Tag Archives: dyslexia

Immersive Reader in Microsoft 365

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Immersive Reader is a powerful reading support tool built into many Microsoft programs, including Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, Teams and Edge. The tool provides a set of features that support reading that are particularly useful for people with literacy difficulties. Best of all, it’s bundled with 365 for free!

The features available within Immersive Reader varies between programs, and you can see them on the Microsoft Immersive Reader webpage. They generally fall into:

  • Text-to-Speech. The natural reading voices really are very good.
  • Coloured themes.
  • Different fonts, text sizes and spacing for text.
  • Line focus.
  • Picture support.

Turn on Immersive Reader

Click on “View” and then “Immersive Reader”

Access text preferences

Try the different text preferences.

  • Text size – between 14 and 96 point.
  • Increase spacing – between letters, words and lines of text
  • Font – choose between Calibri, Sitka and Comic Sans
  • Themes – change the background colour. Many learners find black on white text challenging.

Grammar options

And the grammar options…

  • Syllables – break words into syllables to aid decoding.
  • Parts of Speech  – colour and/or label nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Reading Preferences

  • Line Focus – You can highlight one, three of five lines of text. You can move the highlight up or down using the arrow keys on the keyboard.
  • Picture Dictionary – Use Boardmaker symbols when a word is clicked on. Also listen to any word in isolation.
  • Translate – Translate text into one of 100 languages.

As mentioned – Immersive Reader is available in all the office apps. It’s also within the Edge browser on websites that have enabled it. Look out for the Immersive Reader icon in the right-hand side of the address bar.


Enjoy!

See Dyslexia Differently- video from BDA

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Click the image  above to see this short YouTube video from the British Dyslexia Association. It explores the possible difficulties and strengths of young people with dyslexia. It is three minutes long.

The video could be used pupils, parents, teachers and teaching assistants.

Dyslexia Awareness Week is:

October 4th-8th October 2021

Is Your Classroom Dyslexia-Friendly?

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  It’s widely accepted that about 10% of the population is dyslexic (with about 4% significantly so), so dyslexic learners will make up part of your classes in your schools/settings.  How confident are you that you are meeting their needs?

If a parent asks you what you are doing to make your classroom dyslexia-friendly, would you be comfortable giving an answer?

It’s easy to feel nervous around the term dyslexia – it’s a broad term that can be hard to pin down or define precisely.   Teachers may assume that a dyslexic learner will need specialist equipment such as coloured overlays or specific dyslexia programmes.

The good news is that many of the inclusive strategies that you use routinely in your day-to day practice will be dyslexia-friendly and reminding yourself of what you are already doing can be a helpful exercise – make visible what may have become invisible to you.

Here’s are 10 Dyslexia-Friendly strategies that you will almost certainly already be using every day:

  1. Think about purposeful seating – can the pupils see you/the board clearly?
  2. Think about grouping/setting – is the pupil able to work at their cognitive level with others who will stimulate and provide good role models?
  3. Give instructions in small chunks – break tasks down and give one step at a time – provide written reminds and repeat when requested
  4. Present information in a range of ways to ensure that learners can access through a range of learning channels – use visuals wherever possible
  5. Allow plenty of thinking time – Talk Partners is a good way of giving time to think and rehearse information
  6. Don’t ask struggling readers to read out loud in front of others
  7. Allow pupils to demonstrate learning using a range of formats so that literacy is not a barrier – eg drawing, mind mapping, creating lists & diagrams, oral presentations, role play, debates, etc
  8. Focus on strengths – feedback on content rather than areas of difficulty eg spelling or handwriting
  9. Create an ethos within the classroom where it’s okay to ask for help & make sure learners know where to go for support when they need it
  10. Avoid asking your learner to copy from the board – if copying is necessary give the pupil a sheet to copy from that they can have in front of them – better still provide a printed copy for them to stick in, use paired/shared writing, write for the learner, etc

If you would like to do a more thorough audit of your practice to check how inclusive you are, have a look at this Audit of General Teaching Strategies for Pupils with Specific Literacy Difficulties.

Wordshark online – an online update of an SEND perennial

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What is it?

It’s hard to remember a time before Wordshark was available. If you don’t know it, it is primarily used for practice and reinforcement of spellings, particularly for those struggling with these skills, such as pupils who are dyslexic. Although it could be used by learners of all ages for the acquisition of key vocabulary.

It comes with a database of 10,000 words, all with pre-recorded speech, which can be sorted to be used in several different ways. One is the National Curriculum wordlists that pupils are expected to know as they progress through primary school. Another is Alpha to Omega, a scheme designed for those with dyslexia, and then there is the popular Letters and Sounds, or the subject specific words aimed at secondary students. You can also add your own lists if there are words you can’t find, perhaps for a particular topic.

The lists themselves are broken down into appropriate groups, such as CVC, or magic-e, and to aid learning further, words can be viewed with their phonetic make up marked, or they can be split into user-defined chunks.

Along with the wordlists are around 40 games. Once the words to be practised have been selected a number of games are recommended to use, which  can be worked through, or you can open a tab for one of the specific groups: Blend, Segment, Read, Spell, and Patterns. You can also choose specific games you want pupils to use, and assign work for them for  when they log on.

As it is web-based learners can access it from anywhere there is an internet connection, allowing for home and parent/carer involvement, too. The words can also be printed out for study away from the screen.

The whole system comes with a placement test, if you are not sure where is the best place for the pupils to get started, and a monitoring and tracking facility to see how they are getting on.

Who is it for?

The original conception was for dyslexic pupils, but it could be used by just about anyone, with primary pupils following the National Curriculum, or Letters and Sounds, lists, and secondary working on the subject specific vocabulary. With the capacity to add lists it could even become a learning resource for A Level students doing Classics who want to learn Latin or Ancient Greek.

The various approaches to spelling taken, include seeing it then typing it, finding the correct outline shape, bringing chunks together, and even speaking it aloud, all come with  a range of activities. This means that drill and practice becomes less of a chore, and even a bit of  fun.

How do I use it?

Mainly for reinforcement. To provide a range of activities presented in an interactive, varied, fun, way, that makes over-learning acceptable, rather than a drudge. Whilst it will largely be used by individuals, there is the potential to use it with a small group around the interactive whiteboard.

What else is there?

There are quite a lot of apps, programs and websites that provide different approaches to spelling. Where Wordshark differs is in the variety of approaches available, along with the flexibility to choose which wordlists to work from, or to create your own. All with the ubiquitous access the internet offers.  Flexibility, reliability, and availability, are the keywords here.

Immersive Reader in Office 365

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What is it?

During 2018 Microsoft brought out a few changes to both their online product, Office 365, and updated their installed version, MSOffice. Both now have a ‘Dictate’ function, that can operate in several different languages. They also introduced a ‘Read’ function, which, in the installed version is  a button on the toolbar.

However, the most exciting development was the introduction of the ‘Immersive Reader.’ This is available in both versions, however, I think it works best in the online product, so that’s the one I shall focus on here.

It is a tool to aid reading, and to analyse the make up of a text, through a number of easy to use functions. These include text to speech, changing the colour scheme, widening the space between letters, breaking the words into phonemes, and an on-screen ruler to isolate particular lines. There is also a function to highlight different parts of speech – nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs – to focus on them.

Who is it for?

It could be used by both teachers and students. When teaching from the board teachers can use it to make points about grammar, or to focus on spellings.

For pupils it offers ways to customize the text to make it easier to read, or to have it read to them, as well as helping them to make sense of it.

How do I use it?

Using it is fairly straight forward. Opening, or creating, a document in Office 365 puts the Immersive Reader option into the ribbon at the top of the screen. Clicking on this changes the appearance of the screen, taking away the usual toolbar and providing only the Immersive Reader tools, with a ‘Play’ button at the bottom of the screen, and the other options sitting at the side. Operation is simply a matter of clicking them on and off.

For instance, the Text Preferences button allows for enlarging the font, changing it to something that may be easier to read, increasing the spacing, and changing the colour scheme, to high contrast, perhaps, or to a blue background.

The Grammar Options are where you can highlight different elements of the text, and break it down into syllables, and the Reading Options provide the on-screen ruler, in three sizes. There is also an option to link to a Picture Dictionary (using Boardmaker PCS symbols) where hovering over a word brings up an image to illustrate it.

What else is there?

You can probably find a way to provide  all of these functions in other ways. For instance, there are free on-screen rulers that allow you to provide a line focus. Or you can download overlays to change the colour of a screen, and there are now a number of screen readers, several of them free, to use as add-ons in your browser – such as Googlevox.

You could also put a text on a white board and use coloured pens to pick out the  different elements of grammar. Or even load a document in MSWord then use the highlighter tool, in various colours, to provide the same sort of analysis.

What’s useful here, though, is that all these tools are available together,  in a very commonly used product. They are easy to find, simple to use, and serve a very useful purpose, either for accessing the text, or for understanding it better.