How Blind and Low-Vision Students Use Screen Readers and Braille Displays

Picture a 9th grader opening a biology worksheet. A sighted classmate glances at the diagram and the 5 questions below it. A blind student hears “image” and nothing else, because the worksheet is a scanned photo. Same assignment, completely different experience.

Blind and low-vision students use powerful technology: software that reads every element on a screen aloud, magnifiers that enlarge text many times over, and devices that turn digital text into braille under their fingertips. But that technology can only work with what it is given. Whether a student can do the worksheet depends as much on how the material was made as on the device.

This guide explains the main tool types, how students use them day to day, and what teachers and parents can do to make materials compatible.

The 3 main types of assistive technology for vision

Most students use a combination, depending on how much usable vision they have and the task in front of them.

How screen readers work

A screen reader does not “see” the screen. It reads the underlying structure that apps and web pages expose: text, headings, links, buttons, form labels, table cells and image descriptions. It then speaks that information through synthetic speech, sends it to a braille display, or both.

Experienced users rarely listen from top to bottom. They navigate by structure using keyboard commands or touch gestures. A student might press a key to jump from heading to heading, pull up a list of all links, or move through a table cell by cell while hearing the column header. Many set speech rates far faster than normal conversation.

That is why structure matters so much. If a document uses bold text instead of real headings, there is nothing to jump to. If a link says “click here,” a list of links is useless. If an image has no alt text, the screen reader can only say “image” or read the file name.

Some screen readers are free and built in. NVDA, made by the charity NV Access, is free for Windows and supports many refreshable braille displays. VoiceOver comes with Apple devices, TalkBack with most Android phones, and ChromeVox with Chromebooks. JAWS is a widely used paid option for Windows. Schools often teach more than 1, since students meet different devices at home, school and work.

How magnifiers and low-vision settings help

Many students with low vision read print and screens, just not at standard size. Magnifiers let them:

• Zoom the whole screen or use a lens that follows the mouse
• Invert colors or apply high-contrast themes to reduce glare
• Enlarge and recolor the mouse pointer and text cursor
• Have the magnified view follow keyboard focus so they do not lose their place

Built-in options on Windows, Mac, Chromebooks, iPhone and Android cover a lot. For long reading, many low-vision students combine magnification with text-to-speech to reduce eye strain.

Magnification exposes a different set of problems. Text baked into an image becomes blurry when enlarged. Pages that do not reflow force constant sideways scrolling. Low-contrast gray text can become unreadable. This is the reason accessibility standards require text that can be resized and content that reflows on narrow screens.

How braille displays work

A refreshable braille display sits below or beside a keyboard, or connects by Bluetooth to a phone or laptop. Each cell has small pins that rise and fall to form braille characters. As the student moves through a document, the line of braille refreshes. Many displays also have braille keys, so the student can type in braille.

Braille matters for literacy, not just access. Listening is fast, but braille lets a student check spelling, punctuation and formatting, which is hard by ear alone. For math and science, braille shows the layout of an equation in a way speech often cannot.

In the US, the Braille Authority of North America adopted Unified English Braille (UEB), with January 4, 2016 set as the implementation date. The Nemeth Code remains an official code for math and science, and the choice between UEB and Nemeth for technical material depends on each reader’s needs.

Key takeaway: A screen reader or braille display is only as good as the material behind it. Real text, real headings, alt text and properly tagged documents make the difference between full participation and constant workarounds.

What makes school materials work with these tools

Here is a short checklist teachers and course designers can use:

• Real text, not images of text. Scanned worksheets and screenshots are pictures. Use the digital original or a text-based version.
• Heading styles from the menu in Docs, Word or your LMS, so students can navigate by section.
• Alt text for meaningful images, written to explain the point of the image. For complex diagrams, add a longer description or a data table.
• Descriptive link text that makes sense on its own.
• Tables with header rows, used for data rather than layout.
• Accessible PDFs that are tagged and checked, or an HTML version of the same content.
• Math in an accessible format such as MathML or the equation editor in your platform, not equation images.
• Keyboard-operable activities. Drag-and-drop exercises and some quiz tools fail for screen reader users.
• Tactile graphics for maps, diagrams and graphs where a description is not enough. Teachers of students with visual impairments (TVIs) can help produce these.
• Verbal descriptions in class. Say what is on the board instead of “this one over here.”

Our checklist for making online course materials accessible goes deeper on captions, PDFs and the ADA Title II web rule. Developers can use our WCAG 2.2 accessibility checklist.

What the law and federal programs provide

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the IEP team for a child who is blind or visually impaired must provide for instruction in braille and the use of braille unless, after evaluating the child’s reading and writing skills, needs and future needs, the team decides braille is not appropriate (34 CFR 300.324(a)(2)(iii)). IEP teams must also consider every child’s need for assistive technology. Our guide on how to request assistive technology in an IEP explains the process.

Several programs help schools get accessible materials:

• NIMAS and NIMAC. The National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard is a file format publishers use for textbooks, and the National Instructional Materials Access Center at the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) stores those files. Authorized users convert them into braille, large print, audio or digital text. Students who need accessible formats should get them at the same time classmates get their books.
• APH Federal Quota program. Dating to an 1879 act of Congress, this program funds educational materials from APH for eligible students who meet the definition of blindness and are working below college level. Each state has an Ex Officio Trustee who manages its account.
• Bookshare. An accessible ebook library funded by the US Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, free for qualified US students with a reading barrier such as a visual impairment.

Rules and eligibility vary by state. This is general information, not legal advice. Your state’s school for the blind, vision services program or APH Trustee can explain local details.

Where to start for parents and teachers

1. Ask for a functional vision assessment and a learning media assessment. These help the IEP team decide between print, large print, braille, audio or a mix.
2. Involve a TVI and, if available, an assistive technology specialist to recommend and train on tools.
3. Start with built-in screen readers and magnifiers on the devices the student already uses.
4. Plan for braille instruction early if it is recommended, since braille literacy takes time to build.
5. Audit the course materials for scanned PDFs, image-only worksheets and missing alt text.
6. Make sure training covers teachers too, not only the student.
7. Check home and school compatibility, so the student can do homework with the same tools.

Students with other reading barriers use some of the same tools. See assistive technology for dyslexia and our guide on how students use speech-to-text and dictation.

Conclusion

Screen readers, magnifiers and refreshable braille displays give blind and low-vision students full access to reading, writing and research. But they depend on accessible materials: real text, real structure, good descriptions and keyboard-friendly activities. Get the tools right through the IEP, get the materials right in every class, and these students can keep pace with everyone else.

Sources

• eCFR via Cornell LII: 34 CFR 300.324, Development of the IEP — braille consideration for blind or visually impaired children and assistive technology consideration
• NV Access: About NVDA — NVDA is free, runs on Windows and supports refreshable braille displays
• Braille Authority of North America: UEB implementation date — January 4, 2016 US implementation of Unified English Braille
• American Printing House for the Blind: About Federal Quota — 1879 act, eligibility and state Trustees
• Bookshare: US student brochure — free for qualified US students through OSEP funding