[TraceyC/FL]

She needs to run to bookshare.org

The textbooks there are available only thru accounts with schools (meaning, when my DD was a homeschooler with them, we had no access, now she has access thru the schools account).

Bookshare is free currently thru the US Dept of Education for all k-12 students in the US - including home schooled ones. Adults pay $75 a year.

The books need to be tweaked to work on a kindle, but it can be done. Recent additions to the collection are often coming from the publishers, otherwise they are scanned by volunteers. The best is tha they are free and my DD is reading!!!

There are also text books available thru the.... I can't remember the name. It is the free audio books for the blind and dyslexic. Actually I think there are 3 services - it's been awhile since i looked them up.

The school is mandated by federal law to accommodate in the textbook area, they should be well versed in this. However, just because they might provide a daisy reader for a textbook, does not mean they will allow that device to come home. I didn't even ask them about a reader for my DD, I just bought her the kindle and she will use it at school, and I will have it written into her IEP (teacher is ok with it, but it is against school board policy for her to have it there). Most textbooks today are available to the school to purchase as an ebook.

It stinks that the parents have to do so much legwork on stuff like this....

Best of luck to your friend and her kids!

 

[TraceyC/FL]

There are a couple of references here to pdf's and scanning. This child needs scalable fonts, so I am thinking she needs true ebook format which would need to be provided by the Publisher. Am I missing something?

Elaine
Norman, OK

At bookshare, they are text files. The books have been scanned with OCR software to provide the files - meaning there may be some typos. I'm assuming there would be less typos in files provided to bookshare from the publishers directly. When life settles down i"m going to talk to them about proofreading for them.

PDF would not do my DD any good either, we needed a larger typeface, along with sans serif. The bookshare files you download have that, you just have to "get it out" of their container and convert it. But it works and gives her access to a huge amount of books - sone you can't buy in ebook form. My DD uses the regular kindle vs the DX, it's easy for her to carry with her and I won't stress as much for her using it at school.

 

[TraceyC/FL]

From what I can see it is actually easier/faster to get the Daisy files converted for kindle use on a PC than a Mac, and I'm a Mac. I found a few things thru google that were quick - but just didn't work for me.

Bookshare has an iPad/iPhone app in the works, and it is supposed to be out by now.... Which would be nice!

But I'd wait on worrying about the actual conversion steps until after she gets the bookshare account and the hardware she will be using. I'm going to venture that if Amazon does come out with an android kindle, we might actually see an android daisy reader. Which would be another reason for me, I'd try something like the Kindle Special Offer over the more expensive DX at first. See what the rest of the year bring in the hardware area....