High-Tech Helps Kids With Reading Disabilities

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Kids who can't read traditional books fall behind from the first day of school. Those with disabilities often must wait months for audio-books or a school employee to scan texts or convert them to digital files to be read aloud by the right software.

Inspired by Napster, the music-sharing service, Bookshare, a non-profit underwritten by the U.S. Department of Education, provides free electronic copies of books to students with disabilities, turning them into a format that can be read aloud by computers, magnified and spaced differently for those with learning problems.

The company has agreements with 160 publishers and can print an electronic version as soon as it's published with 125,000 titles for students to download.

Three and a half years ago Brewster Central district in New York started using Bookshare and teachers claim that those who found reading a chore now want to read on their own.

Read more about Bookshare, a way to "save" readers in Education Week.

Reported By Dr. Marciene Mattleman, KYW Newsradio