Making+Text+Accessible+to+All+Learners

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The Law: We're required to provide it.

How do you find electronic text? Scan it.Free sources on the web.
 * 1) Tarheel Reader
 * 2) Accessible Books.com
 * 3) SparkNotes
 * 4) Project Gutenberg
 * 5) Classic Reader
 * 6) Baldwin Online Children's Literature Project
 * 7) Public Libraries
 * 8) Kansas State Lending Library
 * 9) [|Supported E-Text Wiki]
 * 10) [|Accessible books and e-text list]
 * 11) Textbooks
 * 12) Bookshare, RFB&D, NLS, etc.
 * 13) Infini-Text

But you all have access to the first chapter of The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper by clicking one of the following links:



There are a number of ways to convert electronic text into accessible text. We'll use a tool called Balabolka for PCs. Mac users, you'll use the built-in text-to-speech capabilities in OSX.

Please download this file to your drive. We'll run this application off of your USB drive.

Open section of text in Balabolka. Mac users, simply open the PDF. Mac users - highlight the section of text you'd like read aloud.

Balabolka gives you the flexibility of choosing a number of voices, bookmarking, and converting the text to audio.

Please select a voice, and convert 1 or 2 paragraphs of The Last of the Mohicans to MP3. Transfer it to your MP3 player. Did it work?

What about ELL students?

Visit Google Translate by [|clicking here]. Copy the same two paragraphs, paste them into Google Translate. Convert them from English to Spanish. When the text is converted, copy the Spanish text.

Open a new Balabolka document, and paste the Spanish text into it. Select a Spanish accent and have the text spoken aloud. Adjust the rate of speech until it is understandable. Convert this file to MP3. Transfer it to your MP3 player.

For students that need symbol support, simply use an application like Picture It or Boardmaker's Symbolate function.

Readability Statistics (MS Word and Web)

Word Analysis in Wordle