Accessibility Resources

Websites:

• Storyline Online: streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations.
• Audiobooks Unleashed: Full audiobooks in all genres, from classics to science fiction. We strive to deliver the best possible quality and hope listeners enjoy.
• Unite for Literacy: to ensure that all children have access to an abundance of books that celebrate their cultures and languages.
• Bookshare: ebook library that makes reading easier. People with reading barriers can customize their experience and read in ways that work for them.
• Tarheel Reader: A collection of free, age appropriate, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a wide range of topics.
• Tarheel Shared Reader: a variant of Tarheel Reader that emphasizes shared reading.
• Paul V. Sherlock: free adapted commonly used education books.
• Dogonews: A source for current events, news and non-fictional content for Common Core ELA, Science and Social Studies.
• Smithsonian Magazine: TeenTribune, TweenTribune, TTEspañol and TTJunior (hereinafter collectively referred to as "TTribune") is a free online educational service offered by the Smithsonian for use by K-12 grade Teachers and students. TTribune selects interesting stories and tailors them for different reading level audiences (e.g. Grades K-4, Grades 5-8, Grades 9-12, and Spanish students in any grade).
• Cast UDL Book Builder: Create your own books and use student's voice, or download ready made books.
• Open Ebooks: Free or low-cost books for Title 1 schools.
• CAST UDL Book Builder- A collection of adapted books along with Shared Reading lesson tips for teachers.
• Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks. You will find older works for which U.S. copyright has expired.
• 60 Second Recap: Provides 1-minute videos on aspects of books used in middle/high schools.
• WikiJunior- The aim of this project is to produce age-appropriate non-fiction books for children from birth to age 12.

iOS Apps:

• Kahn Academy Kids: Inspire a lifetime of learning and discovery with our free, fun educational program for children ages two to seven
• Story Creator: With Story Creator you can easily create beautiful storybooks containing photos, videos, text, and audio all in one gorgeous collection. Story Creator truly brings your best stories to life and easily allows you to retell and share your most memorable moments.

Google Chrome Browser Extensions:

• Alice Keeler Webcam Recorder: Record and quickly share 30 seconds of video using your webcam.
• Screencastify: Capture, edit and share videos in seconds.
• Loom: This screencasting extension is great for teacher use as the recording can quickly be shared with students via gmail or copy/paste.
• One Click Timer: A slick and reliable timer app for Google Chrome.
• Move It: Add this extension to the browser, set the notification interval, and your screen will present you with a random brain break and exercise to complete.
• Glide- Make an App from a Google Sheet. There is a social component if a classroom is using the same app.

Websites:

• Classroom Screen: A free and simple/interactive tool with digiboard widgets (i.e. drawing, timer, stoplight, QR codes, etc) to help students focus more on their work.
• Plickers: Tool for quick checks for understanding to know whether or not students are understanding the lesson.
• Driving Digital Learning-Hyperdocs: How to create hyperdocs including examples.
• Online Whiteboard

Websites:

• Typing Club: Typing tutorial site that has various accessibility tools: high contrast, vision, one-handed typing (either hand).
• Typing.com: Free keyboarding tutorial website.
• Dance Mat Typing: It is interactive, fun, free and easy-to-use for kids; the system is complete with animated animal characters, graphics and sounds.

Making Distance Learning Accessible to Students with Disabilities

Google Chrome Browser Extensions:

• EquatIO: Word processor for creating math equations.

Websites:

• Math Learning Apps: Various apps with interactive manipulatives (i.e. Geoboard, fractions, number frames).
• Virtual Manipulatives: Interactive and virtual manipulatives that students can use as they learn math. Listed by grade level/concepts.
• Free Graph Paper Template: Templates for various graph paper options, including an inverted color one where the lines are white.
• EquatIO Math Space: Mathspace is a super-smart, collaborative workspace for your Chrome browser.

iOS Apps:

• Socratic Math and Homework Help: Take a photo of a problem and it will solve/show the step-by-step solution. Supports ALL subjects, including Math (Algebra, Calculus, Statistics, Graphing, etc), Science, Chemistry, History, English, Economics, and more.
• Kahn Academy Kids: Inspire a lifetime of learning and discovery with our free, fun educational program for children ages two to seven

Google Chrome Extensions:

• Bitly: URL shortener. Copy, customize, and share your links straight from your browser!

Google Chrome Browser Extensions:

• TabJump: Keeps track of opened/accidentally closed tabs. You can also “lock” a tab to keep it from closing.
• xTab: Limit the number of tabs open. Block/prevent more tabs from being open beyond limit that is set. Like a "Guided Access" for internet!
• Note Anywhere: Add digital sticky notes on any webpage and it will stay there until it’s deleted.
• Google Quick Create: Allows you to quickly create new Google Docs, Sheets, etc for Google Drive.
• Google Keep: Organize your life! Check out 15 ways for students to use it!
• Extensity: The ultimate tool for lightning fast enabling and disabling all your extensions for Google Chrome.
• Pocket: Stores web content for later reading (i.e students can search for articles for research later)
• Alice Keeler AnyoneCanView: Instantly change the sharing permissions of a Google Docs/Sheets/Slides/Drawing to "Anyone with the link can view".
• Print Friendly and PDF: Ever find an article online you’d like to share with your class but advertisements and clickbait are running rampant on the page? Eliminate those and make a customized “clean” PDF/printable version with this extension.
• Tab Cloud: Save time by saving tabs that can then be reopened simultaneously and across devices.
• Glide- Create an App from a Google Slide to organize your life- also has a comments section if you have multiple students using the app

Google Chrome Browser Extensions:

• Read & Write for Google: Accessibility toolbar includes text-to-speech on the Web and in Google Drive.
• ClaroSpeak: Speak any text on a website by selecting it, point with the mouse to hear text and links and captions, or click Play to hear sentences read out with highlighting to let you keep track of where you are. Will also give text-to-speech feedback as you type (character, word, & sentence).
• Magic Scroll Webreader: Simplifies web pages and turns every page on the site into a MagicScroll book.
• Reader View: Strips away clutter like buttons, background images, and changes the page's text size, contrast and layout for better readability.
• AlphaText: Customize and change the appearance of online articles to enhance text readability.
• 3asyR: An interactive online tool that will help to read online by underlining and highlighting material on online texts, with dyslexic font option.
• Easy Reader: Allows the user the ability to customize and improve the readability of long web articles. Color, size, fonts and more are fully customizable.
• Helper Bird: Provides the ability to change the font and style of a website to help with dyslexia by making it easier to read.
• Mercury Reader: Reduces clutter on a web page.
• Announcify: Text-to-speech web reader. It will read websites, but requires you to install a Text-to-Speech voice from the Google Chromestore to work. It also simplifies the page and opens it in a new window and blurs out the paragraphs above and below what is currently being read to reduce more distractions.
• Speechify: Just highlight the text you want to read and listen/read at the same time. The user can also text entire pages from the browser to a phone number as mobile mini-audiobooks.
• Beeline Reader: Uses a color gradient to guide your eyes from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. The BeeLine extension works on millions of news websites and blogs, and you can even use it to read Kindle books, Google Doc, and Gmail. You can also get the PDF extension which works on any text-based PDF.
• Dictionary: Highlight words to get definition and read out loud.

Websites:

• Rewordify: Copy and paste text to this free website. It will simplify difficult text.
• Textcompactor: Copy and paste text into this free online automatic text summarization tool.
• Wikipedia Simple English: The Simple English Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, written in basic English. Articles use shorter sentences and simpler words and grammar than the English Wikipedia.
• Summarize This: Copy and paste text to summarize.
• Smmry: Paste in text or URL for concise summary.

iOS Apps:

• Claro Scanpen: Use this app to take a photo of your printed text document, letter, test paper - then select the text with your finger (or stylus), and hear it spoken straight back to you. Instantly! No internet connection required. It combines Claro speak and pdf into one seamless app.

• Priory Woods: Switch videos are animations or slideshows set to music, which can be controlled by a range of common assistive access devices.
• Deanna Wagner's Switch Access Live Binder- Everything from positioning, functional play assessment for complex bodies, and sensory profile assessment.
• CyberChase Railway Hero by PBS Kids- Fully accessible math game for kids.
• HelpKidzlearn: The subscription $99 per year for 1 user or $219 for a site. If you create an account. You can play 10 games for free as much as you like.
• Papunet Games: They have games similar to angry birds that work with switches. Some games available that just work on attention and looking. Can be customized.
• Tar Heel Reader: has lots of free switch accessible content, it has synthesized text reader, available in multiple languages, and has current age-appropriate topics created by users and teachers. Look for Tar Heel books on everything from Presidents’ day to Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift.
• Tar Heel Gameplay: a collection of free, easy-to-play, and accessible games.
• Hiyah.net: has powerpoint-like books all made that you can advance with a button press. All subjects.
• ShinyLearning: more silly games.
• Specialbites: More Games and some blog-type content. Downloadable slideshows (switch accessible) They also adapted some popular meme/videos with a timed play (Charlie bit me!!! ).
• PoissonRouge: Check out Ten Green Bottles and Birds.

Unique Learning System: Program designed specifically to give students with complex learning needs meaningful access to the general education curriculum.

• Parent resources: Academic lessons, current events, educational games, and resources for social-emotional well‑being.
  • Getting Started: Get off to a successful start with videos created specifically for parents, along with our foundational training videos for each solution.
  • Video Lessons: We’ve recorded our experts teaching key lessons from Unique Learning System for you to deliver to your child. Use them as is or let them inspire your own teaching at your child’s grade level.
  • Free Downloads: Provide reassurance to your child and spark conversation with a range of downloadable resources.
    • Breaking News Articles: This collection of stories on COVID‑19, available in both text‑only and symbol-supported formats, will help your student understand the origins of the virus and how the world is responding. Use the questions to engage your child in the content.
    • Communication Boards: The SymbolStix Prime universal symbols populate this collection of resources for communicating with your child during this challenging time. You can help your child express and share feelings, and learn the important steps in hand washing.
    • Social Narratives: Use these accessible, symbol-supported resources to help your student understand their school’s closure, social distancing and ways to stay healthy.
• Knowledge Base for Parents and Caregivers: Find answers to many of your questions on using our solutions at home on this dedicated page.
• Possible template for teaching Unique in the home setting.
• Sample Mod/Severe Distance Learning
• Copy of Sample Lessons with Embedded Videos
• COVID-19 Coronavirus Unit
• Support for Remote Learning
• Explaining the Coronavirus using Unique Learning Systems Webbing lesson.
• Q & A Webinar Recordings
• Unique Learning Systems packets covering pre-school through Adult Transition – curated by Santa Ana Unified School District Special Education/SELPA--March 2020
  • Preschool
  • Elementary
  • Intermediate
  • Middle School
  • High School
  • Adult Transition

Google Chrome Browser Extensions:

• Reading Ruler: An online highlighting "ruler" to help students keep their place on the page they are reading.
• Visor: Screen dimmer and reading aid, may help with fluency, eye-strain, concentration and comprehension while reading.
• Color Enhancer: A customizable color filter applied to webpages to improve color perception.
• Dark Reader: This eye-care extension enables night mode creating dark themes for websites on the fly. It inverts bright colors making them high contrast and easy to read at night.
• High Contrast: Change or invert the color scheme to make webpages easier to read.
• Beeline Reader: Make reading easier and faster using BeeLine Reader. BeeLine uses a color gradient to guide your eyes form the end of one-line to the beginning of the next.
• No Coffee: Vision simulator that can be helpful for understanding the problems faced by people with slight to extreme vision problems.

• Teachers with Apps

• Appcrawler Best Apps for Special Education

• Speech and Language Apps

• The Best Apps for Children with Cerebral Palsy

• 138 Apps for Early Learning for Blind, Low Vision and Multiple Disabilities

• 22 Best Mobile Apps for Kids with Special Needs

• Apps for Deaf and Hearing Impaired

• Jane Farrall Switch Accessible Apps

Speech-to-Text Visual- Visual representation of the steps on using this tool for writing. Can be used as a bookmark for students or a poster in the classroom.

Google Chrome Browser Extensions:

• DocHub: Sign and edit PDF documents.
• Kami: PDF and Document Annotation and Markup Tool. Works with Google Drive and Google Classroom.
• Grammarly: Grammar and Spell Checker.

Websites:

• WriteWell: Helps students get started/guides them through writing compositions by breaking it into manageable pieces.
• Holt: Digital and fillable graphic organizers.
• Driving Digital Learning--graphic organizers: digital and fillable graphic organizers.
• Dictation.io: Web-based speech to text tool.

iOS Apps:

• Mematic: A meme maker that can be used to tell a quick story. Choose an image and create text to go with it.
• Story Creator: With Story Creator you can easily create beautiful story books containing photos, videos, text, and audio all in one gorgeous collection. Story Creator truly brings your best stories to life and easily allows you to retell and share your most memorable moments.
• Kahn Academy Kids: Inspire a lifetime of learning and discovery with our free, fun educational program for children ages two to seven