Tuesday 30 November 2010

How audiobooks can support slow readers

My son decided to take AS level English Literature despite his dyslexia as he's into drama and exploring and analysing stories. He finds reading long books with unknown vocab quite a challenge so we decided to download the audiobook of "Wuthering Heights" and he listened to it on his ipod while reading along - and that's the important part: he didn't want to be lazy about it, he just wanted a way of personalised support that would allow him to read at a decent pace with unusual words being managed for him without having to ask someone every couple of minutes. He was in charge, he could pause, play, go back as he liked, he could listen and read when and where he wanted, and, quite significantly, he had a precise idea of how long it would take to read a chapter (as the timings appear in the MP3 track info) which made the whole thing less daunting and more manageable for him. A PERFECT solution for a motivated student with a particular difficulty!
Here is a great FREE source for audiobooks: http://www.freeclassicaudiobooks.com/ but there are more of course.

Monday 1 November 2010

The Web 2.0 classroom community

Just stumbled upon this gem of a community while doing some research on networks. Classroom 2.0 seems a thriving community of professionals interested in making the best use of what tools Web2.0 offers.
Check it out here: http://www.classroom20.com/ !

Go on, it's really worth it!

Volker