Children With Disabilities

Enhancing literacy learning for children with disabilities.

UNESCO estimates more than 93 million children globally have a disability. Of those children with disabilities who reside in countries with high poverty levels, at least 90 percent do not attend school in any form, and fewer girls with disabilities attend school than boys.

Education systems often do not accommodate these children’s needs. A lack of suitable transportation and infrastructure, inadequate teacher training, insufficient learning support, or a dearth of quality learning resources prevent children with disabilities from attending or fully participating in school.

ACR GCD identifies and brings to scale the most promising edtech solutions for addressing barriers that prevent children with disabilities from learning to read. These efforts have significantly increased the amount of books and teaching materials available to children with disabilities, particularly in low-resource contexts.

Here are several examples of solutions for children with disabilities — access more below:

• Deaf World Around You (WAY): Developed with funding awarded by ACR GCD, the WAY platform includes an online library providing accessible storybooks about different topics in local and national sign languages focused on increasing sign language vocabulary and fluency as a foundation to written literacy skill acquisition.
• Adapted reading assessments in braille and sign language: Early Grade Reading Assessments (EGRAs) are a globally recognized standard for measuring foundational skills for literacy acquisition. ACR GCD innovators, along with monitoring and evaluation specialists from School-to School International, conducted several of the first EGRA adaptions for children with disabilities.

Learn about current projects we have focusing on EdTech solutions and strategies to increase literacy for children with disabilities, including Project TREE, Yumi Read Together and Project LEARN. Learn more about our partnerships to build capacity and sustainability in blind and deaf communities around the world.