen to on the

internet. i finally subscribed to the podcast and it updates when I plug in

my iPod see http://www.whitsend.org/

http://lightupyourbrain.com/stories.html another free website w audio books

for younger kids. There are many audio stories all over the internet on

various kids websites for the younger readers.

Both my kids listen to audio books all the time,even to fall asleep - I

think it has helped spoken language

It took me a little while to get up to speed on the technology involved but

its really not hard - just have to spend an hour or so figuring it out. Once

you have something on an iPod or MP3 it can usually be dumped back onto a CD

if you want to put it in the car - or there are adaptors that can let you

plug your portable player into your cars stereo system - check into that

before you choose a player if it matters to you.

I have found that the MP3 player is also a good motivator to earn money - as

my young man has lost 2 already and is on his 3rd in about 3 yrs, which he

is finally careful with. Our deal was we would buy the first one and if it

got lost as I knew it would - that it would always be on him to replace it -

so he has done chores, spent birthday money etc to learn a good lesson about

taking care of those tiny little things.

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LiveScribe Pen: My child was diagnosed with APD this summer. The principal

problem is Auditory-Figure Ground. -was not doing well in college and I went

looking for answers and this is what the audiologist suggested.

> > > >

Recommended an FM system. We got the dynamic one with a receiver that is

very inconspicuous. be careful as it could easily fall out of the ear and

was expensive. It works well in the classroom, however. we went through

office of disabilities and it is the only accommodation in the classroom. -

wears it in one ear only, the ear that tested as a good processor. -

notetaking accuracy improved immediately after started using it.

> > > >

> > > > The other thing we got for was a LiveScribe pen. I saw it advertised

in a Target flyer, and basically it is a pen that not only allows you to

take traditional notes, but also records everything you hear. Instead of

having to listen to a whole lecture to clear up something you misunderstood,

you simply tap the pen on your notes on the line you don't understand, and

you will hear the recording of what was said at the moment you took the

notes. According to my child, this is even more helpful than the FM system.

You could just use a traditional digital recorder, but the pen actually

writes and looks like a Sharpie, so no one in class even knows you are

recording and it recharges on your computer. You can also upload the sound

files and email them. My child comes home after class and plays back the

lecture and revises her notes. It is truly a valuable tool.