Bookshare: Ebooks for Students with Reading Barriers

Bookshare is an app that is the perfect resource for kids who are blind or have other visual disabilities, have a reading disability, or a physical disability that cause them to benefit from certain accommodations to books. For example, many dyslexic kids have trouble with lots of white background space, and do better when words are printed on other background colors. You can customize your reading experience to make text on e-books larger, or to listen to books in audiobook form with customizable voices and reading speeds. You can even have the text highlighted as you listen to an audiobook, kind of like karaoke. There is even a way to read braille in these e-books! Here is a YouTube video explaining more about Bookshare:

The service is free for students who qualify in the United States. Students that do not live in the United States may use the service by paying a small fee. You need to provide a note from a professional, such as a doctor, or person from a dyslexia resource center, ect., that says the child needs these services to qualify. Another great thing about this app is that an organization can apply to use it. An example would be if the reading resource teacher applied on behalf of her students with disabilities within her school, she would then be able to use the tool to help her students. So students, educators, organizations, or adults with disabilities can all use this app. Educators can then assign books to students, either one at a time using the “Assign & Read” feature, or several books at a time by Creating a Reading List.

To use Bookshare you simply go the website and fill out an application. Here is the link:

https://www.bookshare.org/cms/

While you wait to be approved, you can browse the 1,054,114 ebooks they have. There are textbooks, educational materials, literature, college prep, leveled readers, popular young adult, early readers, and children's books. The site is easy to navigate and walks you through all the ways to use the app. The books can be read directly from an Internet browser or on devices like computers, tablets, and smartphones with a compatible app. If you want to use it on a device other than in the web browser, the website provides a list of apps they recommend, based on the device you choose to use. For example, if you want to read their books on your iPad, there are several apps listed such as Dolphin Easy Reader, CaptiVoice, or Voice Dream Reader, with instructions on how to do so.

This app could open up a whole new world of reading to a student who previously thought it 'wasn't for them,' or just didn't enjoy reading because of the barriers between themselves and the books. It's easy to use, and well worth the effort to make this available to your students! Look into it today for your school!

References

Bookshare. (2002-2021). Bookshare; a benetech initiative. Retrieved September 29, 2021, from

https://www.bookshare.org/cms/