Icon of a person presenting in front of a slide on a screen
Guide

Students: How to PRESENT a presentation

Does your student know how to give a presentation while listening to a screen reader?

After creating the slide show, the next logical step for students is to present the content of their slide show in front of the class. When delivering slide show presentations, students learn a broadly applicable professional skill – how to speak in front of a group. Students in 21st century classrooms are creating multimedia slide shows as a way to demonstrate and share their knowledge of a particular topic. Early elementary classes are incorporating public speaking into classrooms with initial projects which are very simple – each student creates and reads aloud one or two slides. By middle school, students are researching, writing, and presenting full slide decks. The beauty of using a slide deck during a presentation is that the student uses the slides to guide his/her presentation. An added benefit is that the audience focuses on the slide deck instead of the student presenting which helps the presenter to be more comfortable about speaking in front of the class.

Tips for all student presenters

Additional presentation tips for students who are blind or low vision

Students may be speaking in their familiar classroom (which requires little exploration of the room, route, tech set up, etc.) However, students should also be prepared to speak in unfamiliar environments too! Students may also be presenting a slide deck in a virtual class/meeting and will need to know how to adjust the camera along with the additional app (i.e. Zoom, Google Meets) platform. As part of their course work, students should practice presenting in different environments!

PowerPoint with JAWS commands

Resources

PowerPoint with JAWS video tutorial: APH’s Access Academy has a wonderful video tutorial with Elizabeth Whitaker presenting. While the video tutorial focuses on how to create a PowerPoint Presentation with JAWS, Elizabeth demonstrates the JAWS navigation commands used when presenting. This section starts at 1:16:11.

JAWS with Google Slides: APH’s Access Academy (Video tutorial focuses on how to create a Google Slide and includes how to use JAWS navigation commands when presenting; commands are listed at 1:19:28)

Google Slides Navigation with a Screen Reader (JAWS) video tutorial by Dr. Denise Robinson

Navigating Google Slides with ChromeVox (includes video tutorials)

Tech Standards: Accessing Keynote Presentations with VoiceOver

PowerPoint screen reader navigation commands (Details PowerPoint screen reader commands – select your device (Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and Web)

The Importance of Teaching Presentation Skills to Elementary Students (a blog post from Macaroni Kid website)

Align with National Tech standards

Multimedia and Presentation Tools

Introduce in First Grade, Reinforce in Second Grade and Master in Third Grade:

  1. Create, edit and format text on a slide

Introduce in Second Grade, Reinforce in Third Grade and Master in Fourth Grade:

  1. Create a series of slides and organize them to present research or convey an idea
  2. Use painting and drawing tools/applications to create and edit work

Optional in Second Grade, Introduce in Third Grade, Reinforce in Fourth and Master in Fifth:

  1. Copy and paste or import graphics; change their size and position on a slide

Resource

By Diane Brauner

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