Read to Learn Lite vs AIM Explorer App

Read to Learn is an introductory literacy and life skills program for adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities, including autism. It features three heavily illustrated, interactive books with age-appropriate themes: Safety Skills Reader, Life Skills Reader, and Focus on Feelings. These books each contain 1 story, each with a comprehension exercise. All text is spoken by professional narrators and highlighted as it’s read. Readers can touch any word at any time to hear it pronounced, and are given a definition for especially pertinent vocabulary. Safety Skills Reader explores important home, community, personal, and recreational safety issues. Contemporary, graphic novel style drawings illustrate a story about pedestrian travel. Life Skills Reader features a story about reading facial expressions. Realistic photos show expected behaviors and step-by-step procedures. Focus on Feelings features a photo-illustrated story that helps readers recognize how people feel during common life experiences, such as a birthday. Portrait style photos with matching icons illustrate emotions like annoyed, excited, proud, and disappointed. Comprehension exercises with an optional hint feature assess the reader's understanding of each story. Test results are stored and can be printed. Optional automatic page reading and turning aid readers who have difficulty navigating the app. Read to Learn scans, and is accessible with one or two switches. Features: Stresses independent living skills Supports nonreaders Written in simplified, concise language Illustrated with realistic photos and drawings Narrated professionally Highlights text by word, sentence, or line Allows user to touch any word to hear it pronounced Includes hint feature for tests Stores and prints test results Attainment has been developing curricula and assistive technology products for people with disabilities for over 30 years. We are well known for our topnotch customer service. Please email us with questions and comments. And yes, we’re happy to talk to you on the telephone. Read to Learn supports Retina displays!

The AIM Explorer App is a free simulation that combines grade-leveled digital text with access features common to most text readers and other supported reading software. Magnification, custom text and background colors, text-to-speech, text highlighting, and layout options are presented in a logical sequence to help struggling readers decide which of these supports might help them to access and understand text. The AIM Explorer App is designed to be used by a reader working collaboratively with an educator, tutor, parent, or assistive technology specialist as a guide. AIM Explorer App is an iPad version of the Adobe-Air based AIM Explorer developed at National Center on Access Educational Materials at CAST, Inc. (aem.cast.org)