Learning Center

Revolutionizing Children's Literature: Imagination Storybooks Merges into DCMP to Enhance Accessibility for Children with Disabilities

Denver, CO, November 15 - In a landmark initiative set to launch on December 1st, Imagination Storybooks, previously known as Imagination Videobooks, is becoming "Imagination Storybooks by DCMP," heralding a new era of inclusivity in children's literature.

Interactive Transcripts for Captions and Description

DCMP videos include transcripts of the caption and description files. Interactive Transcripts scroll "live" as the video plays, with words highlighted in yellow as they are captioned or spoken so that students can follow along. Interactive Transcripts are accessible by screen readers.

Summer Reading With Accessible Videos

Develop a summer reading program for all ages using DCMP's accessible videos! Captions, audio description, and ASL can help improve literacy and comprehension skills for all ages, and you can always expect high quality with DCMP's videos. At home, turn on the captions and every viewing experience will become a learning opportunity.

Watch Any Good Books Lately?

Do you utilize captions and description when you watch videos in class or at home? If not, you're missing out on a great way to get your students interested in reading and learning. Reading captions and listening to description build literacy and boost learning for everyone!

Captions in the Classroom: A Hidden Literacy Tool

Education manager and Itinerant Teacher of the Deaf, Anne McGrath (Media Access Australia, 2013), talks through key pieces of research which identify the link between captions and literacy. Videos and multimedia are being used more and more in the classroom – a trend the new Australian curriculum certainly encourages. Using video not only allows for variety and engagement, but for a real benefit for students' literacy: captions. Similar to foreign language subtitles, captions are the text version of audio, including speech, sounds, and music. Captions are essential for students who are deaf or hearing impaired and also have immense benefits for students learning an additional language, struggling readers, and visual learners.

Captioned Media: Literacy Support for Diverse Learners

Captioned or subtitled media is a great tool for teachers looking to differentiate classroom instruction—research has shown that ELLs, students with learning disabilities, and students who struggle academically may all benefit from following along with captions while watching a classroom video. Learn more about the benefits of captioned media and additional resources for captioned material from this article that appears on the Reading Rockets website.

Audio Description: The Visual Made Verbal

Joel Snyder tells us that Audio Description (AD) provides a verbal version of the visual for the benefit of people who are blind or have low vision. Succinct descriptions precisely timed to occur only during the pauses in dialogue or significant sound elements of performing arts or in media allow persons with vision impairments to have greater access to the images integral to a given work of art. Mr. Snyder provides a brief summary of the history of description and then overviews how creating description is an art, the venues for description, skills required of a professional describer, and why description is important to literacy.

Listening is Learning: Audio Description Aids Literacy

Years ago, my wife, Esther Geiger, was driving some children to a drama class, and the kids were chattering excitedly about the movie "Toys." It takes place in a toy factory, and the film is filled with colorful images and movement gags—but not a lot of dialogue. One child in the car, who was blind, said, "Oh, I saw that. It was the most boring movie I've ever been to!" Indeed, this was well before the advent of audio description for film.

Children's Literature Featuring Characters Who are Blind or Have Low Vision: Annotated Bibliography

Approximately 50 book titles compiled by Mary Ann Siller. A reading motivation for students who are blind or visually impaired is to introduce them to books with visually impaired characters. The forty-eight titles in this bibliography compiled by Mary Ann Siller include stories about Ronald who has an array of humorous mishaps until he gets this glasses (Watch Out Ronald Morgan!), an emperor's daughter who is blind (The Seeing Stick), Brian who is blind and learns to take care of his new parakeet (Brian's Bird), and many more.

Reading Out of the "Idiot Box": Same Language Subtitling on Television in India

Read Captions Across America

The National Education Association (NEA) annually sponsors an event called Read Across America. Originally created as a one-day celebration of reading on March 2, Dr. Seuss's birthday, the activity has grown into a nationwide initiative that promotes reading every day of the year. The result has been a focus of the country's attention on how important it is to motivate children to read, in addition to helping them master basic skills.

Introducing Captioned Media In The Early Years

In the March 2008 issue of the Clarke School's "Mainstream News," Information Outreach Specialist Melissa Griswold makes the case for captions in the classroom. In encouraging teachers to adopt captioned media early and often in their students' academic careers, Melissa references the varied and proven literacy benefits of captioning, directs readers to programs such as the DCMP, and includes useful tips for teachers and parents. (Reprinted with permission.)

Educators Flocking to Finland, Land of Literate Children

Imagine an educational system where children do not start school until they are seven, where spending is a paltry $5,000 a year per student, where there are no gifted programs, and class sizes often approach 30. A prescription for failure, no doubt, in the eyes of many experts, but in this case, a description of Finnish schools that were ranked the world's best in 2003. Finland topped a respected international survey, coming in first in literacy and placing in the top five in math and science. How did Finland, which was hobbled by a deep recession in the 1990s, manage to outscore 31 other countries, including the United States? Read this article to learn the answer. One factor listed: "Children grow up watching television shows and movies (many in English) with subtitles. So they read while they watch TV." By Lizette Alvarez, April 9, 2004, The New York Times.

The CMP Captions Videos for the SignWriting Literacy Project

[Editor's note: This article was written in 2004 and has since been archived. Some of the information contained therein may be outdated. The CMP is now the DCMP.]