Critque of a learning tool

When I was teaching I came across a few students who were diagnosed with Dyslexia. Teaching students with this diagnosis can be very difficult because the students struggle tremendously with reading and writing, thus greatly affecting their literacy.

According to Lyon, Shaywitz & Shaywitz (2003),  Dyslexia is a specific learning disability where difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language including secondary consequences that may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge

For dyslexic students, technology opens doors and allows them to demonstrate their knowledge in ways that were unimaginable in the past (The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, 2016).

Today, there is just about an app for everything. So, I wanted to see if I could find an app that would specifically assist my students. Upon my research, I found that there are two really great tools that can be used to assist these students based on research that has and is being completed. However, they are super expensive and most likely not available to every teacher, school or student who needs them. Therefore, I decided to see if I could find some FREE apps or software that would be able to assist students with Dyslexia.

Here is what I found: Google Chrome. The Google Chrome browser allows for extensions to be added-on to the browser and allows the user to better use the technology. I found three extensions that work very well for students who are slow readers, struggle with phonics or even have hard time annotating. All of which fall into the difficulties of Dyslexia.

The three extensions are SpeakIt!, Read Mode and Evernote Clearly (which is no longer supported by Evernote).

SpeakIt! is a great tool for students to use to be able to have any document or reading read to them. It allows student to choose what and how things are read to them. It is also available in the iTunes store.

Read Mode allows students or teachers to be able to take online articles or website readings and turn them into more easily readable pages. It eliminates distractions such as Ads, different fonts, sizes and layouts to name a few. Students can then use other software and technologies to annotate, print or change the reading abililities to their liking and comforts. Evernote Clearly did do that but at the time of the posting of this article they no longer support the extension. Students could still use Evernote to clip, annotate, save and organize information.

I created a screencast of my trial of the three extensions. See below. I previously had Evernote Clearly installed on my browser, so it still works for me, but some of the tools are no longer working or available.

Screencast of Learning Tools in Action

REFERENCES

Lyon, G., Shaywitz, S., & Shaywitz, B. (2003). A Definition of Dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 53(1), 1-14. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23764731

Technology. (2016). In The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity. Retrieved from http://dyslexia.yale.edu/Technology.html