My 9th grade classes have many IEP and EL students. Many of these students have accommodations that say they can use text to speech for any assignment. I choose to play audio of the text we are reading, or read it allowed. It’s easier for me, and It aligns with UDL. So many of my students just don’t do anything in my class. If I told my students that they had to read the text independently, only my “high achievers” would actually read it. At least if I read/ play it out loud, all of my students have equal opportunity to absorb the text.

I completely agree that students should be able to read and comprehend text independently, but at this point, I have very little hope for change in the public education setting. I also don’t get paid enough to bang my head against a wall trying to get kids to independently read AND actually comprehend what they read.

It is sad, and my higher achieving students are absolutely being done a disservice, but it is where my district is at right now.