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Braille Trail Reader LE—Starting the Journey to Braille Literacy

PRE-ORDER YOUR BRAILLE TRAIL READER LE TODAY!

“Braille is necessary for literacy, and is the gateway to independence and employment.” – Dr. Craig Meador, APH President.

American Printing House is excited to be adding the Braille Trail Reader LE to its family of refreshable braille displays. This new device is a special, limited edition of HumanWare’s Brailliant BI 14 for teachers and students. The Braille Trail Reader will come with an exclusive file transferring application, making it easy for teachers, parents, or students to load and transfer files to and from the Reader and any Windows device.

The Braille Trail Reader is loaded with features to start students on their path to literacy by providing them with high-quality refreshable braille necessary to prepare them for for the more advanced refreshable braille displays they can expect to use later in life:

  • Cursor routers make for easily editing in the notes app, or opening apps when used with a screen reader.
  • Silent and almost instantaneous refresh rate.
  • 8GB of internal memory to store books, notes, etc.
  • Padded carrying case.
  • Vibration feedback and / or auditory cues.
  • Thumb key navigation so your hands never have to come off the braille display.
  • Clock and stopwatch.

AVAILABLE ON QUOTA! APH is now taking pre-orders for the Braille Trail Reader LE!Visit shop.aph.org to pre-order now and ensure you get your Reader as soon as they are available in mid-April! The Braille Trail Reader LE is only available through the end of 2019.

Shop Braille Trail Reader LE

Product Updates

  • NEW! Place Value Setter

    Place Value Setter is a fun, hands-on way for early elementary school students to learn about, and develop, a firm understanding of the basic math concept, place value, and then connect that knowledge with written representations. With its refreshable and concrete display, Place Value Setter gives students, as well as their teachers, a prompt way to represent numbers using written digits.

    Shop Place Value Setter

  • NEW! Early Braille Trade Books: Rigby Nonfiction Kit

    Finding the right book for students is now easier! APH’s Early Braille Trade Books combine commercially available books with braille labels for beginning readers. These kits include books, braille labels, and access to an interactive website: tech.aph.org/ebt/Opens a new window. Rigby Literacy has consistently been recognized for quality and research-based reading materials. The Rigby series provides nonfiction books that are aligned with national standards and provide motivating texts that systematically build high-frequency words and reading skills.

    Rigby Nonfiction Kit #1 includes the following books: Animals on my Street, Frogs in the Pond, My Big Tree, Our Dog, Our Pets, and Puddles. Rigby Nonfiction Kit #2 includes the following books: Animal Bodies, Animals on our Farm, Mothers and Babies, and Our Fish.

    Shop Early Braille Trade Books

  • NEW! VIPS Every Child Can Expanded Core Curriculum Videos (English and Spanish)

    This video offers a preschool-level perspective on the Expanded Core Curriculum for Students Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired (ECC). The ECC addresses nine critical skill areas these students must learn in order to find success in school and in life. The objective of the video is to demystify the ECC for parents of young children who are visually impaired and for their general education teachers who may have limited expertise and experience teaching children with vision loss. The video also encourages parents and professionals to advocate for use of the ECC and to implement it at home, in the classroom, and in the community.

    * Not available for purchase with quota funds.

    Shop VIPS Every Child Can!

  • UPDATED! Lighting Guide Kit—Now Enhanced with LED Bulb

    The Lighting Guide Kit includes the Better Vision Lamp, now enhanced with a 2700K LED bulb and two-level brightness, and a large print booklet, LEDs. This lamp is ideal for providing task lighting in the classroom or at home for students, adults, and seniors with low vision.

    Also included in the Kit is LEDs, a booklet that gives teachers, administrators, parents and practitioners the information needed to properly select lighting that best contributes to their students’ productivity and comfort. This short, easy-to-read book presents information, based upon latest research, about light and its physical properties, as well as how to decide what kind of light is best for a given student or situation.

    Shop Lighting Guide Kit

  • Important Customer Service Announcement

    Building on Patterns Second Grade: Unit 5 Worksheets Pack (6-78574-U5)
    Building on Patterns Second Grade: Unit 5 Student Kit (6-78570-U5)

    Some of the sets of the Game Cards for Lessons 24-–28 for BOP Second Grade, Unit 5, sold as part of the Worksheets Pack and the BOP Second Grade, Unit 5, Student Kit are not in Unified English Braille (UEB).

    We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may cause. if you need replacements for the Game Cards, Please contact Customer Service at: info@aph.org or 800-223-1839.

Code Jumper Continues to Gain Interest

Code Jumper, the accessible coding tool that was originally developed by Microsoft Research and will be distributed by APH, is continuing to gain fans around the world.

Most recently, the APH team demonstrated Code Jumper at CSUN, giving EOTs and other education professionals a chance to get hands on with this revolutionary educational product. Code Jumper combines a hub, with a system of pods and other connectors, to create sounds, play songs, or tell stories, all while teaching children the basics of coding. It was the brainchild of Cecily Morrison, a Microsoft researcher. When Cecily’s son was born blind, she realized the learning gaps he would face, and set about to develop a physical programming language which would him to fully participate in computer coding lessons. When speaking about Code Jumper and its impact on students who are blind or visually impaired, Morrison said, “Their world is very abstract, and it makes them very open and understanding of the abstract ways that computers work.” Code Jumper also provides these students with a potential path to becoming software engineers and computer scientists.

APH anticipates having Code Jumper on sale prior to the start of the 2019-2020 school year.

To view recent media coverage about Code Jumper please visit CNETOpens a new window or the Memphis Public Radio Eye on Vision blogOpens a new window.

Learn More About Code Jumper

Events

  • APH Spring Fever Sale

    Load up a world of savings on selected APH products with APH’s Spring Fever Sale 2019, April 1—June 30. As always, first come, first served.

  • APH Travel Calendar

    APH representatives will be at the following conferences this month:

    AOTA
    April 4-7: New Orleans, LA

    POSB Math and Science Institute
    April 8-10: St. Louis, MO

    National Conference on Science and Education (NCSE)
    April 11-14: St. Louis, MO

    CTEBVI
    April 11-14: Burlingame, CA

    American Society on Aging
    April 15-18: New Orleans, LA

STEM Corner

Talking LabQuest 2 – Increasing Laboratory Science Accessibility

Check out the Sci-Voice Talking LabQuest 2, a device adapted for students with vision and print disabilities, made by Vernier and distributed by Independence Science. Just out, this updated version has many new features including:

  • Wireless connectivity & faster data collection
  • Graph sonification
  • High contrast feature for low vision users
  • Robust scientific resources feature (e.g., Newton’s Laws of motion, solubility rules)
  • Compatible with Bluetooth connected Vernier sensors
  • Periodic table that speaks 20 characteristics of each element
  • USB connector kit for Ohaus scientific balance
  • And much more!

This device is sold as a kit which includes the Sci-Voice Talking LabQuest 2, a USB keyboard, and three Vernier sensors (temperature, voltage, and light). If you own an older version of the Talking LabQuest, Independence Science will upgrade your device for a reasonable fee. Independence Science representatives are available for remote or on-site product demonstration and consultation services geared toward making science laboratories accessible to students with vision impairments.

Visit Independence Science

Treasures from the APH Libraries

  • From the Migel Library

    Use the largest accessible collection of online materials on non-medical aspects of blindness in the world! The resources of the APH Migel Library at the American Printing House for the Blind are just a click away at http://migel.aph.orgOpens a new window! Browse through 8,000 titles that have been digitized and made freely available in accessible formats at Internet ArchiveOpens a new window, where new titles are being added regularly.

    Nearly 1,800 in-copyright items from the APH Migel Collection are available for digital check-out from Open LibraryOpens a new window. These items can be borrowed for two weeks with a free Open Library digital library card account. Books can be viewed in your browser or downloaded in PDF or ePub format with Adobe Digital Editions. Up to five books may be checked out at a time. Each loan will expire after two weeks and be removed from your device. To create an Open Library digital library card account, click the “sign up” link at the top right corner of https://openlibrary.org. Once registered, click “log in” at the top right corner of any page to enter your username and password.

    Internet Archive also provides special access to one million textbooks and research publications that are available only to print disabled users through their Print Disabled CollectionOpens a new window. Verify your eligibility to access the print disabled collection by contacting Librarian Justin Gardner at jgardner@aph.org. Users who are already members at BookshareOpens a new window, the National Library Service (NLS)Opens a new window, and Ontario Universities’ Scholar’s ACE PortalOpens a new window can directly register for disability access at Internet ArchiveOpens a new window.

    The Louisville Slugger Museum has published a guest blog postOpens a new window by Librarian Justin Gardner about the history of adapted baseball. During research conducted for the article, it was discovered that the first documented game of adapted baseball was played next-door to APH in 1894 by students at the “Kentucky Institute for the Blind.” The APH Museum and KSB will revisit that game on its 125thanniversary through “The Old Ball Game.” Students from KSB will demonstrate a game of Beepball on Saturday, April 27th from 1-3 pm.

  • From the Barr Library

    Rubery, M. (2016). The Untold Story of the Talking Book. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Partially researched with the help of APH, Matthew Rubery’s The Untold Story of the Talking Book sheds light on the 150 year history of talking books, from Edison’s 1877 recitation of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” through spoken novels produced for blinded World War I veterans, to the billion-dollar audiobook industry of today. While at times dense, a testament to both the complex and at times serendipitous evolution of the medium, Rubery artfully balances both the technological and social history of spoken books, recounting the conflicts, controversies, and the debates between written and spoken texts and what defines a reader.

    Rubery retraces arguments over book and material selections, the portrayal of class and ethnicity, and whether some topics were to be purposefully avoid for particular audiences, such as the blind and veterans. Underlining the book’s historical narration, The Untold Story of the Talking Book challenges the reader to consider what reading really means, in both its literal and figurative contexts, and concludes that spoken books have become a distinctively modern art form within the literary tree whose social impact has and will remain profound and influential.