Students Win Building Wings Reader's Theatre Contest

I received the article below yesterday and I liked the idea of the Reader's Theatre Contest and thought I would pass this along. After reading the "Building Wings" book I feel that it is a significant encouragement and support to kids. In that light I am excited to share what the Don Johnston Company is doing. I hope you enjoy the article.
All the best to you!
Lon

SCHOOLS RECEIVE START-TO-FINISH AUDIO, COMPUTER AND PAPERBACK BOOK COLLECTION
November 12, 2008--Volo, IL--Don Johnston, a leading publisher of accessible literacy technologies, has selected two winning schools to receive a Start-to-Finish audio, computer and paperback book collection in the 2008 Building Wings Reader's Theater Contest. The winning entries included a student-produced storybook video from Pomfret Community School, Connecticut and a Web 2.0 wiki from Highland Park Junior High School, Minnesota.
The Reader's Theater takes students on a journey of self-discovery using Mr. Johnston's book, Building Wings: How I Made It Through School. Reader's Theater materials were developed by educators in Schaumburg School District 54, Illinois. The book, written on a 3rd grade reading level, has stimulated conversations among educators and students about what it feels like to struggle in school and what it takes to overcome a learning disability. (emphasis mine)

The online computer book and teaching materials are free to help educators find creative learning approaches to improve students' reading and writing skills.The Building Wings Reader's Theater Contest was open to any school. The presentations were chosen based on a rubric involving creativity, originality, quality, multimediaand overall presentation theme.

Reader's Theater materials, include:
* Audio of Building Wings, personally narrated by Don
* Reader's Theater Script
* Compare and Contrast Worksheet
* Visualization ChartsView the Reader's Theater Showcase

Winners:http://www.donjohnston.com/readerstheatershowcase

Linda Bates, Certified Special Education Teacher, and students at Pomfret Community School submitted a digital photo storybook complete with student voice-overs and characters in costume. In the storybook, students share their secrets to surviving the classroom and what works best for their learning styles.
Mrs. Bates said, "The best gift we can give our students is acceptance. Each studenthas different ways of learning and retaining knowledge. Don's Reader's Theater brought a new energy to our students and created a sense of community among the 18 students who participated. They feel very proud of their successes, along with winning this Start-to-Finish book collection for all of our students to enjoy!"
Barbara Wollak, a Speech and Language Professional, and Julie Rossini, Special Education Teacher, along with students at Highland Park Junior High School submitted an online wiki using Web 2.0 features. Highlights of this presentation include a book chapter review, a purpose-for-reading plan, an interactive book discussion, a visitor counter and a video of the students.Mrs. Wollak shared, "Several of our literacy groups are reading Don Johnston's book Building Wings. Students and staff agree that this book is motivating and inspiring. Many of us can make connections from Don's life to our own experiences."Both schools received a collection of Start-to-Finish Library (http://www.donjohnston.com/stflibrary ) paperback, audio and computer books.
Start-to-Finish books are designed to strengthen students' reading fluency and comprehension skills and were developed by Don Johnston and a field of literacy experts for students who read below grade level.

ABOUT DON JOHNSTON INCORPORATED:

Don Johnston empowers educators with specialized accessible technologies and supported reading and writing tools for students with cognitive, physical, and learning differences. Since 1980, the company has partnered with literacy experts, assistive technology specialists, speech language pathologists, psychologists, teachers, researchers, and scientists to develop over a dozen accessible technology and literacy products.

Visit http://www.donjohnston.com/ . 1-800-999-4660

RESOURCE LINKS:
View the Reader's Theater Contest Showcase http://www.donjohnston.com/readerstheatershowcase

Download the FREE Building Wings Readers Theater Toolkit and Materials http://www.donjohnston.com/building_wings/readers_theater.html

Learn more about Building Wings: How I Made It Through School http://www.donjohnston.com/building_wings

Learn more about Start-to-Finish Library http://www.donjohnston.com/stflibrary




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Free E-Book, "Building Wings" by Don Johnston Teaches Self-Accommodation and Advocacy

I spent some time this Veteran's Day reading Don Johnston's Story, "Building Wings: How I Made it Through School." I have had an autographed copy for several years with good intentions to read it and it has sat on my shelf waiting for me to pick it up.

We had friends visit over the weekend who have a daughter that could really get a lot out of reading Don's book. She is a middle schooler that struggles with comprehension and needs others to read aloud to her. She gets terribly embrassed and wants to hide her disability. I shared some tools for accommodating print disabilities and in light of their situation, decided it was time for me to read Don's book. I am going to share it with our friends too.

The book is large print and set at a 3-5 grade reading level, so it was easy reading for me but the concepts and issues were laid out to cause anyone reading the book to stop and think. I had to look at my own practice as an educator and reflect on how I support students and their learning. Do I challenge them to reach for higher achievement or do I allow them to settle for the easiest plateau? Don's story caused me to reflect on my own learning in elementary school, first impressions of school, my desire to learn and how that changed over time. I even decided to read it to my first grade son.
We sat down last night and I read the first 3 chapters to him where Don shares his kindergarten and first grade years. My son was glued to the story and had lots of questions. He wanted me to read more but it was time for bed. We talked about his coming to me when he can't learn something and not being frustrated, but rather let the teacher and me help him find the WAY he can learn it.
Don Johnston has a Building Wing's Reader's Theatre Contest that I will share about tomorrow. Meanwhile, check out the book and read it here: http://www.donjohnston.com/offers/buildingwings_online/one/index.html
If you work with children and you have never read it - you owe yourself and your students a good read of this one!

All the best!

Lon



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Virginia Special Needs Students Receive Digital Access With Read:OutLoud

Don Johnston Read Out Loud Chosen at State Level as Reader of AIM:
I received this press release yesterday and thought you might be interested in the way the State of Virginia is providing accessible instructional materials in their schools under IDEA. Read about it and post a comment telling us what you think. I think it is a step in the right direction for schools that are overwhelmed about making decisions about what text reader to use and how to get it implemented. Here, the choices have been made for them. I am sure the hope is to streamline the process and get materials in the student's hands in a more timely manner.

Press Release:
The Virginia Accessible Instructional Materials Center (AIM-VA), part of the Helen A. Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities (KIHd) at George Mason University, (GMU) has entered into a two-year statewide license agreement with Don Johnston Incorporated to use its Read:OutLoud® accessible text reader in support of students with special needs. The Read:OutLoud software will enable eligible students with IEPs to access new electronic textbooks and other instructional materials as required by federal law.
The AIM-VA program will ensure that students who are eligible will receive timely access to
digital textbook formats and educational materials as required by the IDEA 2004 Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act. Through the AIM-VA website, http://kihd.gmu.edu/aim,
Superintendents and Digital Rights Managers can sign up to receive the Read:OutLoud text reader and training at no cost. Students can use the text reader at school and at home to take advantage of several reading comprehension strategies and support tools.
John Eisenberg, M. Ed at the Virginia Department of Education Office of Special Education Instructional Services Severe Disabilities/Assistive Technology Specialist, said, "AIM-VA will be the Department of Education's response to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act(IDEA) to ensure that students with print disabilities receive high quality accessible formats of instructional materials in a timely manner. In partnership with GMU, we are excited about improving access to accessible materials through the use of Don Johnston's Read:OutLoud text reader. Accessible instructional materials used in conjunction with assistive technology will help students with disabilities make significant progress toward improving their educational outcomes."
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), more than 90%
of students with individualized education programs (IEPs) read below proficient levels, yet only an estimated 1-3% has access to technologies that will help them overcome reading barriers. Read:OutLoud is known for its supportive reading guide templates designed to leverage strategies recommended by the National Reading Panel and Reading Next. In this initiative it will serve an estimated 170,000 students in more than 1,900 Virginia public schools.

Read:OutLoud will open and read all common accessible file formats, including the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS), PDF, DAISY, Text Files (txt), Rich Text Format (rtf), HTML, XML, and Bookshare.org. The program includes a web browser to access the Internet with speech-enabled audio, an eHighlighter to improve study skills, the Franklin Talking Dictionary with over 32,000 word definitions to build vocabulary and a bibliographer to help students accurately cite research.
Michael Behrmann, GMU Professor of Special Education and Director of KIHd, is an advocate for assistive technologies and the visionary behind the project. His team specializes in working with the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) to design innovative programs in support of persons with disabilities in K-12 and higher education. He said, "AIM-VA was designed to be a 'central library model' where materials and services are provided at no cost to support the
needs of its citizens. The VDOE has put us in charge to be a one-stop solution to provide schools with accessible and appropriate reading materials in a timely fashion. We want to ensure that they can comply with this law and are relieved of the burden of coordinating the logistics to access the digital materials, convert the files, purchase the technology and then support our students who need access to become successful learners."


Watch a product demonstration to learn more about Read:OutLoud 'Whole School' License Options - http://www.donjohnston.com/readoutloud

All the best to you!

Lon



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Write Out Loud and Solo Give Great Teacher Supports

Another look at a standard tool reveals more support for teachers.

I had been referred by one of our OT's to help a Title I teacher at a school that sits out on the windswept banks of the Columbia River. An hour drive had brought me to the school, and inside I found a friendly staff and great school climate. The teacher was waiting (I was on time thanks to my inner alarm clock - I had been there 15 minutes early and had caught a cat nap in the car! Yes, that is how we itinerates sometimes survive, eating, sleeping, writing reports, etc in the car - our second home.) and we sat down to go through the Co:Writer and Write Out Loud software from Don Johnston.

It seems that I am always looking for a hot topic, issue or new product to promote on the blog and forget that there are some good "bread and butter" staples in the AT software field that I need to bring up now and then. Write Out Loud with the Co:Writer application is one of these tried and true programs. Let me tell you why.

For those that aren't familiar with them, Co:Writer works with other programs such as MS Word or Powerpoint to place the text in the window. Before it gets there though, you type in a floating window on top of the word processing application you have open. The Co:Writer window reads what you write for audible proofreading support. You also get word prediction underneath so as soon as you see the word you want, you can stop spelling, click on the word and add it to your sentence. You can roll the mouse over the word list and hear each one too if you don't know how to read it very well. THis can be great for getting students to build word recognition and find patterns in spelling by viewing and hearing words, analyzing them and using them in a sentence or paragraph. Once you finsh the sentence or paragraph, you hit enter and it adds it to the Word document after reading you the sentence one more time.

The Write Out Loud program does the same thing as far as the text to speech tool, but it is self contained rather than integrated with a processing program. There is a dictionary and other study helps. But the real power is in the teacher support area with Solo.

Solo gives you a "student central" area that allows the student to access their own work and assignment folders when they log in. When they log in, they also have a set of preferences customized for them as to font size, color of font and background, etc.

When a teacher logs in, they can build writing prompts, assignments and add directions then save as an assignment with locked text so the students can't change anything. Teachers can view student folders and highlight, add comments, etc. and then put it back in the student work folder for editing.

When students log in, they can view their assignment folder and do whatever has been placed inside. If they are still working on a document they have saved, it will be in the My Work folder to continue to edit, etc. They get the text to speech support, the word prediction, word dictionaries under topics that can be added into the word prediction library for a particular assignment/topic.

There is a picture library to pull from for reports and, in our case, we designed a writing activity that used images of games like Trouble and Jenga. We went to the Internet did an image search and added the images to the report - writing about "My Favorite Games."

We asked questions in the assignment so the student could write up a list of single words. Then we designed questions to build more ideas that might need more than one word to describe. After the questions, we gave the student a chance to put the resources from the questions and lists into paragraph form to answer the question about fabvorite games. After we designed the assignment and locked the text, we placed it in the students folder to do tomorrow.

After the assignment is done, the teacher can go in and read and edit and return if necessary, and when done, the final assignment is given a score by the software for you. You can view a chart of the student and see elements such as word count scored for each writing assignment completed. The software even shows you the data in a chart form that tracks growth in writing length and word usage. This data can be printed off and filed for the student records.

I can see copying and pasting text into the program and saving just to read. The voice we used was very nice and had an adjustible set of preferences such as speed of reading.
I have been using these programs to support writing, but hadn't explored the teacher side too much. After 2 hours, I left knowing I wanted to share these teacher supports with you.

All the best to you!

Lon

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Bookshare.org: Another Electronic Book Resource

In this section on Electronic Books, I wanted to share with you some other resources I hadn't talked about yet.

Bookshare.org:
Bookshare.org received federal grant funds to provide free accounts for downloadable text for students that have been identified by the school or district as having a print disability. I was informed at our state meeting that if a school submits a name for a free account to Bookshare.org, they should have the print disability identification documentation in the student's file to support your claim. You will need to fax that identification letter to Bookshare.org in order to set up the account. If you don't know who can identify a student as having a print disability, check my post yesterday on access and legal definitions. You can also read through the Bookshare.org legal requirements page. They give a list that includes a learing disability specialist, i.e. a school psychologist.
Once a school has submitted a student for eligibility to the Bookshare site and they are approved, the student is assigned a quantity of download files and a password. The downloadable texts are free. If you have the eligibility documentation but are not in school, the cost is $50 a year and a one time fee of $25. Books can be downloaded in BRF - a cross platform Duxbury braille format file for braille readers and printer/embossers, and in DAISY: Digital Access Information System Consortium - a digital talking book format used by several readers - explained bwlow. You can read about the format at Bookshare here. You can also search a list of NIMAS format texts on the site.
There is a catch to this system:
If you believe that print text should be freely accessible to all folks with disabilities, then you might think twice about this site - especially if you don't have the money to maintain eligibility after you are out of school. One of the comments made by a very well-informed colleague who has been commenting on this topic should be noted. He shares that after an individual is out of school, and even in college years, maintaining the required documentation for eligibility can be quite costly. Being seen by a specialist and having a documentation letter written every three years to maintain status is difficult for many.
He says:

"I believe in "lifespan" solutions, not things that are only useful in school. And once students leave school they will need to have medical coverage in order to remain "listed as disabled." In fact, students who move from high school to community college to universities often need to pay large amounts to be re-certified as "disabled" because their school psych reports are now "over 3 years old."

I think this is very important to remember. I am addressing tools for education for the most part here, so I will present the information and leave your use of these tools -based on ethics of these issues - up to your own discretion. Maybe we need to explore options to get a continuing diagnosis freely provided for those with print disabilities. I'm sure there are groups lobbying for it as we speak.

There is a great article from Reading Rockets on Accessible Textbooks that is a great guide for parents. I discovered it reading a post on Charles Fox's Special Ed Law Blog in a search though his posts on assistive technology.

Don Johnston Company has just announced that they are in the process of providing their Solo: Read Outloud format on Bookshare.org. in the 2008-09 school year. Their texts will be free to all Bookshare.org members. For more information on the Read Outloud tool go to the Don Johnston website here. The company also has a reader called the Classmate Reader which I will present tomorrow. I am going to explore seeing if Don would be available to discuss the Read: Out Loud component to Solo and the Bookshare.org relationship they are building. It could be quite interesting.


P.S. I discovered another great archive of links to public domain texts of all kinds... check out:
http://bluephoenix4book.blogspot.com/

All the best to you!

Lon