Step 1 toward equitable access to Bookshare: uncover possible cases of dyslexia among students in need.  One way to reduce the burden on schools and families is to offer free online screenings to identify cases of dyslexia and other reading barriers.

• Access to online screenings children can do at home, at a library or at a community after school program.
• Partner with families and educators to prioritize students struggling to learn to read
• App-based screener takes about one hour and is easy to access on any computer, smartphone or tablet
• Reduces burden of time-intensive and costly evaluations to low-income families and schools
• Screening process generates rapid, personalized results and analysis

Together we can put all youth on the path to getting the services they deserve.

Bookshare is a free ebook library available to all students in the U.S. who qualify due to literacy-related and print disabilities. You are invited to join a public-private effort to ensure equitable access to Bookshare literacy resources for all eligible students, regardless of their zip code. With support from the U.S. Department of Education, you can be part of a growing coalition of:

• public school educators
• parents
• community leaders
• philanthropists
• local employers
• charter school leaders
• nonprofits
• librarians
• education technologists

The initiative will invest in impacted communities and youth by providing world-class literacy tools, trainings and unlimited free ebooks to students with reading barriers in disadvantaged urban and rural areas.  Among the strategic investments:

1. Free, early online screening to identify individual cases of dyslexia and other literacy-based disabilities.
2. Free Bookshare accounts for schools and qualifying students to improve youth reading, learning, sense of belonging and self-esteem.
3. Jobs for retired special education teachers to train educators, advise school districts, and coach parents on supporting and advocating for their students.
4. Training and internships in literacy outreach activities for current HBCU students and recent HBCU grads.
5. Empowering local literacy-focused efforts by schools and nonprofits.
6. Celebrating community literacy and centering local youth and family voices.

Skilled reading uplifts a young person’s self-esteem, helps them stay on track to complete their education, and reduces the risk of school suspensions, dropping out, or getting caught in the criminal justice system.

Research by Dr. Shawn Robinson, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate in Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a member of the Benetech Advisory Council, reveals the importance of culturally relevant literature in motivating African American boys with reading disabilities.

While the need to read is urgent and growing, the facts are sobering:

• More than 79% of Black/African American and more than 77% of Hispanic/Latinx public school 4th and 8th graders are reading below grade level. (Source: Children’s Defense Fund.)
• 1 in 5 students may have an undiagnosed learning disability, of which dyslexia is the most common. (Source: National Center for Learning Disabilities.)
• As many as 50% of incarcerated individuals have dyslexia. (Source: Texas Study by Moody et al (Cited by Senator Bill Cassidy in First Step Act to Reduce Recidivism.)
• The pandemic has hurt low-income students and students with disabilities the most. (Source: The Black Education Research Collective at Teachers College, Columbia University.)

We’d like to hear from you. How have inequities in schooling or learning resources impacted your life? Do you have lived experiences you’d like to share? Help us center the voices of youth and families.  Share your story so that the whole community can learn and be heard.

My students who have dyslexia or specific learning disabilities have the desire to read. They want to experience engaging, grade-level books, but they struggle so much and just give up. In 2016, Mystie Rail, Executive Director of Assistive Technology of Alaska showed us how to read Bookshare books on an iPad […] A couple of kids latched on right away, and I immediately saw the benefits of assistive technology.

One student went from reading only graphic novels to reading chapter books from Bookshare that were over 500 pages long. Her reading scores skyrocketed and she ended up being the valedictorian of her graduating class.

Once students started having success with reading, they requested tons of Bookshare books and it just took off. The pre-made reading lists are a huge timesaver, and Bookshare also has the textbooks the students need. One of the best aspects of Bookshare is that you can download books while you have internet access, and then read offline at home. This feature has been a huge part of improving instruction during the pandemic.

– Ben Griese, Special Education Teacher in New Stuyahok, Alaska

A few years ago I did an AT consultation with a special education teacher for a fourth-grade student who had just arrived from Jamaica. Her IEP indicated that she had a learning disability in reading. She spoke English, but her reading level was first grade. Her resource room teacher began working on improving her reading skills, but realized that she needed a different way of accessing reading material if she was to become a part of her regular class. Knowing she had no gaps in her comprehension, it was crucial to give her an access point for reading on grade level. The student tried some digital reading and writing tools, including Bookshare, which she adopted immediately. Using a Chromebook with headphones, she enthusiastically began reading, and within a few weeks she was participating in discussions, small group activities, and homework as an equal with her peers.

– Scott Richard, Assistive Technology Specialist at Boston Public Schools

I work with low vision/blind students across the Navajo Reservation. We struggle with poor or no internet during this “virtual learning only” school year. Thanks to Bookshare, my students can still access books for leisure reading and textbooks when necessary. COVID lockdown is a great time to get “into” reading!

My greatest success with Bookshare has been to ‘turn on’ reluctant readers to the joy of listening to books and discovering favorite authors and types of stories that they prefer. I have two beginning readers in third grade, and they are deeply into superheroes, Minecraft, and Fortnite. I look for books at their level and use them in my lessons and for rewards. If I encounter a student who doesn’t seem to have an interest that I can tap into, I ask the school librarian what the popular books are for that grade level and use that information to select a few books that the student might like.

– Vicki Numkema, Teacher of the Visually Impaired in 4 Corners Area (CO, AZ, NM and UT)

These resources ranging from peer-reviewed academic journals to national and local media coverage spotlight the issues and a range of solutions to close the equity gaps in U.S. education.

• Black Education in the Wake of Covid-19 & Systemic Racism. July 2021 Report of the Black Education Research Collective, Teachers College, Columbia University.
• The State of America’s Children 2021.
• Public Schools Are Failing Black Students With Dyslexia: One Grandmother’s Story
• Understanding the dyslexic drop-out: why students with learning disabilities graduate at a lower rate than their peers. 
• Beyond Suspensions: Examining School Discipline Policies and Connections to the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Students of Color with Disabilities
• Home schooling exploded among Black, Asian and Latino students. But it wasn’t just the pandemic.
• The Pandemic Hurt These Students the Most
• Pandemic and Racial Injustice Cause Outsize Harm to Black Students, Study Finds
• The Voices of African American Male Students with Disabilities Attending Historically Black Universities.  
• Culturally Responsive Representation in Graphic Novels Matter for African American Boys with Reading Disabilities.  
• Motivation and its Relationship to Reading Achievement for Two Middle School African American Males
• Low self-concept in poor readers: prevalence, heterogeneity, and risk.