If you work in a school and support children or young people to read, you may have identified ways your school - and the pupils you support - would benefit from accessible versions of books on the curriculum.
If you and your students need school books that can be read in other ways - with larger print, with different colour schemes, with a dyslexia-friendly font, with audible reading and even with a mixture of all these - Dolphin can help!
Your pupils might need extra help with reading due to a visual impairment or dyslexia - in these cases, textbooks in the traditional printed fomats aren't always the best way to learn - or they might not be as affordable as your school needs them to be.
Dolphin EasyReader works together with RNIB Bookshare to provide free accessible textbooks that support the UK schools curriculum. We'll show you how to access these books without costing your school any extra money!
What is a print impairment?
Print impairment is a term that covers:
- Visual Impairments - where children or students are blind or partially sighted.
- Learning Disability - children with neurodiverse conditions such as dyslexia, autism, ADD.
- Physical Disability - that significantly affects the use of books and other printed material.
The Dolphin EasyReader App works with the RNIB Bookshare Education Collection to provide accessible books for free, so children with print impairments including visual impairments and neurodiverse learning needs will not miss out on access to books for learning.
What is an accessible textbook?
Accessible textbooks are versions of printed textbooks - for all levels of education - that can be read in different ways. This might be larger text, different colour fonts and backgrouds or books in audible formats.
Audible formats are different to audio books (a recording of a book read aloud by a person) in that it doesn't need to physically be read and recorded as an audio file. An accessible book reader takes text and reads it aloud with computerised speech.
Dolphin EasyReader has a selection of human-sounding voices to choose from, and users can adjust the speed and volume of the reading. The EasyReader will also highlight words as they're being read, so the reader is able to follow along visually with the words which are read audibly.
About the Dolphin EasyReader App
Dolphin EasyReader is an accessible reading app that supports students who are blind, partially sighted, dyslexic or print-impaired to access and enjoy books from the world’s largest collection of accessible book libraries. This includes thousands of accessible textbooks from RNIB Bookshare.
Logging in to RNIB Bookshare through the Dolphin EasyReader App means students can acces over 700,000 educational books, and listen to them with high-quality human-sounding voices.
With EasyReader, readers can listen to books while each word is highlighted on their computer screen, tablet or smartphone. They can adjust the size, colour and style of the font, change the background colour and magnify text and images to levels that suit individual sight requirements.
Available on iOS, Android, Fire and Windows devices, the combination of talking technology with customisable display settings for text, colour and reading speed makes EasyReader a pleasurable and comfortable way to read.
Dolphin EasyReader is free, and it helps users get the best from RNIB Bookshare and other accessible book libraries and talking newspaper services. EasyReader can be downloaded free from the Apple App Store, Google Play Store and the Amazon App Store. It can be used on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones, tablets and Windows PCs with Dolphin SuperNova.
About RNIB Bookshare UK Education Collection
The RNIB Bookshare Education Collection is a unique collection of thousands of textbooks and learning materials, to support students with a print disability. It's exclusive to students in the UK and is free to eligible students and schools.
RNIB Bookshare is provided free for eligible students by the RNIB and has real benefits for many learners. It is perfect for - but certainly not limited to - readers experiencing sight loss, children with vision impairments or who are blind.
Students can also use the Bookshare library if they are not able to effectively read print due to dyslexia or other cognitive learning disabilities such as autism, or ADD. Or if a physical disability prevents them from holding or using a printed book.
The books are available in a range of accessible formats, each can be read electronically or adapted to suit the reading needs of each user, such as increased font size or braille format.
How much does an accessible book reader cost?
The Dolphin EasyReader App is free! It is available on iOs, Android and Fire devices from their respective app stores.
Dolphin EasyReader helps readers access books and other reading material such as talking newspapers and magazines. It has customisable settings that reduce difficulties some pupils experience when reading printed material. These print-reading difficulties may be caused by visual impairments or a range of neurodiverse learning needs.
Training and support for teachers and educational support staff
Dolphin runs a series of webinars for educators and school support staff such as SENCOs.
Take a look at the webinars and training coming up, at the Dolphin Webinar Calendar and find a session that suits you. We are open to running other sessions if these times aren't appropriate, so please do get in touch if you would like a session or a demonstration for your school or staff.
You can find out more about the Dolphin assistive technology available for children and adults in education, whether they are in primary, secondary or higher education.
Assistive Technology for Education
If you work with children or adults who are visually impaired - or you are a member of any of the following groups - please contact our team on info@yourdolphin.com. We will be able to advise you further on assistive technology that can benefit the young people you work with.
- SENCO
- DSA
- Higher Education
- Sensory Support Team
- Local Authority
- Adult Learning Centre
If you would you like to find out more about other assistive technology products from Dolphin that can benefit learners with visual impairments, please get in touch with our team at info@yourdolphin.com or call 0190 754 577.
We also run informative webinar series that provides information and advice on assistive technology for schools, colleges and universities book in today and invite your colleagues to join you.
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