Scenario 5 - Talking books

Introduction

Talking books can help pupils to develop their reading skills by enabling them to interact with stories in a unique way. Pupils with limited reading skills can to listen to a story independently and see the characters ‘come to life’. Pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties can explore, experience and activate the sounds, words and animations in a story via a switch or touch screen. Talking books or stories may be commercially produced and distributed on CD-ROM, or they may be created using multimedia software. Talking books are very accessible; they are attractive and motivating to many pupils and they don’t tear!

Scenario 5a – Using talking books on CD-ROM

Talking books on CD-ROM are a popular and useful resource. Their main strengths lie in their ease of use and their attractiveness; many pupils can access them independently. Hearing stories read can help pupils to become familiar with the characters, the sequence of events, and the words if they are highlighted as they are spoken. However, they tend to be produced for young children and the stories may not always be appropriate for older pupils who have severe learning difficulties. In addition, story lines and graphics in talking books designed for the home market can be too complex for some pupils to follow. With some pupils it may be better to treat each page as a little story on its own encouraging the pupils to explore and talk about what they see and find.

Talking books usually expect the reader to use a mouse, but there are alternatives; touch screens work well for many pupils. For pupils who need to use switches, a Mouser, or software that allows you to create switch accessible hot spots, can be used.

A Mouser can be used to enable a pupil to press a switch in order to ‘make something happen’ on the page. The mouse pointer is positioned by a helper and when the switch is pressed the computer reacts as if the mouse had been clicked. This is a very simple and versatile way to provide access; the helper can move the mouse pointer to any position on the screen and encourage the pupil to press their switch. The activity, however, remains limited to one of cause and effect, as the pupil is not able to make an independent choice about what to click on.

Alternatively hot spots can be set up to allow the use of a single or multiple switches. In the case of multiple switches each switch can be set to control a particular action on the page, making it possible for two or more switch users to work together.

This method is technically more demanding, as it involves staff in using the software to set up the hot spots. However, ready-made hot spots are available for some talking books. The advantage of this method is that pupils can be given greater independence and an opportunity to work collaboratively.

Scanning hot spots involves the pupil in watching the screen closely and pressing a switch when a desired hot spot is highlighted. This is the most flexible method, but also the most demanding one. (See Unit 8 – The development of switch skills)

Example 1 – Language / literacy development

The pupils in a Key Stage 2 class had been introduced to a big book that was also available as a talking book. The talking book was used to consolidate their understanding of the characters and events in the story. It was possible to either ‘explore’ or ‘read’ the talking book. ‘Exploring’ enabled pupils to experience some of the events in the story in a different way and ‘reading’ presented a familiar story in a new medium. Both provided lots of opportunity for speaking and listening. The prospect of getting a turn on the computer was an added incentive to stay on task. In addition to group sessions, the pupils could also choose to use the talking story independently. Headphones are a useful addition for independent listening!

Example 2 - Turn-taking

At one school, talking books are used with SLD and PMLD pupils, many of whom are switch users, to develop small group interaction, turn taking, anticipation, word recognition and matching. Pupils take turns to use a switch to explore the pages of a talking book. Pressing a switch is only a small part of experiencing the story for these pupils. Stories are also enhanced by actions from staff, tactile props, symbols, pictures, and sometimes with a BIGmack.

Example 3 – Supporting a reading scheme

There are talking books available to support a number of reading schemes – the Oxford Reading Tree is a popular example – and they are ideal for consolidation work. These talking books are written for schools and tend to be more accessible to pupils who have severe learning difficulties because the language and the story line is usually very simple. The illustrations are often clearer than talking books that are produced for the home market. If pupils are using these books independently, it is important to make sure that they understand what all the buttons do, e.g. turn to the next page, listen to the words etc.

Key skills and equipment

The key skills for the above examples are the ability to:

• load and start up a CD-ROM
• connect switches to the computer

The key equipment is:

• talking Books on CD-ROM
• switches and interface
• hot spots software (optional)

Making talking books

Teachers and pupils can use multimedia software to make their own talking books. The books can be about steps in a process; pictures of family and events can be sequenced; a familiar story or rhyme can be retold – the possibilities are endless. The advantage of making your own talking books is the relevance of the content to the pupils. Familiar people, places and objects can feature in the pictures and familiar voices, including their own, can be recorded for the narrative.

Any story that can be written using software that has voice output can be used as a talking book. This means that users can read their book in the traditional book form or can listen and see it on screen. Multimedia software can be set to present one ‘page’ at a time with recorded sounds and digitized pictures or symbols. These are presented sequentially. Most multimedia packages are very easy to use for this type of resource. The example here is from a talking book about growing plants. Each page contains a photograph and text that is read aloud.

Example 1 – Books for older pupils

The high spot of Jonathan’s week is his trip to the local swimming pool. Jonathan is seventeen and has lots of difficulties with concentration and communication. His teacher wanted to find a way to encourage him to interact and communicate with her by presenting him with meaningful and motivating images. She took a series of photographs showing Jonathan going to and using the swimming pool. She put these into multimedia software in sequence and recorded a message to go with each photograph. She also recorded short samples of his favourite song from a music CD and incorporated these into the book. Whilst it took some time to create the book, the result was a powerful resource that could be used over and over again with Jonathan, helping him to recall an enjoyable experience and encouraging him to share his feelings about it.

Example 2 – Taking existing stories and adding captions

A learner who is unable to turn pages unaided, or to understand the text of a commercially printed book, can be helped to get access to reading through multimedia books. As well as commercial talking books, it is possible to adapt existing materials. For example, you can purchase many of the graphics used in the Oxford Reading Tree reading scheme on CD-ROM. These graphics can either be incorporated into multimedia versions of the stories, or be used along with symbols to present more accessible versions of the original material.

Example 3 – Talking books for PMLD pupils

Photographs and pictures that have sounds attached can be selected from an on-screen grid or overlay and written into a symbol processor so that as each entry appears in the document the sound is played, and / or any associated text is spoken. In this way a person with profound learning difficulties may create a story using favourite sounds and pictures, or images of familiar people.

The example shows how somebody may simply select friends, each time hearing an associated message. The selection is written to a hidden document, which can be replayed, or printed.

Key skills and equipment

The key skills for the above examples are the ability to:

• use a digital camera and save the photos on your computer
• use a scanner and save the pictures on your computer
• use sound-recording software to record a sound and save it
• use multimedia software to plan and make a slide show
• use symbol-processing software to write
• create switch grids
• incorporate photographs and sound files into a slide show

The key equipment is:

• multimedia software
• a digital camera
• a scanner
• a microphone
• sound-recording software
• symbol software
• switch grid software

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