Customizing with UD Features: Let's Go Read!

Index

Overview

Let's Go Read! An Island Adventure and >Let's Go Read! An Ocean Adventure include a number of universally designed features that help make learning to read accessible to young children with diverse backgrounds, learning styles, abilities, and disabilities. These two programs provide both structure and flexibility, offering a scope and sequence as well as multiple ways of engaging with letters, sounds, words, and stories. In Adult Options, there are alternatives for program flow, presentation of activities, and control by students. These help parents and teachers make a good fit between the program and their children's needs and preferences. The Dear Parents on-line help and the printed manual provide clear instructional rationales and varied supports for developing beginning literacy skills and engagement in reading.

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1. Multiple Representations of Information

Throughout both programs, learning-to-read information is presented both in multiple media (including text, sounds, and images) and in multiple formats (including sequential highlighting of letters and words with changes in color and size of the text, pronunciations with text, and pronunciations with images and animations.)

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In Island Adventure, letters of the alphabet are presented both in text and in graphics representing "characters" from the adventure.

Pronunciations are given by the two hosts, Emily the chipmunk and Robby the raccoon, and also by the letter "characters". They are also available by clicking on the text letters.

Children are given the opportunity to make letter sounds and compare their pronunciations with those provided by the program.

In Ocean Adventure, a new character, Manray, joins Emily and Robby to teach children about long and short vowel sounds, the silent “e”, consonant blends and digraphs. These concepts are reinforced with graphics and activities where children practice auditory discrimination by finding letter sounds within words, compare words with and without the silent “e”, join consonant bubbles to form consonant blends, and then practice their new reading skills in the context of interactive books that are more challenging than those they read in Island Adventure.

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2. Multiple Options for Expression and Control

These program provides an alternative means of control for students with physical, sensory, and/or cognitive impairments.

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With the single switch option turned on, "action buttons" on each screen are sequentially highlighted and all program functionality can be accessed through clicks of a switch device or mouse button.

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3. Multiple Options for Engagement

Let's Go Read! An Island Adventure and Let’s Go Read! An Ocean Adventure provides opportunities for children to take control of their learning and feel proud of their accomplishments.

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The Letter Chart, Ocean Map, and Bookshelf options on the Main menu screen in the Reading Rover allow students to see what letters and books they have completed and how much they have left to do. They also provide a way for students to go back and revisit activities and books for reinforcement or just for fun.

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Customizing Tips

• For children who are reticent or have difficulty reading out loud, direct them to create their own performances of stories by using the record and playback feature on each page of the books in the two program.
  
• For students with attention deficit disorders or those who know the program, reduce waiting time and maintain a fast pace by clicking the mouse button to interrupt the "storytelling" animations and instructions.
  
• For students using a single switch to control the computer, turn scanning on in Adult Options. In the scanning options, adjust speed and select automatic or switch activated progression to customize for their particular needs.
  
• For students who need less structure, go to Adult Options and select Child Can Move to Next Activity--At Any Time which allows children to decide if they want to complete an activity and when they want to move on to the next.

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Universal Design Wish List

• Increase the functionality of the speech recognition component so that the program is more accurate in the voice input that it accepts as correct, thus providing a more viable alternative means for learning letter sounds and recognizing words.
  
• Add a preference and choice screen that would allow children to go only to selected activities and in any order they choose.
  
• Add a preference that would allow selection of either the Explore Mode or the Question and Answer Mode in the Word and Sentence Building activities.
  
• Add talking buttons to the single switch scanning options so children with visual impairments or blindness can use scanning to navigate and interact with the program.
  
• Add visual representations of all auditory content so children with hearing impairments can see full instructions and feedback.

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Feedback

How do you customize your students' learning with Let's Go Read! An Island Adventure? and Let’s Go Read! An Ocean Adventure We would like to add your ideas to our Web site, space permitting. (If we use your submission, we will give you credit.) Submit your Customizing Tips and UD Wish List items via e-mail to udfeedback@cast.org.

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Product Information

For more information about Let's Go Read! An Island Adventure, see the Teaching Tools section of this Web site.

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Disclaimer

CAST does not necessarily endorse this product or consider it fully universally designed. CAST applauds the inclusion of universally designed features in this product and wishes to illustrate some of those features for educational purposes.

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