Reading

**What is Reading? ** **The act of reading is a combination of word decoding, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. ** **According to the National Reading Panel, there are five topics that make up the definition of reading: ** **1) Phonemic Awareness- This is the understanding of the sounds of the words. ** **2) Phonics- This is the ability to recognize the correlations between specific letters and sounds. ** **3) Fluency- This is one's ability to orally recite text with accuracy, speed, and the proper expressions. ** **4) Comprehension- This is the ability to understand the text. ** **5) Vocabulary- This is the ability to understand the meaning of words both when they are in print and standing alone. (Nettles, 61) ** **Types of Reading Tools/ Technologies ** //**Bookshare.org** //  **Bookshare.org is a great service that allows individuals who are visual disabled, as well as other print disabilities, to be able legally scan and share books with each other. The reason the scanning is legal, is due to an exception in the U.S copyright law which allows the publication of specialized information and texts for those individuals with disabilities. **  //**Google Book Search** //  **This website ([|http://Books.Google.com]) has both copyrighted and non-copyrighted books. For those books that are public access, one will be able to look at it in its entirety on this site. For those books that are copyrighted, they will still appear, but the user will only be allowed to view a certian amount of it legally. After the usesr has reached that point, the site will inform them that the rest is copyrighted material, and in order to see it, one must purchase or borrow the book from their public library. **  //**The I-Pad** //  <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**This tool contains many applications that allow the user to have access to books and different and interesting reading experiences. One application in particular that is a great tool to help with reading, specifically for younger students, is //Scholastic's// Touch and Tilt books. These books allow the child to not only read the story, but interact with it as well. By simply tapping or tilting the i-pad, children can witness the book literally coming to life. One book this program offers is //The Magic School Bus: Oceans.// While reading, if the child tilts the i-pad bubbles will appear,reveiling additional information about the ocean, such as pictures and videos. This tool is a great way to have children interact with and learn to love reading.** <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">   //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**The Kindle** //  <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**The Kindle is another great tool to use for reading.** **This can be described as more or less an i-pod for books. The Kindle can hold thousands of books, in a small, light weight, handheld device. The Kindle contains many great features that help ease the task of reading for all individuals. Some of these features include: a screen designed to produce no glare, even in sunlight, a long battery life, a dictionary in which one can look up vocabulary from the text they are reading,a note taker, and a highlighter. The Kindle also includes some important features that can help individuals with visual or auditory impairments as well. For the visually impaired, the Kindle allows the user to actually increase the size of they font are reading. For the hearing impaired, many of the books on available on the Kindle also include a text-to-speech feature. This will allow the user to be able to have the device read the book to them.** <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">   //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**NIMAS (The National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard)** //  <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**NIMAS is a program that allows publishers to place their texts into a digital format. This digital version can then be converted into multiple types of files, each providing assistance for a differnt disability. These files can include: Braile, audio, large print, and e-text versions. This type of file is so useful, that many times publishers are asked by either a state or an education agency or association to convert their books into NIMAS format. NIMAS allows disabled individuals to have to same access to text information as thier non-disabled peers.**  //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**ClassMate Reader** //  <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**The ClassMate Reader is a portable reading device. Like the Kindle, the ClassMate Reader offers highlighting, text-to-speech, and dictionary features. One important feature of the ClassMate Reader is that it accepts many different types of files including pdf and NIMAS. This device has a color touch screen, like the i-pad, and even has a headphone jack so the user can listen to the book they are reading in private.**  //<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">﻿ //  <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">  <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Video Resources  <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Features of the Kindle 3  <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">media type="youtube" key="dsnCwQTqbzM" height="279" width="448"  <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Web Resources  The I-Pad WATI-Reading Technologies NIMAS The Kindle <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Works Cited  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">﻿Dell, A, Newton, D, & Petroff, J. (2008). //Assistive technology in the classroom: enhancing the school experiences of students with disabilities//. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> WATI. (2009). //Assessing students' needs for assistive technology (asnat)// [5th Edition]. (Assisstive Technology for Reading), Retrieved from []  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ivy. (2011, January 03). //Three new ipad apps, one new reading experience//. Retrieved from []  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nguyen, H. (2010, April 05). //ipad review//. Retrieved from []  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Amazon.com,. (n.d.). //Kindle wireless reading device, wi-fi, graphite, 6" display with new e ink pearl technology - includes special offers & sponsored screensavers//. Retrieved from []_  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Zibreg, C. (2010, August 02). //Cheaper kindles sold out, amazon says next batch due september 4// . Retrieved from []   <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Crazy kids reading//. (2010, December 01). Retrieved from []   <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Weblinks for accessable texts and ebooks//. (2010). Retrieved from []   <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Johnston, D. (2011). //Features: don johnston incorporated//. Retrieved from []  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">TheBookReader, (2010). //Kindle 3 Review Narrated by Text-to-Speech// [Web]. Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsnCwQTqbzM
 * Reading **