The Need for SupportWhat Your Gift Means to RFB&D's Santa Barbara Unit$ 57 enables RFB&D to produce and circulate a copy of one textbook to a student with a disability$ 75 covers the cost of enrolling one local student as an RFB&D member $ 171 pays for the average number of audio books a student needs for one course $ 275 pays for an adapted playback device and headphones for one low-income student $ 425 provides audio books to 25 local students with disabilities through a school membership $ 600 cover the cost of providing playback software for four school libraries, enabling 100 students with disabilities to have access to RFB&D's audio books $2,096 underwrites the production of one new digital audio book for the RFB&D library Funding Priorities
Our current program priorities
that need your support are described in the links below. RFB&D's Learning Through Listening® Programs for Schools RFB&D's Learning Through Listening®Programs for Individual Students Development and Testing of Alternate
Recording Styles for Students with Learning Disabilities Production of Accessible Educational ResourcesImagine not being able to see these words or to understand what they mean. That challenge faces hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have impaired vision, learning disabilities such as dyslexia or physical disabilities and for whom print is a barrier between them and learning. RFB&D and the Santa Barbara Unit helps to remove this barrier through its production of audio books and other educational materials in a range of academic subject areas and grade levels. Audio book production continues to be a core priority of the Santa Barbara Unit and needs supports from the community.Donors may support this program by "adopting" a text, which covers the production costs of one digital book produced by the Santa Barbara Unit. Donors may also fund the production of a collection of texts in a specific subject area or for a specific school district. Donations to support the productions of new audio books can be acknowledged in the opening and closing announcements of each book, well-suited for memorial and honorary gifts. The cost of supporting one new audio textbook produced by the Santa Barbara Unit is $2,093. RFB&D's Learning Through Listening® Programs for SchoolsA large number of students in the Santa Barbara area are classified as special education students. Some have vision loss, others have learning disabilities and a majority have reading disabilities such as dyslexia. One of the greatest academic struggles for these students is simply keeping up with reading and classroom assignments, because they do not have access to the curriculum that they are required to master at grade level.Many students with learning disabilities have found that using audio books while reading along in the print version of the same book can help. We need to increase our visibility and make sure that all special education students have the help they need. RFB&D Santa Barbara Unit's educational outreach program works in schools throughout the Santa Barbara, Kern and San Luis Obispo counties so that educators can discover the benefits of using RFB&D's recorded texts and literature books and implement audio book programs in their classrooms. Our staff helps schools with program start-up and provides training to teachers and students and ongoing technical assistance to facilitate the use of audio books in a variety of educational settings within a school. Funding of educational outreach is a priority for the Santa Barbara Unit and is especially critical now as we implement digital audio book programs locally. Donations to this program will provide seed support to schools, especially those where school resources are limited. Support includes a one-year membership in RFB&D, which provides access to the master audio library; playback equipment for listening stations at the schools; and training for students, teachers and parents. This support defrays the start-up costs to the schools, which can range from $3,000-$5,000. RFB&D's Learning Through Listening®Programs for Individual StudentsIn conjunction with our school-based outreach and training program, the Santa Barbara Unit provides support to students with disabilities whose family incomes prohibit them from having individual memberships in RFB&D. Although some of these youngsters may use audio books at school, for the most part, they are unable to take the audio books and the playback equipment home. As a result this critical resource is not available to them for completing homework assignments, studying for tests, or even engaging in pleasure reading.Development and Testing of Alternate Recording Styles for Students with Learning DisabilitiesOver the years, the profile of the students using RFB&D's audio books has altered significantly. While we still continue to serve a steadily growing number of students who are blind and visually impaired, the number of consumers with learning disabilities has spiked dramatically.Why We Need You
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Recording for
the Blind & Dyslexic® •
RFB&D® •
National Headquarters • 20 Roszel Road • Princeton, NJ
08540
© 2009 Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, Incorporated. All Rights
Reserved.
Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic®,
RFB&D®, Learning Through Listening®,
the "Heart and Headphones" design, and all trademarks
are owned by Recording
for the Blind & Dyslexic, Incorporated.
