Bookshare
Bookshare
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Pros
- Thousands of books
- Completely free
- Highlights text as students listen
Cons
- Complicated registration process
- Narrator voices are computer generated
- Need a DAISY file app to make it work
Bookshare is a free reading resource for individuals with reading or visual disabilities. Teachers or parents can sign students up. Once they have an account, students can download pretty much any book directly to their devices. Students can then listen to the books at the reading rate of their choice and see the words highlighted as they are read. Basically, the readers combine audio books with highlighting text.
Here are the downsides though. The sign up process is pretty comprehensive and takes over five minutes. Students have to have IEPs to qualify for this– it will ask parents for proof of disability, but you can click upload later for that. The books come in a DAISY format so you have to download an app to open the books like Daisy Worm or Simply Reading. Some DAISY apps cost to download. The biggest downside of Bookshare is that the text reader’s voice is computer generated so it can sound a bit robotic– especially compared to a professional audio book reader like you find on Audible.
All that said, if you have a child with a reading or visual disability and want them to have a full library at their fingertips, the set up hassles can be worth it.
