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Mensa for Kids' TED Connections are short, easy to use guides that help teachers, parents and youth use TED talks in a classroom or home setting.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Listen to my interview with Seth Perler, executive function coach (transcript):
It seems every teacher in every school struggles with what they might call unmotivated, lazy, or disorganized learners. These students seem to have a ton of potential, their test scores might even be pretty high, but they can't ever seem to get it together school-wise.

In my own teaching experience, I spent an inordinate amount of time on these students, giving them lists of make-up assignments to do, meeting with them at lunch or after school to help get them caught up, contacting parents, helping them go through their binders and backpacks and lockers to find missing work, and coming up with lots of different ways to basically say the same thing: You just need to stay organized.

It's not motivation; it's executive function.

It turns out this set of skills actually has a name: executive function. The first time I heard this term in Paul Tough's 2012 book, How Children Succeed, it was like a light bulb going off: Kids who struggle with executive function often have perfectly good academic abilities, but they don't have the same ability as most students to stay on top of the little details that make life run smoothly. So when we try to get them to manage those details like most other kids do, our efforts fail.

If I had known that, and if I'd had someone like Seth Perler to show me what to do differently, I would have been able to help these kids have a much more rewarding school experience.

Seth Perler is an Executive Function coach who works with these students he refers to as "outside the box learners." Because Perler was an outside-the-box learner himself, when he became a teacher, he knew how to reach this type of student. During his years in the classroom and then as an education coach, he has developed seven systems that he teaches these kids to help them meet deadlines, keep track of materials, and manage their time.

What's interesting about these systems is that although some of them may seem obvious at first, it's the little tweaks Perler gives them that actually make them work. What most of us have tried with these students turns out to be counterproductive; we've approached them in the same way that we approach our other students. For most kids, our standard methods for keeping them organized work just fine, but these kids need something different. Once you learn about these little tweaks-like why folders are far better than 3-ring binders-you'll be able to change your approach, share these insights with parents, and start to see some real differences in how these kids do in school.

Implementing the Systems

For these systems to work, Perler says, parents and teachers have to help students build them into habits. This takes patience, compassion, and more time than is typical for most students.

"It takes two good solid months of continuous effort with these kids to really build a habit," he says. "It's not easy. The brain is literally changing. The neurons in the brain are changing. They are building new networks that are helping them to execute, to use executive function to manage what are really an overwhelming amount of details we expect these kids to manage."

What does that "time" look like? Perler recommends a weekly overhaul, done on Sunday nights, to hit the reset button on all of these systems and prepare the student for the week ahead. Done consistently, this will eventually make habits out of all of these systems, and the student should start to see big improvements.

1. Paper Management
Use a separate folder for every class.
"Organized adults will often recommend that kids use three-ring binders," Perler says. "Their idea is, 'Well if it helps me stay organized, obviously it would help a disorganized kid become more organized.' But for kids who struggle with executive function, three-ring binders are horrible. There are so many details in terms of opening a big binder, finding the right place for the paper, unclicking it, putting it in with the three holes, re-clicking it, closing it carefully. These are kids who really just want to get it done."

What works better? "Cheap paper folders," Perler says. He recommends the following:

Use a separate folder for every class, with a different color for each folder.

Choose paper folders, not plastic, because plastic is too slick and can cause papers to slide out too easily.

Write the subject name directly on the folder in big letters, so it's easy to find. Then turn the folder over and write it on the back.

2. Backpack Management
Everything out, once a week.
Most kids are what Perler calls maintainers, because they are able to maintain a semi-organized backpack, taking out unnecessary items as they go and keeping things more or less organized. But students who struggle with executive function tend to be overhaulers, waiting until things get totally out of control and then doing a complete overhaul.

"Let's say you have a really disorganized kid," he says. "One day you come home, they've completely rearranged their bedroom, put all their furniture in different places, and completely cleaned out the whole bedroom. That's an overhauler. They like to overhaul."

When it comes to backpacks, however, this overhaul doesn't come frequently enough, and that results in backpacks where papers are lost or damaged. Perler recommends students do a weekly backpack overhaul:

Once a week, pull everything out of the backpack.

Throw out things you don't need, reorganize the things you do.

3. Planner
Keep it plain and simple.
"A lot of schools will buy planners for the entire school," Perler says. "They'll have the hall pass in the back, the school handbook in the front. They have the periodic table in the back, commonly misspelled words, famous quotes on the papers, and a bunch of colors often on the pages. It turns out that these planners are awful for the kids that I work with, for kids who struggle with executive function. It's too much. These are kids who really want to get at the heart of the matter within seconds. They don't want to have to flip pages and find things."

Perler recommends a much simpler planner for these students:

Get a month-at-a-glance planner, rip out every single page that isn't the calendar of the months they will be in school. 10 pages max. "These kids tend to be very global thinkers, so seeing the entire month is a lot easier for their brain to learn to conceptualize time," Perler says.

To make the most of the smaller spaces on the planner, develop a shorthand system for recording important deadlines and other information.

Do regular check-ins with a parent or teacher make sure the planner is being maintained.

4. Grade Monitoring
Check once a week at minimum.
Although we have discussed on this site about the danger of parents monitoring their child's grades too closely, with students who struggle with executive function, it's helpful to work with the student to develop a habit of monitoring their own grades.

Once a week (at least), go into your school's online grading portal and check all grades.

Look at the details: Are there incomplete grades? Missing grades?

If the teacher hasn't been inputting grades on a regular basis, recent grades may not be available. Check with the teacher if you need more recent grades.

5. Self Advocacy
Make an actual appointment to see the teacher in person.
Although teachers make themselves available to students for help, and struggling students may intend to see them for it, in reality they often forget or put it off. For that reason, Perler recommends students agree on a time to meet with the teacher, rather than just intending to talk with them.

"Usually I'll have them write a short email to the teacher that says, 'Hey, I'd love to see you at office hours. When's the best time for me to come in?' The teacher can then say, 'Come in at 3 o'clock tomorrow,' and it puts accountability on the situation that they didn't have before. Most of the time the student will show up, and I will tell you that I have so many kids come back to me and say, 'Wow, that was so helpful. That was so easy.'"

Perler says self-advocacy is one of the easiest habits to develop. "Once they ask for help from their teacher two or three or four times, they have crossed a magical threshold that changes their whole academic experience. They realize that teachers are not mad at them. That teachers are there to support them. That teachers will give them the time they need. And that teachers will even give them secret tips and tricks for how to pass their classes or how to do well in their classes."

6. Sacred Study Space
Establish a distraction-free space at home just for school work.
This is a classic, but it may be an overlooked factor in a student's poor performance. "We really need to help kids learn to create a space that has the supplies we need that is decluttered, that is free of distraction. And that's very hard for families, by the way. Because real life is happening."

Rather than prescribe a specific type of space, Perler recommends building sharper awareness about the choices that will work for the specific student and the kind of school work they need to do at a given time. "The couch might actually be an effective place for some students some of the time to study. But I want them to make conscious choices: 'Sitting on the couch is going to help me relax into this book, so that I can really get in the mode,' or 'Sitting on the couch, especially with the TV on, is a ridiculous idea for me to be studying this biology stuff right now.'

7. Weekly Overhaul
Choose a time once a week to overhaul all systems.
Rather than "intending" to do the weekly overhaul, Perler recommends setting a specific time to do it every week, and post that time somewhere visible. "If you miss a time or two, that's fine," he says. "It's going to happen. But print up when it is and what time, so that you don't have the argument with your child about it, and it's concrete, and it's on the wall."

Here's what the overhaul should include:

Empty out and tidy the backpack

Update the planner, tear out old pages, cross everything out that is no longer relevant. Look forward to the upcoming week.

Go through each folder and get rid of everything you no longer need.

Check grades online.

Overhaul the desk or home study area.

You can learn more from Seth Perler by going to his website, sethperler.com, and subscribing to his email updates & Student Success Toolkit. Seth has created a special Student Systems Assessment to help students determine which of these seven areas they need the most work on. You can download that here.

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7 Systems that Work for Outside-the-Box Learners

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Listen to my interview with Seth Perler, executive function coach (transcript): It seems every teacher in every school struggles with what they might call unmotivated, lazy, or disorganized learners. These students seem to have a ton of potential, their test scores might even be pretty high, but they can't ever seem to get it together school-wise.

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East Side USD Co-Teaching Feedback 2016-2017 Survey

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Web survey powered by SurveyMonkey.com. Create your own online survey now with SurveyMonkey's expert certified FREE templates.

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What is CAST UDL Exchange?

It is a place to browse and build resources, lessons and collections. You can use and share these materials to support instruction guided by the UDL principles.

UDL Exchange includes

UDL Resources

Materials such as websites, documents, images, presentations, audio, video, etc. that support implementation of UDL.

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Lesson plans that address the variability of all learners through the application of UDL.

UDL Collections

Sets of resources/lessons organized around a theme to support UDL practices.

UDL Exchange Tools

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It is a place to browse and build resources, lessons and collections. You can use and share these materials to support instruction guided by the UDL principles. Materials such as websites, documents, images, presentations, audio, video, etc. that support implementation of UDL. Lesson plans that address the variability of all learners through the application of UDL.

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UDL Interactive Activity - Maryland Learning Links

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This interactive allows you to play and learn about Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

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Scaffolding Ideas for Specific Learning Disabilities ELA and Literacy Focused 

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Scaffolding Ideas for Specific Learning Disabilities ELA and Literacy Focused 

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Strategies for Students with Disabilities Math 

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Strategies for Students with Disabilities Math 

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Get your kids moving with videos for the classroom--includes calming videos! 

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Get your kids moving with videos for the classroom--includes calming videos! 

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Classroom Chef--GREAT resources for math instruction!

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Classroom Chef--GREAT resources for math instruction!

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We would love to meet your staff and leave them with tools, resources, and energy to be master chefs, satisfying their students' educational appetites. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or make your reservations today.

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We would love to meet your staff and leave them with tools, resources, and energy to be master chefs, satisfying their students' educational appetites. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or make your reservations today. Tweets by @classroomchef

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Teaching Math without Words--Visual Math

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Teaching Math without Words--Visual Math

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MIND is a nonprofit social benefit organization dedicated to ensuring that all students are equipped to solve the world's most challenging problems.

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IDEO Shopping Cart--collaboration for innovation 

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IDEO Shopping Cart--collaboration for innovation 

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Under the Table - The Importance of Presuming Competence | Shelley Moore | TEDxLangleyED

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Math is the language of the universe. If one were to excel in science and know the secrets of the universe, he needs to have a concrete understanding of math. As teachers, we all want our kids to succeed in math. However, it is our duty to give them the material, help them apply skills, and build their concepts. It's imperative that we focus on making sure that our students understand the material rather than just memorizing it. In this article, I am going to highlight five tips that come in handy for students to understand math and grasp basic concepts.

Create a Perfect Class Opener
School is often boring for students. The reason for that is the approach of teachers when teaching their students. If the teacher sets a precedent that the aim of coming to class is to rote learning whatever is taught to the students, the ambiance will automatically become dull. The first five minutes of a class set the tone for the entire lecture, which is why teachers need to take a creative approach and opt for an effective class opener.

Solve the Problem in More than One Way
We have to understand that every student is not equal. Our brains are designed differently. If a certain student is able to grasp the concept taught in a certain way, it doesn't mean that every student might have understood that concept. The best way to approach this problem is by showing the students different ways they can solve a problem and letting them decide the best way that works for them.

Raise the Bar for Them
Meaningful math education goes far beyond the contents of the book. Teachers need to motivate their students and make them understand that they need to set higher goals for themselves and create room for improvement. With the internet becoming a powerhouse for learning, teachers can make use of some helpful courses like MathXL for students that contain digital information in the form of videos, animations, examples, and more.

Show the Application
Making students learn a concept is one thing; showing how it is implemented in real life is another. In a perfect world, teachers would be able to demonstrate how every concept is implemented, but they should be taking this approach whenever they can. When students see how math is implemented in the real world, it will become much easier for them to grasp confusing concepts.

Finish the Class on a High Note
Just like the class opener is an important way to set the tone for the rest of the class, you need to finish your class on a high note so that students feel motivated that they have learned something. The last five minutes of the class are critical when it comes to making sure that students have understood everything, and they have a clear idea about the homework. You can do a quick assessment to find out how much the students have learned from the class and discuss future tasks so that there is no confusion.

I propose here ideas teachers need to know and pay attention to when teaching mathematical proofs and how to prove.
A. What is a (mathematical) proof?
I define proof as a relational network of claims (propositions and conclusions), substantiation (established knowledge that makes the claim legitimate) and appropriate connectives so sequenced to justify why the conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises. Continue reading "Tips for Teaching Proofs and Proving"

Show and tell activity (aka lecture method) may work for some but never in a mathematics class. Getting students to explain and ask questions are nice but only when the explanation and the questions are mathematical. Reasoning and justifying are good habits of mind but they are only productive if they are based on mathematical principles. Explaining, asking questions, and substantiating one's conjecture or generalization make a productive class discussion but they are only productive for learning mathematics if the mathematics is kept in focus. Orchestrating a productive class discussion is by far the most challenging work of mathematics teaching. Stein, Engle, Smith, and Hughes* (https://doi.org/10.1080/10986060802229675) proposed five practices for moving beyond show and tell in teaching mathematics. I have always practiced them in my own teaching whether with students or with teachers and I find them effective especially when the lesson involve cognitively demanding tasks and with multiple solutions. Continue reading "How to orchestrate a mathematically productive class discussion"

It is a bunch of procedures. That's how people perceive algorithms are. And they are right. Algorithm has been defined as 1) "step-by-step procedures that are carried out routinely"; 2) "a precisely-defined sequence of rules telling how to produce specified output information from given input information in a finite number of steps". It is no wonder then that teaching algorithms is perceived by many as teaching for rote learning and produces not conceptual knowledge but procedural knowledge. Continue reading "Ideas and strategies for teaching math algorithms"

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Teaching mathematics Archives - Mathematics for Teaching

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Math is the language of the universe. If one were to excel in science and know the secrets of the universe, he needs to have a concrete understanding of math. As teachers, we all want our kids to succeed in math. However, it is our duty to give them the material, help them apply skills, and build their concepts.

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Bouncy Balls--Provide Visual of noise level in the classroom!

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Bouncy Balls--Provide Visual of noise level in the classroom!

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Bouncy Balls – Manage classroom noise with bouncing balls!

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A free classroom noise level meter, monitor and management tool. Perfect if your school kids are too noisy! Bouncing balls react to sounds from the microphone.

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Free for educators! Give students unlimited in-class access to the best books & videos on Epic

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CommonLit--Fiction and non-fiction sorted by theme

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CommonLit--Fiction and non-fiction sorted by theme

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For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

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CommonLit | Free Online Reading Passages and Literacy Resources

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CommonLit is a comprehensive literacy program with thousands of reading lessons, full-year ELA curriculum, benchmark assessments, and standards-based data for teachers.

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Multiple lexile levels of texts for science and Social Science 

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Multiple lexile levels of texts for science and Social Science 

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RocketLit ~ Standards Aligned Differentiated Science and History Articles

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RocketLit serves differentiated, standards-based science and history readings to students to save time lesson planning for teachers. Our leveled science and history articles allow all learners in a classroom to improve literacy by reading at their independent reading level, and learn core concepts at the same time.

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See Saw--student digital portfolio to share with parents and family 

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See Saw--student digital portfolio to share with parents and family 

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School & District -Subscriptions | Seesaw

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Seesaw is the best interactive learning platform for PreK-5. Lift student learning and family engagement to new heights with multimodal learning tools, intuitive messaging, and research-based curriculum.

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Send texts to students and parents without revealing your phone number 

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Adoption and usage

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Remind is a communication platform that reaches students and families where they are and supports learning wherever it happens. Millions of educators, students, and parents use Remind to connect with the people and resources that help them teach and learn.

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Ed Puzzle--add questions and prompts to videos 

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Ed Puzzle--add questions and prompts to videos 

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students' progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!

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Write About--Visual Prompts and aides to help spark student ideas for writing 

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Classroom writing community and publishing platform built by teachers.

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link to blog article with 7 resources of texts at multiple lexile levels 

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link to blog article with 7 resources of texts at multiple lexile levels 

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Having the "same" text written for different levels of English comprehension can be a life-saver for a multi-level class of English Language Learners or for a teacher with a mainstream class that includes some students that are facing other challenges. They can be an important tool for differentiation.

But where do you get these different versions other than creating them yourself?

Here are a few sources, and I hope that readers will suggest more:

Newsela provides several "levels" of the same newspaper articles, along with accompanying online quizzes, that students can read and take. For a small fee, Teachers can create a virtual classroom, assign articles and monitor student progress. However, students can read the articles for free without having to pay anything.

News In Levels offers similar resources, but without the ability to track student progress online. The site is free.

For The Teachers has similar leveled articles available for download. It, too, is free.
Breaking News English
Text Compactor lets you paste text into it and then automatically shares different versions with fewer words. It seemed to work pretty well when I tried it.

Rewordify is like a super-sophisticated Text Compactor on steroids. You can read my previous post about it: "Rewordify" Is One Of The Most Unique Sites Out There For English Language Learners & Others.

Reader Laurie suggests Embedded Reading, which has these kinds of similar "leveled" texts in English, as well as in other languages.

I learned about CommonLit from the amazing educator Suzie Boss at her recent Edutopia post. It's a neat site that doesn't actually provide the "same" text written for different "levels." What it does do, however, is provide leveled readings - with prompts - on the same theme. It's pretty neat. (They've just added many new features - see "CommonLit" Now Lets Teachers Create Free Virtual Classrooms)

Books That Grow has a library of texts that have each been edited to be made accessible to different reading levels. And it has some other unique features - teachers can create virtual classrooms to assign and/or monitor what students what are reading and students can click on words that are new to them to see definitions and hear how they are pronounced. They are also planning on adding comprehension questions. The texts can be read on any device.

Thanks to reader Vincy Murgillo for letting me know about the Smithsonian's Tween Tribune. It provides daily news stories, with the same one edited several times for different reading levels. The stories also have self-scoring quizzes and provide decent "critical thinking" questions that students can respond to in the comments. On top of that, teachers can create virtual classrooms to monitor it all, as well as moderating student comments. And it's all available for free!

You have to pay for it, but Birdbrain Science and History have similar resources (they've changed their name to RocketLit).

Newsela, which is on this list, has now begun to provide Spanish translations of some articles, including providing them at different reading levels. Here is their blog post announcing the feature, and here's a link to their Spanish-language text sets.
The British Council Has Excellent Leveled Reading Resources "TIME/Edge" Could Be Useful For Students Over The Summer
Kids Discover has several levels for social studies instruction - for a price that does not seem to be unreasonable.
"Simplish" Automatically Simplifies And/Or Summarizes Text "ReadWorks" Now Provides "Same" Texts At Different Level
Scholastic has a small number of audio-supported same text at different levels (they also have a few more here). In addition, their Storyworks program has many more, though it costs about $8 per student to use.

Thanks to Christina Cabal's blog (which is on the The Top Blogs and Resource Sites For Teachers Of English Language Learners list), I've learned about a new site called Learn With News. It provides articles about current events, which each one having three versions at different lexile levels. They also provide questions for each article. However, they are not interactive online, so you would need to either print them out or project them. The site also says they will soon be adding audio support for the text.
"Freckle" Provides Hundreds Of Articles In "5 or more different reading levels" "News-O-Matic" Is Definitely A Site I Would Consider Using With Students Right Now "TIME FOR KIDS" NOW OFFERS MATERIALS IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES, SAME ARTICLE IN DIFFERENT LEXILE LEVELS
Graded listening is a radio program from the British Council that is provided in three "lexile" levels.

Transforming the Resources You Have into Accessible Formats for All Students is an excellent post by Carmen Nguyen.

Brittanica Kids has all of its articles written in three different levels: Kids, Students, Scholars. There is a cost involved, but a lot of their resources are available for free. For example, I found this article on The Compromise of 1850 that I'll be using in my ELL U.S. History class. They also have a small collection of free "read aloud" books for new readers. I'm not sure what the restrictions are about what's free and what's for subscribers only.
The OER Project Offers The Same Social Studies Texts In Different Lexile Levels - For Free!
I think a lot of teachers will find this post from TESOL useful: Create Your Own Leveled Readers.

The Juice offers daily news articles at four different levels. You have to pay for it, though it's not astronomical.

This is a good list-I'd add that Scholastic Action (needs purchasing) is a hit with Middle & High #ELs newcomer to advanced. It includes different lexile versions. With engaging graphics, digital supplements, & access to past issues and it's easy to build high interest units.

- Holly Sawyer (@HollySawyerESL) October 31, 2021

VERY GOOD VIDEO ON "TEXT ENGINEERING" TO MAKE IT MORE ACCESSIBLE TO ELLS & EVERYBODY ELSE
What makes writing more readable? is a really interesting interactive from The Pudding. It illustrates - graphically - how to write in a more accessible way.

News2You provides weekly news articles in four different levels. It costs about $240 annually.
ChatGPT Will Make Different Lexile Level Versions Of The Same Text
Welma simplifies sentences and paragraphs through the use of AI.

HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE TEXTS WITH CHATGPT is from TechNotes.
" Eigo.ai " Is A New Free Site Using Artificial Intelligence To Support ELLs NEWSELA MAKING BIG CHANGES TO THEIR FREE PLAN
Diffit looks likes a nice tool for teachers to use for creating differentiated materials and more.
HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THE GREAT SITE "DAYS IN LEVELS"?
I'm adding this list to The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction.

Also, see THE BEST STRATEGIES FOR "ENGINEERING" TEXT SO THAT IT'S MORE ACCESSIBLE TO ELLS.

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The Best Places To Get The "Same" Text Written For Different "Levels"

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Having the "same" text written for different levels of English comprehension can be a life-saver for a multi-level class of English Language Learners or for a teacher with a mainstream ...

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RocketLit ~ Standards Aligned Differentiated Science and History Articles

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RocketLit serves differentiated, standards-based science and history readings to students to save time lesson planning for teachers. Our leveled science and history articles allow all learners in a classroom to improve literacy by reading at their independent reading level, and learn core concepts at the same time.

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Record your work from the smartboard for students to access from home 

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Record your work from the smartboard for students to access from home 

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Educreations is a community where anyone can teach what they know and learn what they don't. Our software turns any iPad or web browser into a recordable, interactive whiteboard, making it easy for teachers and experts to create engaging video lessons and share them on the web.

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Add questions and prompts to videos for the classroom 

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Add questions and prompts to videos for the classroom 

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students' progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!

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Classroom engagement and management tools 

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Classroom engagement and management tools 

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HMH Classcraft pairs ELA and math content with research-based lesson plans resulting in reduced educator planning time and increased student engagement.

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Expository Texts at multiple lexile levels 

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Expository Texts at multiple lexile levels 

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As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students. Tween Tribune has been a valued educational brand of Smithsonian magazine, and we appreciate your continued support.

Though the Girl Scouts of the USA initially declared itself a space for all girls, the reality was different for girls of color

Erin Blakemore

Get Smithsonian Educational Resources

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As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students.

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IEP Alignment grade level standards process chart with questions for families to ask 

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IEP Alignment grade level standards process chart with questions for families to ask 

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Shelley Moore: Transforming Inclusive Education

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Familiar Texts

The DLM Alternate Assessment supports students with the most complex disabilities by providing them with the texts they will encounter in the English Language Arts assessment before they encounter them in the assessment. The FAMILIAR texts will be released as they are available. In addition, when there are specific objects called out for the assessment, those are described.

The familiar texts for are available through the Educator Resource Page for your state. If your state participates in the Year-End assessment only, the familiar texts are here: Year-end assessment familiar texts. If your state participates in the Integrated Model with Instructionally Embedded Assessment windows, the familiar texts are here: Integrated model with instructionally embedded assessment windows familiar texts.

Other Texts

One of the challenges in providing students with the most significant disabilities with access to the general curriculum is finding materials that link directly to the grade level content, but are written at a level that is accessible. As part of the DLM project we have been building a library of companion texts that go with the exemplar texts called out in the Appendix of the Common Core State Standards. These books are accessible, open-source texts that you and your students can read online, on a reader that uses epub files, or offline as Powerpoint files or printed versions of the books. The books come from the collection of books at Tar Heel Reader. Many of the books were written by teachers across the U.S., Canada, and other English speaking countries. Please read the message about Tar Heel Reader linked above if you are not already familiar with the site. You will find a great deal of variety in the quality of the books and not all of the books are appropriate for all students. If you take some time to familiarize yourself with tarheelreader.org you'll find you can choose which books you want your students to access. You can find the library of companion texts at https://www.dlmpd.com/exemplar-text-supports/

Shared Reading Vignettes

Having a hard time imagining what shared reading might look like using these books with your students with more complex needs? Here are some vignettes that describe what interactions between teachers and students with the most significant cognitive disabilities might look like. They are arranged by grade level because they link to specific books at each grade level, but read some at the grade levels above and below the levels you teach to get more examples.

3rd Grade Shared Reading Vignette My Father's Dragon Unit - " Wild Island "

4th Grade Shared Reading Vignette The Birchbark House Unit - " Omakayas "

5th Grade Shared Reading Vignette The Secret Garden - " Families "

7th Grade Shared Reading Vignette Hatchett - " Moose "

9th-10th Grade Shared Reading Vignette The White Heron - " Making a Dress "

11th-12th Grade Shared Reading Vignette To Kill a Mockingbird - " Dad Loved the Farm "

DLM Core Vocabulary Supports

DLM Core Vocabulary Overview (pdf)This paper describes the value of using a core vocabulary for students who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), particularly when addressing the communication and academic demands of the DLM Essential Elements. The paper also includes a detailed description of the selection and ranking process used to identify the 463 words included in the DLM Core Vocabulary.

DLM "First 40″ Core Vocabulary (pdf)This table includes the DLM "First 40" recommended core vocabulary words for students and a description of how these words were selected. The "First 40" core vocabulary words are particularly useful for students who need AAC systems with a limited set of words and symbols due to motor, sensory, and or cognitive challenges.

DLM Core Vocabulary-Resource (xlsx)The Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM) Core Vocabulary is a list of words that have been determined to be highly useful for communicating in both social and academic contexts. The words are listed in rank order of utility based on a variety of factors that are fully explained in the DLM Core Vocabulary Overview paper. This word list includes vocabulary that is necessary for the DLM Essential Elements. ( This list is also available in pdf format.)

Columns on the spreadsheet include the following:

Column A: Core vocabulary words

Column B: Priority score. A larger number indicates greater utility.

Column C: A score of 1 indicates that this word was included in the AAC core vocabulary research that we reviewed.

Column D: Initial DLM Essential Element for which the word is needed.

Column E-G: Additional Essential Elements for which the word is needed. These lists are not exhaustive.

Here are some examples of communication displays that present the top 40 DLM Core Vocabulary words. Each has 4 words per page on 10 pages. As described in the DLM Core Vocabulary and Communication Module, we suggest that you select the one that uses the symbols already used in your school. Print the pages in a size that meets the needs of your student(s). Then laminate and bind them together so that you can start modeling their use across activities throughout the day. DLM 1st 40 with Boardmaker Picture Communication Symbols DLM 1st 40 with Widgit Symbols in Print to Communicate 2 DLM 1st 40 with N2Y Symbolstix
3D Printer Tactile Symbols for Core Vocabulary

The Center for Literacy and Disability Studies has a different project that is focused on the use of core vocabulary to support symbolic communication development for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Several of the students in the project have multiple disabilities including deafblindness. They need tactile symbols and there are not existing tactile symbols that systematically represent core vocabulary. To address the need, we are developing tactile symbols that can be printed on a 3D printer. These are currently in development and are likely to change as we learn more, but we have decided to share them because we understand that the need is not limited to the students in our project. Here is a picture of the symbols: You'll need access to a 3D printer that can print in multiple colors (we use multiple colors to take advantage of any residual vision the student may have), and you'll need to use 3D design software to view and/or modify these files (we use http://tinkercad.com). Each symbol has braille (on the top to support orientation and accommodate the fact that most of the students in our project can only manipulate the object with one hand); the label is stamped in print (to ensure that sighted communication partners call the symbol by the correct name); and a specific tactile representation of the word. The colors and shapes are organized as follows: Green Square (prepositions) Red Triangle (verbs) Blue Heart (adjectives) Yellow Circle (adverbs/conjunctions) White Hexagon (pronouns) We will be adding to the symbols over time. The symbols can be found here, at the Project Core website

The DLM Alternate Assessment will assess writing for all students at all grade levels. There are numerous professional development modules focused on writing instruction. One of the modules focuses on Alternate Pencils that are required for students who cannot use a standard pencil, pen, keyboard, or computer-based technology for writing. Below are files required to create two of the most widely used alternate pencils. They are intended to get you started, but you may have to develop other alternatives for your students. (These files are also available in the Materials Exchange in the Alternate Pencils folder.)

Eye Gaze Frames

Flip Charts

Description of Alternate Pencils (on the CLDS Website)

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Dynamic Learning Maps Professional Development

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The DLM Alternate Assessment supports students with the most complex disabilities by providing them with the texts they will encounter in the English Language Arts assessment before they encounter them in the assessment. The FAMILIAR texts will be released as they are available.

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College and Career Readiness and Success Center

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The federally funded College & Career Readiness & Success Center (CCRS Center) provides customized support to states, promoting knowledge development and collaboration through technical assistance and interactive learning communities.

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CA ELA/ELD Framework Chapter 9--Equity and Access

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CA ELA/ELD Framework Chapter 9--Equity and Access

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Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed
citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a
straightforward, nonpartisan, primarily pro-con format.

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ProCon.org - Pros and Cons of 100+ Topics

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Explore both sides of debated issues. Presented in a non-partisan format with supporting background information, statistics, and resources.

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The page you’re seeking may have been moved or may no longer exist. Try going to our home page, using our website navigation, or by using our search at the top of the page to find what you’re looking for.

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Dear Colleague--align IEPs with grade level standards 

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Dear Colleague--align IEPs with grade level standards 

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Since launching on March 6, 2007, our goal at TeacherTube has been to provide an online community for sharing instructional and education videos for college students, high school students, middle school students and elementary school students. We seek to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, students, schools, and home learners. It is a site to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. It is also a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill.

On September 1, 2017, TeacherTube.com was acquired by Salem Web Network. Salem's goal is to continue the growth of TeacherTube and support innovative ideas for education.

Most importantly, TeacherTube community members are a major part of the evolution of the site. Members are encouraged to not only upload educationally relevant videos but also to make constructive comments and use the rating system to show appreciation for videos of value to one as an educator or learner. Users also have the ability to preserve the integrity of the site by flagging inappropriate videos. TeacherTube staff review flagged sites and will remove any inappropriate posts. With more collegial commentary and discussion through messaging and responses, the quality of this resource will only increase.

The service is free for everyone. We always encourage our users to Contact Us with thoughts, suggestions, or other feedback. We do have a vision for TeacherTube to truly be a better alternative to other video storage sites. With the community's help, it can become more interactive and engaging for all teachers and learners.

Science videos are one of the key subjects that students are taught in school. Science is present from the early years of grade school up to the highest levels of academic achievement. As students move up the ranks, their study of science tends to get more specialized into one specific field only, like chemistry, biology, or physics. We have educational videos for all of these courses.

TeacherTube.com's section on science educational videos has content of interest to all learning levels. We have topics as varied as educational songs for elementary school students, up to chemical engineering for college students.

Mathematics is one of the fundamental 3Rs of early education. Known as "arithmetic" in those levels, it involves counting and the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. As kids advance through the grade levels, they progressively deal with more complex mathematical problems. Also, more new concepts get introduced as they progress.

Math is crucial for almost any business career. Accounting, budgeting, and projecting sales all require some level of competence in math. Many resources for these topics can be found here on TeacherTube.

Even everyday situations benefit a lot from math skills. Managing one's finances, for instance, obviously requires math, as with anything involving money. Cooking also involves math: proportions of ingredients, for example, as well as measurements.

TeacherTube.com's section on math education videos covers everything from fractions and measurements to money management. We also cover more complicated subjects such as trigonometry, and well as probability and statistics.

History is a very valuable subject, but not just because it is useful for preventing future wars. The lessons from history can also teach people to build a better future. What people have done right in the past should be continued and improved upon in the present.

The subject of history covers a wide range of timelines and locations. There's ancient history and modern history. There is also Asian history, US history, Latin American history, and European history. Each one is unique, reflecting the cultures of the people involved.

If there's one thing common to all history classes, it's usually names, dates, and places. This is also the part that many kids hate the most. They do not see the point of memorizing so many random facts that appear purposeless. Well, that is the wrong way to teach history.

TeacherTube's history education videos section makes the past come alive with a sterling array of videos and tutorials that cover subjects as varied as our prehistory, ancient history, the civil war, and the study of world civilizations.

The purpose of social studies, based on the US National Council for the Social Studies, is to promote "civic competence" among students. In other words, the subject equips students to become better citizens of a country. This is done by exploring history, geography, current events, and governments, among others. Middle school social studies usually deal with one of each of these fields per grade level.

With this knowledge, students gain the ability to become more socially aware and to be actively involved citizens of their country. Through analyzing current events, students will also learn how to predict the consequences of the things happening around them. With that, they can be good influences on their communities.

It is with this goal in mind that TeacherTube offers a wide variety of learning video materials for both students and enthusiasts.

We have videos on everything from strengthening your knowledge of economics terminology to the nuances of various world cultures.

Language arts, as the name suggests, equips students with a wide range of ways to use language. It comprises both speaking and writing skills. In addition to the basics, the subject also deals with the artistic side of language, infusing creativity in the ways students communicate.

There are four basic aspects to understanding a language: speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Language arts classes aim to enhance those skills at each year level. At first, it covers basic topics like grammar, sentence construction, and paragraphs. Exercises in language arts become progressively more complex as students move up the ranks, and usually, in higher grades, more emphasis is put on creativity and persuasiveness.

With the noble goal of harnessing the power of words to effect change in the world in mind, TeacherTube is proud to offer videos on everything from general communications to speaking and even videos on strengthening your studying skills.

Not all kids want to go through lectures. Some of them may not have the attention span or the patience to endure long hours just sitting down and listening to someone talk in front. No, that doesn't mean these kids are lazy. It just means they learn differently.

Some kids are auditory learners. In other words, they learn best when they listen to sounds and music. For this type of student, educational songs will certainly be a big helping hand. Even the most complex of concepts, when taught through songs, will be very easy for them to understand and remember. Even kids who are not so much inclined to auditory learning may like this method.

Educational song vidoes are available in a wide variety of subjects. English, math, social studies, science, and everything in between, there's bound to be a song for every subject. For example, on the website Teachertube.com, there are science topic songs, reading songs, skip counting songs, reading phonics songs, and even quadratic formula songs.

The advantage of using educational song videos is that it accomplishes two things at once. First, these songs are entertaining, and second, they also teach a concept. They facilitate learning a lot better than plain lectures simply because of the entertainment part. When a lesson is made fun of, kids will want to learn them. In fact, it could even be the kids themselves, on their own, who will play the songs repeatedly.

TeacherTube offers education songs on topics as varied as the circulatory system to math songs about polynomials and even videos on St. Patrick's Day.

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TeacherTube Educational Videos for the School Classroom and Home - Including Educational Songs, History Videos, Student Videos and Math Videos

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A free community for sharing instructional videos, Educational Songs, History Videos, Student Videos, Math Videos, and other content for teachers and students. We are an education focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home schoolers to access educational for the classroom and home learning.

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Not ready yet, but keep checking back as they are developing this game specifically for students with disabilities to explore college and career--designed for middle-school age students.

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customize web site fonts and colors for students with dyslexia

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customize web site fonts and colors for students with dyslexia

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College Resources for SWDs

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Here you will find curated resources on some of the most critical topics in inclusive postsecondary education. Each page features selected key resources, a link to additional resources we have on the topic in our Resource Library, related external links and Frequently Asked Questions on the topic.

Click any state on the map to see information on activities related to postsecondary education for students with intellectual disability (ID) in that state. If there are policies and/or legislation related to postsecondary education for students with ID, we provide a link to that policy/legislation. If there is a statewide organization for inclusive PSE in your state, a link to information about that organization is provided. We also include contact information for someone in the state who can talk to you about postsecondary education for students with ID.

Think College is dedicated to developing, expanding, and improving inclusive higher education options for people with intellectual disability. We conduct and extend our work through several specific grant funded projects. Click the project logo to learn more about that project and its key activities, staff and resources.

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Think College is a national initiative dedicated to developing, expanding, and improving research and practice in inclusive higher education for students with intellectual disability. It is based at the Institute for Community Inclusion, University of Massachusetts Boston.

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The Emotion Color Wheel can help visually group feelings. The circle is divided into colors to show some basic emotions. Read about a study using the EMOTIONS COLOR WHEEL to improve emotion recognition deficits and social functioning levels in inpatients with paranoid schizophrenia.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE EMOTIONS COLOR WHEEL

Within each basic emotion there are levels of that emotion which range from less intense on the outside to more intense in the center. For example, levels of angry are shown as:

Visually, it might help to think of basic emotions as levels of color that become more intense as they pull inward towards the circle center. Brighter, bolder colors are associated with more intense emotions. The most intense emotions are demonstrated by people less often and are contained within a smaller visual space near the dark center. Less intense emotions are on the outside.

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picture exchange communication system cards

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Do2Learn: Educational Resources for Special Needs

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picture communication cards, songs, games and learning activities for autism, aspergers, fetal alcohol syndrome and disabilities

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Non-fiction stories to listen to--includes free lesson plans for teachers (more appropriate for secondary students)

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ReadWorks | Award-Winning, EdTech Nonprofit Organization

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ReadWorks is an edtech nonprofit organization that is committed to helping to solve America's reading comprehension crisis.

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National Library of Virtual Manipulative

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National Library of Virtual Manipulative

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Toondoo.com and Toondoospaces.com have been shut down permanently, effective immediately.

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Expository Texts in multiple lexile levels

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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Article about colors/fonts that benefit students with dyslexia  

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Article about colors/fonts that benefit students with dyslexia  

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WAI R&D Symposia " Text Customization Home " Proceedings " This paper.

This paper is a contribution to the Text Customization for Readability Online Symposium. It was not developed by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and does not necessarily represent the consensus view of W3C staff, participants, or members.

Luz Rello. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, luzrello@acm.org

Ricardo Baeza-Yates. Yahoo! Research & Universitat Pompeu Fabra, rbaeza@acm.

1. Problem Description

In this study we analyze how an specific aspect of text customization, text and background colors, can improve readability of people with dyslexia. Our user study compares two kinds of data, quantitative (user performance) and qualitative (user preferences), taking into consideration previous recommendations and the color luminosity ratio prescribed by the WCAG 2.0. (W3C, 2008).

2. Background

The role of colors in readability has been extensively discussed in relationship to dyslexia, a reading disability which occurs in around 10-17.5% of the English and 7.5-11.8% of the Spanish speaking population (Rello and Baeza-Yates, 2012). However, when reading the Web, poor colored text is one of the key problems encountered by people with dyslexia (McCarthy and Swierenga, 2010).

Previous user studies showed that specific text and background colors could be beneficial for reading on the screen (Gregor and Newell 2000; Rello, Baeza-Yates and Kanvinde, 2012). Moreover, text customization suggestions broadly agree that people with dyslexia normally prefer lower brightness and color differences among text and background compared to the average reader (Bradford, 2011; Pedley 2006; British Dyslexia Association, 2012). However, the relationship between this preference and the minimum color luminosity ratio prescribed by the W3C has not been studied.

In our study we empirically test previous recommendations and compare them with the W3C algorithm and the standard reading of a control group.

3. Approach

Our approach separates accessibility needs and personal preferences which are frequently mixed in the recommendations regarding colors and readability. Therefore, our tests were composed of two parts: (a) a set of texts to be read using eye-tracking to study the reading performance and (b) a questionnaire to collect the user preferences. Through this methodology we distinguish the aspects of text customization which allows readers with dyslexia to read more effectively and optional suggestions regarding their preferences. Each test was performed by 23 participants with dyslexia (Rello, Baeza-Yates and Kanvinde, 2012) and 92 participants without dyslexia (Rello and Marcos, 2012).

For the selection of the color pairs we took into consideration: (a) the previous literature, (b) the recommendations, (c) their frequency in the Web, and (d) their luminosity contrast ratio. The color pairs studied are given in Table 1.

Text and background color

Color difference

Brightness difference

Table 1: Color and brightness difference for the text and background color pairs. The RGB codes for the colors are presented in parenthesis and used for the cell text and background.

The pairs black & white and blue & white were chosen because they are the most commonly used. We selected off-black & off-white because it is recommended in Web accessibility for people with dyslexia (Bradford, 2011). The pairs brown & dark green and blue & yellow were included in the study because they were chosen by people with dyslexia in previous experiments (Gregor et al., 2003; Gregor and Newell, 2000). We chose black & creme because it is used -and recommended- by the British Dyslexia Association for their website and we selected black & yellow because of its high contrast.

Since the pair brown & dark green has a lower color contrast than the required by the WCAG 2.0, we created a dark brown & light green with the same color hue but following the W3C algorithm to compare both of the color pairs.

Each of the color pairs were presented in random order containing different comparable texts. The texts have the same length (22 syllables), belong to the same genre, and have the same metric and rhythm. They were written in sans serif arial (Al-Wabil, Zaphiris and Wilson, 2006), 20 points size, unjustified text (Pedley, 2006), and same line/word/character spacing.

The texts were presented to the participants to be read them in silence while they were recorded by the eye-tracker. Then, the participant filled a questionnaire regarding their personal preferences about the colors and their readability. The participants were trying to extract meaning from the text because they were expecting comprehension questions although the questionnaires were only about their preferences.

4. Challenges

There are three weaknesses in our methodology which will be addressed in future experiments. First, the color pairs were presented in random order but not in a counter-balanced order. Therefore we cannot be certain if some of the results could be affected by the position of the textual fragment in the screen and if the preference data is biased by order effects. Second, the texts are too small to draw strong conclusions. Third, the texts were presented alone in the screen, thus we cannot predict the color effect in other reading contexts such as Web browsing.

5. Outcomes

In Figure 1 we can see the comparison of the user performance and preferences, among the different color values across people with and without dyslexia. The performance is measured in reading time (mean of the fixation duration in seconds) and the preferences are represented by the percentage of the participants choice. Shorter fixations are preferred to longer ones, because according to previous studies (Just and Carpenter, 1980), readers make longer fixations at points where processing loads are greater.

The greatest difference among groups is on the black & white pair: while the majority of people without dyslexia prefer it (32.67%), only 13.64% of the participants with dyslexia chose black text on white background.

Participants without dyslexia tend to prefer color pairs with a higher color and brightness contrast while people with dyslexia read faster when color pairs have lower contrasts. For instance, the color pair which was the fastest to read by the participants with dyslexia was black & creme (mean of 0.214 for the fixation duration) while black text over yellow background presents the largest fixation duration mean (0.239 seconds). Although the pair off-black & off-white is the one recommended in Web design for dyslexics (Bradford, 2011), none of the users with dyslexia selected it. This pair presents the highest fixation duration mean for the participants without dyslexia (0.193 seconds).

Figure 1: Fixation duration (s) and user preferences (%) for the people with and without dyslexia (detailed description is at the end of paper).

The W3C algorithm suggests to avoid brightness differences less than 125 and color differences less than 500. Our results are consistent with this threshold since the only pair which did not match the W3C algorithm (brown & dark green) presented high fixation durations for both groups (the second and the third highest for people without and with dyslexia, respectively) and were also hardly selected by the participants (4.55% for the participants without dyslexia and 0.99% for the participants with dyslexia). Surprisingly, the pair dark brown & light green which is very similar in terms of color hue but differ from the brown & dark green in term of brightness and color contrast presents the lowest and second lowest fixations duration for people with dyslexia and without dyslexia, respectively.

Our results suggest that text customization preferences needs to be complemented by quantitative data from actual reading performance since we found no correlation between the reading performance and the personal choice of the users. Colors shall be taken into consideration by interface developers. Even if people with dyslexia read faster using lower color contrasts than the control group these are not lower than the W3C algorithm.

6. Future Research

On-going experiments address the challenges presented in Section 4. We are currently carrying out more tests with more participants. These tests include (1) further randomization of the position of the texts, (2) longer texts, and (3) the insertion of the texts in frequent reading contexts in the Web such as the Wikipedia layout.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Shadi Abou-Zahra (W3C) for his valuable comments and feedback about this research. We are also indebted to Mari-Carmen Marcos (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) for her assistance with the eye tracker, to Joaquim Llisterri (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona) for his help distributing our experiments announcement among experts, and to all the volunteers and people with dyslexia who performed the experiments.

References

1. Al-Wabil, A., Zaphiris, P. & Wilson, S. (2007), 'Web navigation for individuals with dyslexia: an exploratory study', Universal Acess in Human Computer Interaction. Coping with Diversity pp. 593-602.

2. Bradford, J. (2012) Designing web pages for dyslexic readers. Available: http://www.dyslexia-parent.com/mag35.html. Last accessed 20 September 2012.

3. British Dyslexia Association. (2012) Dyslexia style guide. Available: http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/. Last accessed 20 September 2012.

4. Gregor, P., Dickinson, A., Macaffer, A. & Andreasen, P. (2003), 'Seeword a personal word processing environment for dyslexic computer users', British Journal of Educational Technology 34(3), 341-355.

5. Gregor, P. & Newell, A. F. (2000), An empirical investigation of ways in which some of the problems encountered by some dyslexics may be alleviated using computer techniques, in Proceedings of the fourth international ACM conference on Assistive technologies, ASSETS 2000, ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 85-91.

6. Just, M. & Carpenter, P. (1980), 'A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension', Psychological review 87, 329-354.

7. McCarthy, J. E. & Swierenga, S. J. (2010), 'What we know about dyslexia and web accessibility: a research review', Universal Access in the Information Society 9, 147-152.

8. Pedley, M. (2006), 'Designing for dyslexics: Part 3 of 3'. Available: http://accessites.org/site/2006/11/designing-for-dyslexics-part-3-of-3. Last accessed 20 September 2012.

9. Rello, L. & Baeza-Yates, R. (2012b), 'The presence of english and spanish dyslexia in the web', New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia pp. 1-28.

10. Rello, L., Kanvinde, G. & Baeza-Yates, R. (2012), Layout guidelines for web text and a web service to improve accessibility for dyslexics, in International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A 2012), ACM Press, Lyon, France.

11. Rello, L. & Marcos, M. (2012), An eye tracking study on text customization for user performance and preference, in 8th edition of the Latin American Web Congress (LA-WEB 2012), IEEE Press, Cartagena, Colombia.

12. World Wide Web Consortium (2008) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Available from: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/ Last accessed 20 October 2012.

Appendix: Description of Figure 1

Fixation duration values in seconds and percentages of the user preference for the people with a without dyslexia. The mostly prefered color pairs by people with dislexia were (ordered from the most favorited to the less favorited): black & yellow; black & creme; blue & white; black & white; blue & yellow; dark brown & light green; brown & dark green and off-black & off-white. The mostly prefered color pairs by people without dislexia were (ordered from the most favorited to the less favorited): black & white; black & yellow; black & creme; off-black & off-white; blue & white; dark brown & light green; brown & dark green and blue & yellow. In terms of performance, the color pairs read by people with dislexia were (ordered from the fastest to the slowest): black & creme; blue & yellow; dark brown & light green, brown & dark green, black & white; off-black & off-white; blue & white and black & yellow. In terms of performance, the color pairs read by people without dislexia were (ordered from the fastest to the slowest): dark brown & light green; black & creme; black & white; black & yellow; blue & yellow; brown & dark green and off-black & off-white.

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Optimal Colors to Improve Readability for People with Dyslexia

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WAI R&D Symposia " Text Customization Home " Proceedings " This paper. This paper is a contribution to the Text Customization for Readability Online Symposium. It was not developed by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and does not necessarily represent the consensus view of W3C staff, participants, or members.

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(CBS News) ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Sunday is Father's Day, which celebrates the special bond between a father and his son. We went "On the Road" to meet a father who couldn't be prouder, and a son who couldn't be more thankful.

When Keith Harris' son Tim was born, a half-hearted smile was all he could muster.

"Our pediatrician asked me if I knew what down syndrome was, and the world turned black at that moment," he told CBS News.

What a difference 26 years makes. Today, in sunny Albuquerque, you'd be hard pressed to find a more glowing father than Keith. Or a more shining example of what truly great parenting can accomplish.

Keith and wife Jeannie, who also have three typical boys, have raised them all with the same high-expectations. As a result, they're all successful. But, none are more successful than Tim, who not only lives on his own but owns his own restaurant.

"He works for me," Tim said, pointing at his brother.

In fact, as far as we know, Tim is the only person with Down syndrome in the country who owns a restaurant.

"Hi! Welcome to my place," he said enthusiastically as he greeted customers.

"All of us who are dads want our kids to wind up independent, happy, secure," Keith explained.

Tim's dad -- a small business owner himself -- provided the initial investment. Other people do the managing and cooking, but Tim is the front man and the genius behind it.

Tim realized that what people really want from a family restaurant is a family feel. That's why here, love isn't just in the air: It's a menu item. You can actually order a free hug from Tim. And even if you don't order it, chances are you'll still get one. Hugs are simply his measure of success: He's given out almost 19,000 hugs. He keeps track of them all on a hug counter.

Of course, profits are adding up too. Tim even has expansion plans. Yet no matter how big he gets, Tim says he will always be indebted to the man gave him his first hug.

"He's my super hero and my inspiration," he said about his father.

"We're happy for you," Keith told his son.

"Thank you Dad," Tim replied.

I don't think any one of us can imagine the time and tears that went into this moment right here -- that made it possible for Keith and Jeannie to walk away from their son and know that he will be alright with or without them. Only Tim knows that, which is why this Father's Day no father in America will be any more appreciated than his.

"I love my dad so much," Tim said.
To contact On the Road, or to send us a story idea, e-mail us.
Trending News

Steve Hartman

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Digitability is the bridge from a student's education to fulfilling work post-transition. You can learn more about Digitability by requesting a free demo.

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