New to the EasyReader range, EasyReader Premium helps break down barriers to learning, which students with visual impairments or neurodiverse conditions may face throughout their education.
EasyReader Premium is available now for schools, colleges and universities in the UK, USA and Canada. Find out more and purchase an EasyReader Premium Education Subscription at the Dolphin website.
What is EasyReader Premium?
This exciting new development is an annual subscription service. It unlocks additional, premium features in the EasyReader App. The new features are exclusive to education settings and improve accessibility for students of all ages. EasyReader Premium features are designed to help teaching staff and student support teams ensure that learning material and accessible books are available to all students with a print impairment, on any device they sign in to.
With EasyReader Premium, students who are blind, partially sighted, have dyslexia or another print impairment, can access books and other learning material, in a format that suits their sight and their learning style.
Educators can now invite eligible students to use EasyReader Premium. Students can log in on any of their devices to read their accessible books and study notes.
Help your students read more and learn more
EasyReader Premium ensures students that need accessible resources and accommodations can easily access and read the books they need to learn from, in formats applicable to their needs.
Here are ten ways EasyReader Premium helps schools, colleges and universities to provide a more accessible learning experience for students with visual impairments or neurodiverse conditions:
1. Create student accounts to enable accessible reading
EasyReader Premium enables schools, colleges and universities to set up an education account on the Dolphin website. From here your team creates individual EasyReader Premium logins for students diagnosed with a print impairment. This includes students who are blind, partially sighted or have dyslexia.
- Enlarged text
- Dyslexia-friendly fonts
- Alternative colour schemes
- Audio, with highlighted text to read-along
When you set up an EasyReader Premium account for your setting, staff can use it to add eligible students. It's a useful resource for your teaching teams, disability support centre, SENCO, or the library staff. It’s so easy to set up and use, everyone on your team can help make reading material accessible to more students.
2. Ensure a seamless learning experience on any device
With EasyReader Premium, you make books accessible in ways that suit your students’ sight or their learning style, so they can enjoy reading more.
This might mean they listen to an audio version of the class novel through an iPad during independent reading time. Or they could read a book on screen with colour overlays; in a font that makes it more comfortable to read.
EasyReader Premium synchronises book information, which means your students can continue where they left off with their book - wherever they study. It works across a range of iOS, Android, Kindle Fire and Windows devices.
For example, students might use it to research textbooks at home on their own laptop, then carry on their research back in the college library on a PC and then read their notes in class on a tablet. Students really can read and learn anywhere with EasyReader Premium.
3. Encourage students with dyslexia to customise their reading experience
The EasyReader App has a number of benefits to students with dyslexia:
- Read on screen with dyslexia-friendly fonts
- Choose larger font sizes
- Customise colour schemes for the background and font
- Highlight words on screen and read along with audio
- Use audio-only to listen to text
- Adjust letter and line spacing
EasyReader Premium adds the benefit of all these settings customised and ready to go on any device the student uses. This removes the need to adjust the settings and update preferences on individual devices each time the student needs to use them. It's all ready and synchronised to their own personal preferences, which saves time in class and when working at home or in the library.
4. Empower students with visual impairments to read independently
Features in the EasyReader App can be adjusted to suit students who are blind or partially sighted:
- Enlarge text and adjust by zooming in and out
- Large text always wraps and never disappears off screen
- High-contrast colour schemes to improve reading comfort
- Highlighted text to read along with audio
- Audio books with narrated text, or read by human-sounding synchronised speech
- Reading with supported braille displays
With EasyReader Premium, these accessibility settings are automatically synchronised across all devices. This means students with visual impairments simply open EasyReader on any of their devices, and use it to read and learn with all their customisations ready to go.
EasyReader makes reading a convenient and comfortable experience for students of all ages, so they can get the most out of reading and learning.
5. Synchronize accessible books across devices
With EasyReader Premium, students can learn wherever they want, on any device. Once students are signed into the EasyReader App with a Premium acount, they can continue reading where they left off.
EasyReader Premium synchronises:
- Book downloads
- Reading positions
- Bookmarks
- Study Notes
- Clipboard texts
- Library account logins
- Reading preferences
It provides a continuous learning and reading experience, with customised settings and reading preferences synchronised across iOS, Android, Kindle Fire and Windows devices.
6. EasyReader Premium benefits learners of any age
There’s no age limit for EasyReader Premium, and it suits all education settings. So, if you work at a primary, or secondary school, or your students are based at a college or university, they will benefit from EasyReader Premium.
When the EasyReader App is downloaded to the student’s own smartphone or tablet, it’s with them wherever they go, to read on screen, or listen to audio books.
Students can access books with EasyReader Premium in class - on laptops, PCs or tablets - and at home on their own devices, including smartphones. This means it's a continuous learning experience, for study at home and in a learning environment.
7. Read accessible books and textbooks anywhere
EasyReader Premium provides students with unparalleled access to libraries around the world. Accessible libraries include:
- Bookshare in the USA
- CELA for readers in Canada
- RNIB Bookshare Education Collection in the UK
Some of these libraries also provide collections of accessible textbooks. The RNIB Bookshare Education Collection in the UK for example, has a full range of textbooks that cover the school curriculum and university reading material.
EasyReader Premium gives students with print impairments the same access to textbooks as their sighted and neurotypical classmates. It provides ways to read that suit their sight and their learning style. This means students with print impairments can reach their full potential in class.
EasyReader Premium can also be used by students at home, when reading for pleasure. The positive impacts of reading have far-reaching benefits to wellbeing as well as learning, and EasyReader Premium can be used for both.
Find out more about eligibility to use accessible libraries, plus how to set up student library accounts in the EasyReader Libraries List
8. Use clipboard to access and read classroom material, articles and more
In addition to the books available in the accessible libraries list, students can read almost anything in EasyReader Premium. Any text saved to a smartphone clipboard (texts, emails, articles etc) can be pasted into EasyReader and read with audio settings, or the students’ customised reading screen view.
The information on the clipboard can be read with any of the student's customised audio and view settings. It's also synchronised with EasyReader Premium, so students can copy passages of text from an email, sections from websites they're researching, or messages from classmates in group work and read them with EasyReader on any device.
It's worth noting that the EasyReader App also provides access to talking newspaper stands, accessible magazines and periodicals. The services available include RNIB Newsagent in the UK and NFB Newsline in the US and Canada. You can find these in the libraries list on the Dolphin website.
9. Improve research and notetaking
EasyReader Premium enables students to add bookmarks and make study notes on any book they download, including textbooks. This is helpful when students are researching material to refer to, in an assignment or in class.
It is easy for students to make study notes on any device they use - simply add a bookmark and type the note in. If students are reading on a phone or tablet, they can make notes that are then synchronised in EasyReader Premium, so they can be referred to when working in class on a PC or laptop; and vice-versa.
Students can quickly find their study notes when they need to refer to them in an essay or class discussion, by searching or scrolling their bookmarks list.
10. Support your students' reading engagement
EasyReader Premium is particularly helpful for SENCO staff, disability support services and pastoral care teams, in addition to teaching staff. EasyReader Premium ensures students that need accessible resources and accommodations can access learning material easily, in formats that are applicable to their needs.
With EasyReader Premium, you can also reinforce reading engagement with your students. Sign in to the Dolphin website with your Dolphin Account to view your students' logins, for details of when each student last logged in to the the EasyReader App. This feature gives you an idea of the students who are engaged and are using EasyReader Premium to access their learning material.
Use this positively, to determine how engaged your students are with the reading material you have set. This information can also be used to identify which of your students might benefit from extra support, to use EasyReader to their advantage.
Read More. Learn More.
Use EasyReader Premium to make your students' reading experience positive. It provides many practical ways for children and young adults with print impairments to access books, so they can take advantage of the many benefits reading brings. You can read more about these in our blog The Positive Impacts of Reading.
EasyReader Premium will improve accessibility, so more of your students can experience stories, gather information and study in line with their peers.
Accessibility means opportunity for many students. It's these opportunities that enable students with print impairments to reach their full potential.
“The EasyReader App already provides access to thousands of accessible books. With EasyReader Premium, educators are able to support their students who are blind, partially sighted or dyslexic, with more accessible ways to read and study.”
Steve Bennett, MD at Dolphin Computer Access
It's easy for education settings to set up accounts for students with print impairments. You can set them up individually, or for multiple students, then invite your eligible students to start using EasyReader Premium, to read more and learn more.
Encouraging students to use EasyReader Premium will raise awareness of the benefits of accessible reading apps as a tool for learning.
EasyReader Premium Education Subscription
Find out more about the key features of EasyReader Premium and how an EasyReader Premium Education Subscription will benefit your students with dyslexia or visual impairments.
More ways Dolphin helps teachers and support staff
Learn how to use EasyReader Premium
We know educational staff are extraordinarily busy, which is why we've made it simple to set up accounts for multiple students in a few simple steps. We also provide support through our Learning Zone to help you and your students learn how to use EasyReader Premium.
Free webinars for educators
Dolphin runs regular free webinars to help advise education settings on ways to improve accessibility using assistive technology. These webinars are short and informative, they help you support students with visual impairments or neurodiverse conditions and provide practical information on how your students can learn more and thrive at school and beyond.
There are different webinars to choose from. See the calendar for a full list, to find out more and book your place.
Further Reading
If you're interested in improving accessibility in education, visit the Dolphin Blog to find out more about the learning experiences of students with visual impairments and how you can make a positive impact.
We cover ways teachers can make text-based documents more accessible and highlight the importance of accessibility in education. We have advice from students with visual impairments about making the leap from school to university.
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