Hi all,
 
The following message was posted on the Technology List today by Ira  Socol.  
It is pertinent to what we have been discussing.
 
 
I just found your list when friends referred me, and I've  read through much 
of this thread and thought I'd add a few  thoughts.

First, I just want to begin by noting that text-to-speech  systems are not - 
in any way - just for people with limited reading skills. I've  spent a dozen 
years working with WYNN (still, I think, the single best  "lifespan" literacy 
solution available) and other text-to-speech systems. I've  worked with 
children as young as 8, with middle school students (we have two  research projects 
going right now), with hundreds of high school students and  hundreds of comm
unity college and university students, as well as wide range of  adult learners 
and workers through a state Voc/Rehab agency. In addition to all  of those 
WYNN applications I've done a great deal with Text-Help's  Read-and-Write, 
Microsoft Reader, NaturalReader (the free version), ReadPlease  (in the old days), 
CLiCk-Speak in Firefox (and FoxyVoice before that), WordTalk,  and on and on. 
And yes we've used the Reading Pen - though really never with  students, for 
whom it is simply not an appropriate tool.

Anyway, these  tools work to support a vast range of learning needs, which is 
what makes them  "Universal Design Technology" and which is what makes their 
inclusion in every  classroom essential. From the student simply using the 
Firefox add-ins to get  new vocabulary pronunciation, or definitions, or 
translations, to the student  using the feedback systems in WYNN to build reading 
comprehension skills, to  second-language-learners, to students with a range of 
visual or simply attention  issues (which are helped immensely when both hearing 
and vision are engaged in  software which highlights the words and sentences 
as they are read), these tools  work. And students need to have them on hand.

There is a place for all of  these solutions. Surely no school computer 
should be without the free supports  in Firefox. But students who need more will 
need software such as WYNN. In  vocational applications or lifestyle 
applications a Reading Pen is great as well  (reading menus, prescription bottles, 
addresses - or ensuring that the right  part is being selected from the 
plumbing/electrical/auto parts warehouse. Yes,  students need to know Adobe Reader will 
read to them. They need to know that  Firefox has this range of solutions. They 
need to know that new Mobile phone  text readers are coming - all the free and 
ubiquitous stuff - but they also need  to see and understand the power of the 
high end solutions, and they need those  solutions available so they can 
achieve their potential.

I have now seen  dozens of complete "non-readers" successfully complete 
university educations  using WYNN for all of their reading. I have seen hundreds of 
similar students  complete vocational courses using it as well. And for each 
of those there are 5  or 6 "weak readers" who've used these supports 
extensively in order to finish  their education. But I also know that I meet many more 
students who struggle  with reading (aren't over 2/3 of American students 
below "proficiency" in  reading?) who are denied real access to texts and thus 
real access to  educational content because their schools refuse to become 
informed, refuse to  learn, and refuse to properly make their IT-systems accessible. 
And that seems a  crime to me. It seemed like ignorance when I saw this same 
thing back in 2000,  but as something different now.

Ira Socol
Michigan State  University
and
Michigan Rehabilitation Services
_irasocol at gmail.com_ (mailto:irasocol at gmail.com)  
_http://speedchange.blogspot.com/_ (http://speedchange.blogspot.com/) 



Rochelle
 
 
 
Rochelle Kenyon
Moderator, NIFL/LINCS Learning Disabilities  Discussion List
Center for Literacy Studies at the University of  Tennessee
_RKenyon721 at aol.com_ (mailto:RKenyon721 at aol.com)  

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