If you're a SENCO, teacher, classroom assistant or support young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), you already know the importance of reading to overall education outcomes. You'll also be aware that not every student finds it easy to read.
Reading the printed word can be difficult for many young people - especially those with vision impairments, dyslexia, other SEND requirements - but what are the alternatives to print?
Assistive technology is the answer to many of the issues you and your students are experiencing. When you make books and reading accessible, you make your classroom more inclusive and give more of your students the chance to read independently. It's never been easier to set up and use this technology.
When you provide reading material which can be accessed and read independently by students in the ways that they prefer - audible reading, braille, white-on-black colour contrast or a larger line spacing, for example - there's a profound impact on your students' ability to read. This in turn has a positive impact on their confidence, educational outcomes and wellbeing.
When students are able to read and understand the work they're set, they are more engaged in learning. This can reduce the levels of classroom disruption caused by disengagement.
A study which provided schools with accessible content, together with assistive technology for reading found that:
EasyReader Premium has been developed to enable schools to improve accessibility for all the children and young people in their setting. It provides curriculum resources together with the means to read them independently. This is particularly helpful for students who need additional support, but who may not have - or want - a formal diagnosis.
EasyReader Premium Education Plan is every SENCo's secret weapon! We are offering EasyReader Premium free for 60 days, to help make your classrooms more inclusive and accessible.
As experts in assistive technology for people with vision impairments, Dolphin has worked with educators for over 35 years. We use this expertise to develop the EasyReader Premium Education Plan, which brings together the Dolphin EasyReader App, Accessible Libraries and a range of features specific to educators. These work to make it easy for schools, colleges and universities to ensure reading and learning is accessible for any child or young person who has a print disability.
School Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) in the UK, and their counterparts in other countries - along with disability support workers in higher education - are finding their resources and workloads are increasing. In addition to this, the number of students diagnosed with, or awaiting diagnosis for, dyslexia and other neurodiversities is increasing due to improved awareness and identification.
While educational settings are stretched in terms of staffing levels and budget, the number of children and young people identified as having additional needs, or needing additional learning support, continues. With long waiting times for appropriate diagnosis, and a reduction in the number of specialist schools, mainstream schools can still help the children who have not yet had an official diagnosis. They can help students to read and learn independently, through assistive technology such as EasyReader Premium.
EasyReader Premium empowers your neurodivergent students, visually impaired students and other students with print impairments to read independently, in ways that suit their individual preferences. They read at their own pace, in a way that they enjoy. Reading in a way that suits them positively impacts reading engagement, retention of information and so better learning outcomes, not to mention the sense of achievement independent learning offers!
The most important thing EasyReader Premium helps your students with is their independence. With EasyReader Premium Education Plan, you can provide curriculum resources in accessible formats to any student that would benefit from it it - without the need for additional staff.
Children with dyslexia - whether officially diagnosed or not - or other print impairments are able to read their own way using EasyReader App. In the reading pane, it's easy to adjust letter spacing, choose dyslexia-friendly fonts and select background and text colours that help concentration - a bit like the coloured lenses, overlays or paper they may already use.
Readers with dyslexia can also read using audio or text-to-speech settings. With the text-to-speech setting, the books are read aloud by a human-sounding synthetic voice. The beauty of this is that the voice can also be synchronised with highlights to the text - so each word is highlighted as the text is read through. This really helps to aid visual reading and even concentration as it turns audio into a 'read along'.
Teachers can find that using accessible reading material through EasyReader Premium means their students' comprehension of text improves. Reading in ways that suit their preferences, means students with dyslexia enjoy reading in class and at home, so they're likely to do more of it!
With over thirty years' experience developing assistive technology for people who are blind and partially sighted, Dolphin has developed EasyReader App. This significantly aids children with visual impairments by making reading more accessible and enjoyable. Features of this popular accessible reading app include adjustable text size, font style and colour contrast, which the reader can personalise to suit their vision.
The app also offers options to read text aloud while highlighting each word and this can help children follow along. Readers with vision impairments can also listen to audio books, text-to-speech (TTS) audio and connect EasyReader to their electronic braille display to read with braille.
To ensure young people with vision impairments don't miss out on any of their education, accessible libraries provide versions of textbooks and other learning materials. The combination of these features help ensure children with visual impairments can read and learn independently.
Students with additional learning needs – whether formally identified or not – can benefit from EasyReader Premium. It encourages students of all abilities to access and read books in the ways they prefer. To engage students in reading, whether visually or audibly and enable them to read independently can only have a positive impact on their education and prospects.
The EasyReader Premium Education Plan, together with your local accessible book library and EasyReader App is all you need to make reading accessible in your school, college or university.
The EasyReader Premium Education Plan provides a whole-setting sign up or you can set up and allocate logins for individual students as necessary. Through the staff area, teaching and support staff can use EasyReader Premium to monitor reading engagement.
With EasyReader Premium teachers, librarians and support staff can share reading activities and learning material with students using familiar tools such as Google Classroom or Microsoft Education. This material can then be accessed by the students and read with accessibility features in the EasyReader App. Perfect for homework and coursework.
With the analytics available, teaching and support staff are able to monitor when students last read, how long they read for and their progression through each book. This can help ensure students are engaged, and identify if any additional support might be needed.
More about EasyReader Premium Education Plan >
EasyReader App works in partnership with accessible libraries all over the world. In the UK, our accessible library partner for education is RNIB Bookshare. This is an accessible Education Collection which provides UK students with free books and other reading material in accessible formats. In fact, they boast over one million accessible titles in their collection!
Although it's part of the Royal National Institute for Blind People (RNIB), RNIB Bookshare is actually available to anyone with a print disability. This includes dyslexia, autism, physical disabilities as well as vision impairments.
RNIB Bookshare Education Collection offers over a million accessible reading resources, including textbooks and educational reading material. It covers everything from early years to adult education, to ensure everyone has equal opportunities to read, learn and succeed.
Everything in the RNIB Bookshare Education Collection is free for members to download and read in EasyReader App. It's free to sign up your school for RNIB Bookshare membership.
If you are outside the UK, please check out the Libraries List to find out the libraries we partner with.
More about accessible libraries >
Dolphin EasyReader App is a free reading app that enables children and young people to link to accessible libraries and personalise their reading experience on any device. So, whether your school has iPads, Windows Laptops or PCs, Kindle Fire Tablets or Android devices, the app can be downloaded free and it provides the means to read books from the curriculum and beyond.
The reading pane in EasyReader App can be adjusted and personalised for each individual, so they can read with enlarged text, audio, or a combination of both - with words highlighted on screen as the speech reads them aloud.
Neurodivergent readers also benefit from dyslexia-friendly fonts, while vision impaired readers may find the customisable colour schemes or wider letter and line spacing make reading more comfortable.
EasyReader Premium is a secret weapon for SENCO's, teachers, Head Teachers and support staff!
With EasyReader Premium, you can make almost any curriculum resource accessible, so it can be read in the way your students prefer. This may be in the form of a book, it may be documents you submit over Google Classroom or Microsoft Education, it could be notes your student copies to a clipboard (from a website for example), or it can be another type of curriculum resource like a class handout. EasyReader Premium offers a way to read, for students who usually have trouble reading in a typical or traditional paper format.
With students reading independently, the support staff you do have are then able to support and focus on children who may have more complex needs, there is likely to be less low-level disruption and increased engagement in reading.
With EasyReader Premium Education Plan, schools manage their students' access to EasyReader Premium online. It's affordable, secure and simple to set up. With EasyReader Premium, SENCOs, teachers and learning support staff can quickly provide accessible learning material, for students to read independently. Teachers, librarians and other staff members with access can also monitor reading progress and reading engagement.
We offer full training, with a CPD and RPPLE accredited course. This course is developed for teaching and support staff and is in the form of short online lessons which work with your busy schedule. Visit the Dolphin Learning Zone to find out more.
EasyReader Premium will help your setting support students with dyslexia and vision impairments as well as those with other special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to read independently.
Enquire now for a free 60-day trial.