What is a Toobaloo?

Did you know PANDA has a lending library of adaptive equipment available for loan to ABE teachers for students with disabilities? The Toobaloo is an item PANDA will send if a student is having fluency, speech, comprehension or pronunciation challenges.

The Toobaloo has a phone like design that magnifies the student’s voice, allowing them to hear themselves clearly while speaking softly into it. The Toobaloo helps learners by:

• aiding students to and regulate their speech, vocal intensity
  and self-monitor their reading rate, phrasing and expression
• building confidence, motivation and self-esteem in oral reading,
  fluency and comprehension.

The Toobaloo is:

• for all levels of students
• lightweight, portable and inexpensive

Here is what one ABE teacher had to say:

“I would have the student use the Toobaloo to repeat to himself a word that he was trying to spell. Several times, he seemed almost surprised by phonemes he was able to distinguish with this method that he couldn’t hear before.”

Below are examples of some of the other equipment PANDA has available for loan:

• sandpaper letters and numbers (helps reinforce seeing the letter – visual, touching the surface (tactile), and tracing the letter/number shape (kinesthetic)
• colored line readers (helps tracking words on a page)
• personal amplifiers (a listening device designed to help hear better in various environments)
• adaptive keyboards and mice (keyboards with large keys, easy to read keys to help minimize errors and reduce eye strain. Mice that have trackballs, are easy to hold and support the hand and wrist)
• magnifying devices (available in various magnification strengths)

Contact PANDA for any adaptive equipment needs at [email protected] or 763-504-4095.

Visit PANDA’s disability website at https://pandamn.org/