Immersive Reader in Microsoft 365

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!

Are you supporting pupils with Down Sydrome?

The Down Syndrome Education International group have free videos online to view

They offer practical guidance to support effective early intervention and education for children with Down syndrome

There are three videos on their website:

  • Activities for Babies with Down Syndrome

  • Speech and Language Activities for Pre-school children with Down Syndrome

  • Inclusion in Practice- Educating children with Down Syndrome at Primary Schools

Bett 2019 – What’s in it for you?

The Bett Show is back at Excel from 23rd to 26th January, as big and as daunting as ever when it comes to finding what you want. The organisers have created an app to help you get organised which you can find here  https://www.bettshow.com/download-the-official-bett-2019-mobile-app . But to help you get started I’ve had a trawl through the exhibitors and to identify  a few that might help develop inclusive practice in schools.

If you want to see where technology can take us then some of the stands have examples of how it can provide multi-sensory experiences that would be difficult to create through other means. Immersive interactive (Stand H 361 www.immersive.co.uk) build multi-sensory environments with all round projection, surround sound and interactive floors and walls. Whereas a more personal, all-encompassing environment is provided by Avantis with their ClassVR system (Stand C205 www.advantiseducation.com) . You might also want to look at iSandbox (Stand F86 www.isandbox.co.uk) with their promise of a system involving both real sand and virtual reality. Whilst there remain questions over how far VR suppliers have thought about the actual needs of learners with SEND, the potential should be great.

Something else which so far has showed greater promise in the potential than in the practice  is artificial-intellingence (AI). Century (Stand E192 www.century.tech) are offering a learning platform that, ‘uses learning science, artificial intelligence and neuroscience, to create constantly adapting pathways for students.’ Although it may be too much to hope that this extends to SEND.

Another futuristic offering comes from Connect Training (Stand A20 www.connecttotraining.co.uk) who provide real-time avatars to practise difficult conversations in a safe environment. These are intended to help improve performance in everyday job roles. I’m not sure whether this extends to teaching.

Avatars are also the basis for Mind Rocket’s approach (Stand 254 www.mindrocketsinc.com), only here they are used to teach sign language. It is a product developed in Jordan, so it may have a regional accent, but it could be helpful for children and young people, and the adults around them, to learn these skills.

We will also want to keep a record of what has been learnt in school, to provide evidence and to monitor progress. Both Bsquared (Stand C134 www.connectingsteps.com ) and Tapestry (Stand F62 www.tapestryjournal.com ) will be present, and talking about how their products support a post-Rochford approach to assessment.

You might also want resources to help them make progress in the subjects you are monitoring. In numeracy DoodleMaths (Stand E100 https://doodlemaths.com) continues to grow in popularity, particularly for use on tablets and touchscreens, whereas Numberfit (Stand G188 www.numberfit.com) eschews such a sedentary approach for one with lots of movement and activity. Also present will be Jellyjames (Stand A400 www.jellyjames.co.uk) with their Dynamo Maths, specifically targeted at pupils with dyscalculia.

In the field of literacy a couple of stalwarts will be present, including Crick (POD1 www.cricksoft.com) creators of the ever useful Clicker range of products, and Texthelp (Stand C141 www.texthelp.com) with their add on toolbar of resources to support literacy, including dictation, prediction and a screen-reader.

More specific support is on offer for both reading and spelling. For the former Yap (Stand C40 www.yapbooks.com) is offering voice controlled books to help develop reading skills, whilst Lexplore (Stand B303 www.lexplore.co.uk ) uses eye tracking to ‘to quickly and objectively determine a child’s exact reading attainment.’ Which sounds like a novel approach. It will be interesting to see how that copes with reading comprehension.

For spelling both The  Spelling Shed (Stand FS141 www.spellingshed.com)  and Magic Spell (Stand FS33 www.brainbox.games) promise fun ways to learn spellings whilst allowing adults to control the focus of the work.

And if science is what you are after then the Wellcome Trust’s Explorify Science (Stand G306 https://wellcome.ac.uk) is said to be ‘inclusive and accessible to all pupils.’

Finally, for older pupils,  there is the all encompassing offering from Your Favourite Teacher (Stand C48 www.yourfavouriteteacher.com) which is an online classroom  aimed at GCSE with ‘a focus on pupil premium, alternative education and targeted intervention groups.’ Which would be a welcome resource if it does what it says on the tin. The content includes videos, podcasts and animations with  interactive activities and quizzes.

Whatever your area of interest there is bound to be something at Bett that’s useful. The challenge is in tracking it down.

 

 

 

Clicker 7 – a properly ‘Inclusive’ resource

What is it?

Clicker 7 is a combination of a word-processor and a range of very adaptable, on-screen, grids, sometimes used separately, sometimes in combination, that is installed on desktop computers and laptops.

For learners struggling with literacy, for whatever reason, there are a number of aids to writing, including text to speech, a word-predictor, images or symbols inserted automatically, voice prompts, and word banks. There is also a built-in on-screen keyboard for those who are using switches or eye-gaze.

Further supports for those with SEND include changing the font, font size and colour, background colour and voice of the text to speech.

The same coding underpinning the word banks is also used separately to create on-screen books – both to read and to write – matching exercises, labelling activities, and even speaking and listening activities.

Clicker 7 also includes the Clicker Board, an integral planning tool that can be used to structure work, which can be used with multi-media as well as text.

Who is it for?

Whilst intended for primary aged children, even older students with a range of challenges to learning can use it, as well as those with none. As a word-processor it operates in a similar way to industry standard applications, such as MSWord, but with many of the superfluous functions – such as the mail-merge and the page styles – stripped out.

Pupils who are beginning to write independently will benefit from word grids to build sentences, or to provide key vocabulary, whilst those who are becoming more independent can use the predictor to help with word-finding and spelling, and the screen-reader to let them know if their writing makes sense.

Those with physical disabilities might also benefit from using the predictor to reduce keystrokes, as well as its switch access resource, or its integrated eye-gaze capability.

It offers as much, or as little, support as is needed.

The grids facility can be used separately to create myriad activities, from matching involving text, images and sound, to labelling diagrams, sorting into groups, finding pairs, and writing books.

There are over 3,000 grids that are provided online covering the whole primary curriculum, and more, at http://www.learninggrids.com . The software comes with templates to create your own, along with several thousand images, although you can add your own, too.

How do I use it?

You can find uses for it in all aspects of the curriculum, but especially where pupils need to write. Beyond that you might use it to create a matching activity for young learners to find words and images, or maybe a multi-media mindmap on the interactive whiteboard with everyone involved when starting a new topic. It can be used with the whole class, small groups and targeted individuals.

There are a short training videos for you to learn every aspect of the software  at the Crick  online training videos.

What else is there?

There is very little like it. You can find some of its functionality in other programs, but few that combine them. MSWord, for example, has text to speech. Widgitonline will associate images or symbols with text, and WordQSpeakQ can provide an inline predictor. Powerpoint might let you multi-media to make books and demonstrate understanding, but without the supportive features of Clicker.

Older learners could use DocsPlus which works in a very similar way, but with added features that make it eligible for access in exams, as well as several iPad and Chrome apps.