What are they?

In 2001, SET-BC staff and school district teams gathered together with the goal of making reading accessible for students with special needs. We began to build a collection of “accessible books.” Now in 2007 SET-BC has a collection of over 500 books for students to read independently!

"A book that is shut is but a block." Thomas Fuller

Accessible Books are popular children’s books that have been “recreated” through the use of scanning and recording to enable the non-reader to access them via technology. The graphics and text of a selected book are displayed on the computer screen with narration added through either digitized (human reader) or synthesized (computer speech) speech. These books are created using software applications with graphics and speech capabilities that enable switch and adapted access methods.

Accessible Books are generally at the emergent through early conventional reading levels, from pre-primer to approximately the grade 3 reading level.

Books for the Accessible collection are chosen based on the following criteria:

• Where text comprehension is enhanced through pictures.
• Where there is good children’s literature.
• Where curriculum content is at early reading levels.
• Where there is locally relevant content.

View a demonstration of an accessible book online - "The Fishing Trip".

If you are looking for E-text materials, the higher level reading materials, these are made available for students in British Columbia with visual impairments and students with print disabilities through the Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI).