1. Making Digital Materials Accessible to Students with Reading Barriers

2. Printed Text Does Not Work for All Learners
Approximately 5% of students have a disabilities that present a barrier to reading printed text:
Dyslexia and other learning disabilities that affect reading
Visual impairments (blindness, low vision)
Physical disabilities that affect reading
These students cannot interact with a printed book in the same way that someone without these disabilities would.
For these readers, many ebooks present the same problems that printed books do.

3. Addressing a Common Misconception
DIGITAL ≠ ACCESSIBLE

4. Benetech Believes
that people who experience barriers to printed material have the same right to timely information that others enjoy.
Launched Bookshare in 2002 to make reading accessible to people with print disabilities
Awarded funding from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), U.S. Dept of Education
Bookshare is free for all qualified U.S. students and the schools serving them!
Introduced “Born Accessible” and “Buy Accessible” guidelines in 2015
Certification program now helping to set accessibility “gold standard” for publishers

5. Demonstration
Examples of commonly used ebooks that are Problematic for Students with Reading Barriers

6. Buy Accessible: What to Look For in ebooks
Main text should be distinguished from supplemental info
Content should not be presented as an image
The TOC should be linked to the text to make it easy to navigate through the book
Tables should have headers and captions
Images should have descriptions
Page numbers should be included 
Math should be presented in MathML format
Video and audio content should be accessible 
Interactive content should be made accessible
Content is compatible with assistive technology
A mouse is not required for navigation
Side view of a girl reading a book on a tablet. We can’t see the girl’s face because it is covered by her hair.

7. Build Accessible: Create Accessible Learning Materials
Design for all types of learners
Insert meaningful hyperlinks
Caption your videos
Minimize the amount of text on a page
Avoid relying on a single sensory clue
Add image descriptions to visuals
Use available tools to ensure an accessible experience.
Screenshot of a captioned video that features a Caucasian young man with blonde hair who is explaining that people with dyslexia are “not not intelligent.”

8. A Key Source of Accessible ebooks
World’s largest collection of ebooks for people who experience barriers to reading print.
560,000 titles: Textbooks + books for assigned and pleasure reading + periodicals
FREE memberships for all qualified U.S. students, funded by OSEP
Many FREE, low-cost, and commonly available reading options

9. Bookshare Offers Many Reading Options!
Computer
AT Devices
Mobile
Web

10. Be an Accessibility Champion!
Review “Buy Accessible” and “Create Accessible” checklists
Share the checklists with others! (both GenEd & SpEd)
Evaluate the learning materials your teachers and students are using
Encourage teachers and students to sign up for Bookshare
Check out Benetech poster session on “Supporting Different Learning Needs with Emerging Technologies”

11. Benetech Accessibility Resources
Build Accessible Coursework: content/uploads/2017/01/Build-Accessible-Coursework.pdf
Your Guide to Building an Accessible Classroom: Accessible-Classroom.pdf
Buy Accessible: What to look for in ebooks: Accessible-Initiative_Buy-Accessible.pdf

12. Questions?
Christine Jones, MBA Senior Education Program Manager Benetech Global Literacy Tel