Web-Based Instruction and the Needs of Students with Reading Disabilities: One Approach

Susan M. Powers
Assistant Professor
Curriculum, Instruction and Media Technology
Indiana State University
Terre Haute IN 47809
812-237-2946
espowers@befac.indstate.edu

Introduction

The student attracted my attention and said he needed to discuss some of the course requirements with me. Inwardly I groaned a little, expecting to have to justify the use of papers and journals in the class. What I did not expect was to hear that this student was severely dyslexic and was having difficulty processing in a timely manner all the reading and writing required during the class. I sat back from the computer monitor and reflected on how I could help the student be an active part of the learning community and accommodate his needs. The reflection was necessary because the student had contacted me by email regarding my course that was being delivered over the World Wide Web.

Designing a course to be offered exclusively over the Internet and the World Wide Web can be a daunting task. There are many instructional and technological decisions to be made. Among those are the communication decisions which affect student to instructor communication, instructor to student communication, and the way assignments are submitted electronically. Instructors must determine how Web pages, electronic discussion lists, email and Web conferencing will fit together to form an effective learning experience. Once all these decisions have been made, and the related Web pages created, it is a great relief to have all the material ready for the students to begin the class. However, is the class, now largely or solely text-oriented, truly ready for all students who might elect to enroll? That may not be the case if a student with a reading disability is a member of the class.

During the Fall 1997 semester, I taught a course entirely over the Internet, as I had done on three previous occasions. During this semester, ten students enrolled, two of whom were severely dyslexic. What did this mean for me in terms of my text-laden Web-based course? Is this a highly unusual situation? The numbers are difficult to determine, but consider that in 1986, 14% of the disabled students who registered with college disability offices reported being learning disabled (HEATH, 1997). The future impact is also amplified when it is considered that during a ten-year period between the mid-1980’s and mid 1990’s the numbers of children in public school identified with learning disabilities more than doubled.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the American Disabilities Act of 1990 (Reamer, 1997) serve to protect the civil rights of persons with disabilities. They also require that higher education must provide reasonable, timely and effective accommodations for disabled persons at the institution. The expectation for accommodation does not include the expectation that programmatic requirements are altered or that established academic standards are diminished. Once a student is registered with the appropriate university office, the student is expected to notify instructors and propose a number of strategies. For instance, the student (and if necessary the support office) may ask for permission to tape lectures, have extended periods of time for exams, or use a computer for the writing of essay exams (Reamer, 1997). Generally speaking, it can be assumed that faculty are willing to comply with these requests. Faculty have become somewhat familiar with these accommodations as they occur during typical face-to-face instruction. However, how do these accommodations work in the on-line classroom?

There is not a direct instructional correlation between the face-to-face environment and the on-line teaching environment. Gilbert (1997) does observe that there are basic characteristics shared such as the focus on the transfer of knowledge, application of the understanding, and evaluation. However, the instructional strategies chosen will not be the same as those used in the traditional classroom (Powers, 1997). Therefore, the strategies that a learning-disabled student might know and be familiar with will also not necessarily translate neatly into the Web-based environment. The struggle for me and the learning-disabled students in my course, then, became one of determining throughout the semester what type of accommodations would be necessary and practical, given the variety of electronic communication and amount of reading and writing of text the course required.

One student had no need of assistance because his home computer was equipped with expensive text-to-voice conversion software. With this software, he was able to meet the demands of chat sessions, Web page lectures and readings, and numerous email and discussion list messages. The other student did not have access to the same or similar software and did not have the means to purchase the software. Therefore, throughout the semester, by trial and error, we together devised systems and accommodations to allow him to complete the assignments and the course that did not draw on his reading limitations but instead utilized his other learning strengths. What follows in this paper is a series of strategies developed during this experience that will better enable a student with reading disabilities to participate in Web-based distance education.

Accommodative Strategies

As discussed above, the typical expectation for accommodation is that the student presents some options and the instructor grants permission. However, given the unique and new nature of Web-based course delivery, students may not be aware of what useful accommodation options might work and what might be possible. Additionally, since several of the accommodations suggested below require advanced planning (as does Web-based course delivery), it would serve an instructor well to consider these options during the design of Web-based instruction and prior to being approached by a learning-disabled student.

Reading Guides

Often in Web-based instruction, the instructor takes the role of a learning facilitator leading students through readings that enhance and elaborate upon the topic. In other words, a greater dependence upon written materials may exist in the Web-based classroom environment. To facilitate this heavy reliance on reading for the learning-disabled student, an instructor might elect to develop reading guides which direct the student to the most critical important components of a reading passage. For example, imagine that a class has been assigned to read and review a Web site. A comprehensive Web site will include a multitude of links that will lead the reader to many directly and indirectly related topics. A reading guide would direct the student as to the important links to follow and the ones that are not relevant to the instructional goal.

It might appear that providing a reading guide in written format simply compounds the problem for the student. However, if done in a simple outline format, the amount of reading necessary would be cursory. The organization of a reading guide will also help the student organize the information in ways similar to traditional strategies. Another option, and possibly more viable, would be to provide the student with an audio reading guide. Much like the tape-recorded guide through a museum, an audio guide would highlight the key points of readings on which the student should concentrate.

Voice Email

Email quickly becomes a critical component of on-line instruction. Whether used to submit assignments, to ask questions of an instructor to receive guidance and feedback, or to participate in an electronic discussion list, successful electronic communication will translate into a successful class (Powers & Dutt-Doner, 1998). The student who has difficulty reading and writing electronic transmissions is therefore at an immediate disadvantage. Limited success can be achieved by having another person read the email messages to the student or transcribing his or her words into a message. Success can be limited because the sheer bulk of email during an on-line course can tax even the most willing helper.

Another alternative comes in the form of voice email. Voice email works on the same principle of text email; however, instead of the text being recorded and sent to a particular email address, the sender’s message is recorded with audio and sent to the email address. The software is compatible with a number of different email programs such as email access through popular Web browsers and some of the more popular POP email programs. There is a cost associated with the software needed to create and send voice email, but the software a recipient needs to play the message is free. Utilizing voice email, the instructor and the student can work together to choose from some of the following options to build a communication package to enable effective electronic communication:

Use voice email for messages from instructor to student. This option is appropriate when the student is able to successfully follow general email discussion but finds it difficult to understand instructions that come across email (e.g. instructions on completing an upcoming paper). The voice email is be used for those select messages. This option does not place a cost burden on the student.
Use voice email for messages from student to instructor. Perhaps the student is able to read and process the messages but struggles with writing coherent messages. Although voice email would not lend itself to the submission of papers and other such lengthy assignments, it would be effective for the transmittal of questions, feedback, journals, discussion questions, etc.
Use voice email for communication both ways between student and instructor. It could be possible that the learning disability is severe enough that by using voice email for all electronic communication between the instructor and student, part of the burden of a text-laden distance education course can be relieved. This option will again place a cost burden on the student, since voice email sending software is needed at both ends.

Once an option is agreed upon between the instructor and student, there are still more decisions to be made and issues to be resolved. For example, I expect a certain degree of professionalism in the email messages students sent to me. All course-related correspondence should demonstrate good spelling and grammar. Students are expected to read messages carefully before pressing the send button to be sure the message says exactly what was intended. Will the same level of professionalism and clarity be expected from a voice email message? If a student stumbles over words, yawns, or even giggles (which may happen until the novelty of the software is gone) during a message, would that be considered acceptable? Poor spelling and grammar can make a textual message incomprehensible. An individual who speaks too quickly or mutters can make a recorded message unintelligible. The voice email recorder allows students to listen to their message before sending and re-record a message if necessary. Student should be encouraged and asked to take advantage of this option in order to keep the voice email and text email on the same professional level.

A final decision involves how the remainder of the class will deal with voice email. For example, if the class is actively engaged in discussion on their electronic discussion list, does the learning-disabled student participate in the electronic discussion list, or does the student participate via voice email and the other students use players? This option does make the disability of the student more apparent to peers in the class, which may not be agreeable to the student. Another option would be to allow everyone to use voice email in lieu of the electronic discussion list. It would provide the added benefit of exposure to additional Internet resources and options, but could also lay a financial burden on students to purchase the software and the institution to outfit labs with software and microphones. A final option could be to enter the instructor into the mix. The learning-disabled student could send the instructor voice email messages and the instructor forward (through transcription) the messages on to the electronic discussion list. In the process of conducting my on-line courses it is not unusual for me to forward messages from a student on to the rest of the class when software is not functioning as expected. This process would not draw undue attention to the student.

The Telephone

The newer technology of voice email provides one set of options for communication between instructor and student: the familiar telephone offers other possibilities. For those times when a learning-disabled student needs verbal instructions from the instructor, or needs to transmit information to the instructor verbally, the phone can still be an immensely useful mechanism. The great advantage of this option is that the phone is convenient and available. There are no hardware or software requirements for using the phone, and no training would be required to begin use! However, some of the disadvantages of the phone are more evident when voice email is considered.

When a synchronous phone conversation is taking place, it is difficult to keep a record of the conversation (unless the parties have agreed that the conversation can be taped). When the conversation is not synchronous and messages are being left on answering machines and voice mail (either of which would be necessary to make this option workable), those messages are not easily stored. Voice mail generally has limitations on the size of storage and does not allow the user to save a large number of messages: while I could save every email or voice email message from a student, I could not replicate that with voice mail. Answering machines using tapes have a greater capacity for storage but also lend themselves to easy erasure of messages. Also, the messages can’t be saved in a selected order, only in the order in which they were left on the machine. Finally, most answering machines and voice mail limit the length of a message. Voice email does not have that limitation (although the longer the message, the large the file size).

CD ROM

A final option would be the development of a companion CD ROM for the course. A CD ROM is suggested instead of a floppy disk because of the likely size of an appropriate companion disk. The companion CD ROM would provide an off-line opportunity for the student to access information that would enhance course understanding. It would include materials such as these:

Audio recordings of lectures. If the course includes Web-based lectures or readings created by the instructor to explain the course material and content, the text of those documents could be digitally recorded on the computer and saved to individual files identified by date or topic. The student could then select the appropriate file and listen to, rather than read, the lecture.
Graphical representations of content. An instructor may have content which lends itself to explanation to some students through concept mapping or other graphic representation. The CD ROM can contain graphics files for those items. Many of these graphics might be free-form, hand-drawn representations by the instructor that would then be scanned into digital format.
PowerPoint Presentations. This option once again utilizes text, but a well-constructed PowerPoint presentation will provide highlights of the material in a visually pleasing manner and may help guide the student through the required lectures and readings.
Helper Applications. This option would make available any software (generally freeware) that would allow students to access other information placed on the CD ROM, e.g., an audio player for digitized audio or a graphics viewer for graphics files.
Reading Guides. This option was presented earlier, but it is important to consider that the CD ROM could store these guides in a variety of formats - text, audio, or video - for retrieval.
Index. Like the index of a reference book, a CD ROM index, perhaps provided as both text and audio or even as hypertext, would enable an individual to find the needed resources on the CD ROM better.

This list is not meant to convey every option of what could be placed on a CD ROM, but rather to provide a starting point. Other students as well might appreciate the variety that such materials would lend to a text-laden Web-based course, much as students who participate in lecture-based courses consistently appreciate the introduction of Web-based materials. Not factoring in faculty time, and assuming that the equipment for writing a CD ROM is available, each writeable CD costs about $8. I would suggest that the department/university pick up the cost of the CD ROM for the learning-disabled student as part of its responsibility of making courses accessible. This suggestions assumes that the student has been tested and has registered for services with the appropriate university office. All other students wanting the companion CD ROM could be offered the option of purchasing it at cost. No material essential to completion of the course is included on the CD ROM, only material that provides information supplemental to course content or presents course content in a different format.

Implications for Course Planning

The option or combination of options an instructor selects will determine the amount of advance planning required. If a companion CD ROM is to be developed, that work obviously must be completed well before the first day of class. In contrast, voice email can be implemented when a need arises. However, it is critical that the instructor consider what option(s) a learning-disabled student who enrolls in a distance education course might prefer. By considering - and, preferably, testing - the various options, the instructor can assess his or her own comfort level with them and can better advise and negotiate with a learning-disabled student.

None of the options presented above are mutually exclusive, nor do they comprise an exhaustive list. What they do represent are some options that can be presented to students in order for the instructor and student together to devise a plan of action to make the Web-based course as accessible as possible. Additionally, even though this paper was written in terms of providing assistance to students with reading and writing disabilities, the strategies presented here could be adopted and modified to assist a variety of students participating in Web-based courses, such as non-native English speakers. It is important to remember that one of the purposes and benefits of Web-based instruction is to make education accessible to a greater variety of students and populations. Therefore, when designing a course that will be delivered over the Internet, keep in mind the importance of planning in advance and considering the needs of students who have learning disabilities.

References

Gilbert, K. (1997). Teaching on the Internet: The world wide web as a course delivery system. In N. Millichap (Ed.), Beginnings: Initial Experiences in Teaching via Distance Education. Indiana Partnership for Statewide Education (IPSE).

HEATH Resource Center (1987). Learning disabled adults in postsecondary education. In LD On-line. [On-line]. Available: http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/postsecondary/ahead_guidelines.html.

Reamer, A. (1997). Transition to college. In LD On-line. [On-line]. Available: http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/postsecondary/reamer_trans.html.

Powers, S.M. (1997). Designing an interactive course for the Internet. Contemporary Education, 68(3), 194-196.

Powers, S.M. & Dutt-Doner, K.M. (1998). Replacing the tin can: creating an effective electronic communication environment. In S. McNeil, J.D. Price, S. Boger-Mehall, B. Robin, & J. Willis (Eds.) Technology and Teacher Education Annual [CD ROM]