I’ve updated Tar Heel Reader with several changes.
The most important new feature is the new Favorites page. You can make a switch-accessible collection of your reader’s favorite books for independent reading. Simply click the tiny green + in the upper right corner of a book on the Find A Book To Read page. The + will disappear to let you know you have added that book to your Favorites. Add up to 8 books to your favorites. Then go to the Favorites page. You’ll see your selections listed along the top of the page.
Using the Mover key (space, right arrow, down arrow, page down, or N) you can move from book to book. Using Chooser key (backspace, left arrow, up arrow, page up, or P) you can read a book. When reading a book, the Mover goes forward one page and the Chooser goes back one page. On the first page of a book the Chooser goes back to the Favorites. In this way your reader can choose a book, read it, and then return to choose another.
If you enable speech on the Favorites page the book titles will be read as you move from book to book. You can control the page and text colors from the Favorites page as well.
If you set up the Favorites page the way your reader likes it and then bookmark that page (Control-D in many browsers), when you return to that bookmark, the page will be just the same. You can share the Favorites page with others by emailing the link. You can save as many different bookmarks as you need, one for each student for example.
I’ve made several other small changes in hopes of improving the site.. The heading is smaller when reading a book and on the Favorites page, I wanted to make as much space for the picture and the text as possible. The navigation symbols should be positioned a little better. Search will find author names, tags, and just about anything else now.
As always, please tell me if you see problems with the site.