ReadSpeaker Plus Accessibility Checkers Equals The Optimal Student Experience

If you’re an educator you know how important it is to make sure everyone in your class can understand and benefit from the written materials you create and share online. If visual impairments, neurodivergence, or dyslexia makes it difficult for someone to digest your content, they won’t get much value out of your work, and you’ll have a serious communication gap to close.

That’s where ReadSpeaker for Education and accessibility checkers come in.

With a combination of these two technologies, your work can reach all your students and provide maximum value.

Read on to find out how this winning combination works.

ReadSpeaker for Education And Accessibility Checkers: A Symbiotic Relationship For Educators

What is an accessibility checker?

An accessibility checker is a software tool that checks online content—whether it appears on a particular web page or inside a document—to determine if it meets current accessibility standards.

You can use an accessibility checker before you publish your work to spot potential problem areas and make changes. As a result, visually impaired students will have an easier time navigating and understanding the content.

Some popular accessibility checkers you may have heard of include Brickfield, Yuja Panorama, and Anthology Ally, but there are plenty of other options within and outside of the educational space.

What do accessibility checkers look for?

A typical accessibility checker will look at images in your document or web page to make sure each has descriptive alt text that a screen reader or a text-to-speech (TTS) platform like ReadSpeaker can speak aloud. Without alt text to describe an image, a TTS program will skip right over it. This means any important diagrams, charts, graphs, math equations, and infographics will be missed entirely.

An accessibility checker will also determine if headers are descriptive and well-placed, so that users listening to content read aloud by a TTS program can visualize the format of the document. Imagine you’re listening to a nonfiction book on tape, but the audio version doesn’t mention the chapter names and the headings don’t help you figure out what’s going on. You’d have a hard time deriving much value from that audiobook!

Depending on the program you choose, an accessibility checker may also look for other problem areas. It can alert you if your eBook or document defaults to a small font size that might be a problem for visually impaired readers, for example. It might also let you know if the colors you have chosen don’t contrast well enough to be distinguishable for people with colorblindness or other visual disabilities.

The best software doesn’t just check for trouble spots where visual disabilities are concerned. Users with other disabilities—cognitive, neurological, physical, auditory, and more—will also benefit from widespread use of accessibility checkers, as these software programs can help point out areas that might be difficult for them to understand in text or audio files.

Finally, an accessibility checker will ensure that your digital content is compliant with current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These accessibility standards get updated from time to time (WCAG 2.2 is the current version as of July 2024), so if compliance is a concern for you, a regular check with the accessibility software of your choice will make sure your work is up-to-date with the current protocols.

What can ReadSpeaker do for educators and students?

ReadSpeaker is a way to take accessibility and place it in the hands of your students. It is a text-to-speech (TTS) engine that allows your learners to listen to the content you produce spoken aloud by clear, high-quality voices. Whereas accessibility checkers can provide a better visual experience for your users by checking for adequate font size, color contrast, and headers, ReadSpeaker adds a whole new dimension of audio assistance.

With the additional learning tools ReadSpeaker provides—such as highlighting, a customizable pronunciation dictionary, page masks, variable reading speed, and a variety of other features—working on lessons and homework can be just as easy for your disabled students as it is for anyone else.

ReadSpeaker works alongside accessibility checkers to provide a great learner experience.

We wholeheartedly recommend content producers use accessibility checkers whenever publishing content online. ReadSpeaker provides a seamless listening experience across multiple learning platforms and offers several customization options that close the gaps that automated accessibility checkers can miss.

ReadSpeaker is complementary to accessibility checkers, and vice versa. Each works better because of the other. Using both together is an easy way to make sure the content you publish can be enjoyed by learners of all abilities.

Even if you write your work while keeping students with disabilities and learning challenges in mind, chances are you’ll miss some accessibility issues. It could be a header with the wrong formatting, an image lacking alt text, or something else entirely—but eventually, you’ll overlook something crucial that could prevent students from clearly hearing or understanding your work. Accessibility checkers take just a few moments to run, and their assessments catch these important details so you don’t miss anything.

Some learning management systems offer accessibility bundles so you can have everything you need in one package as you create your lessons. D2L, for example, combines ReadSpeaker with Yuja Panorama for a comprehensive accessibility approach.

Make sure your students get the most out of your content with ReadSpeaker.

With ReadSpeaker, your students can learn online, in offline documents, and even on their phones. We’re here for them whenever and wherever they need audio assistance.