Phonics Programs on CD-Rom

• Language Tune-up Kit - Phonics-based software based on the multi-sensory Orton-Gillingham method for children and adults. The LTK Placement Test determines students' reading skills and places the student at the appropriate starting lesson.

Go Phonics - Comprehensive Phonics Reading Program, Go Phonics features six decodable readers with controlled vocabulary in a systematic phonics building block sequence for teaching beginning reading skills. This is a teacher-developed, Orton-Gillingham based multisensory phonics curriculum with K-2 language arts. Integrated tools include fifty phonics games (word decoding & fluency practice), workbooks. This approach is effective for dyslexia and is a comprehensive foundation for beginning readers.

• Wordshark - 36 totally different computer games providing high motivation and interest. 'This software has had dramatic results. My student simply can't believe that he can be learning so quickly, and now arrives half-an-hour early, and has asked to stay an hour over his lesson time. This is the first time that he has ever been able to remember spellings - ever. I have had to force him to take breaks each half-hour because he was so adamant that he would complete each module more quickly then anyone else. His progress has been amazing. I did not at first believe this because I thought that as a dyslexic he would probably remember his spellings one week but then forget them after a break, but I have just re-tested him on the modules he covered before the half-term break (three weeks ago) and in a spelling test of sixty words, he got all of them correct without any chance to mug up beforehand', J. W., UK.

Speech to Text Software

• • • TextHelp (highly recommended by John Bradford - an excellent word-processing support program which links in to your word-processor, suggesting spellings for each word as you start to type it, and reading out your writing so that you can see if it makes sense or if you've missed out any words.')

• • • Kurzweil 3000 - 'The Kurzweil 3000 is the greatest tool to benefit the dyslexic student. My high school students can bring in a library book or an article, etc. and scan the material one class period and listen/follow along the next period. The students can use bookmarks and change the voice and speed that it reads to their individual tastes. The Kurzweil also comes with a CD with numerous works available to be read without scanning. With the CD you just find the author and click; locate the story you need and click; and start listening. The classroom teachers are really great about sending the reading assignments to me a few days ahead of time so I can have them scanned and ready to read. This helps the students because they stay on schedule. Sometimes students come in after and before school to scan articles so they will be able to keep pace with other students. Therefore extended time isn’t necessary. The bottom line is that it is a wonderful tool that gives the students a sense of independence.' (Lisa Landers, Texas)
     The “Kurzweil 3000” scans text, recognizes text, reads the text with voice options, and highlights the text – each word as it reads it. It has highlighters that can be used to extract and make notes from the text and therefore is useful in summarizing. The voice control and speed of speech can be set and it sometimes reads words out of context, but very rarely. It is an excellent asset for dyslexic students if you can find an electronic version of the text that you are required to read, import the text and have Kurzweil read it. However, its greatest drawback is that scanning each page of text when reading a book is extremely time consuming and takes a large amount of computer space. Therefore, my son finds that he does not use the program as much as he would like to, due to this drawback. (Keppy Guberman, Israel)

• • • Clicker 4 - Clicker Writer is Clicker's talking word processor. You can type into it just like any word processor. When you complete a sentence, the sentence is spoken using one of the clear voices included. If you like, you can have each word spoken as it is entered, or even each letter.

# "With Clicker 4 the computer is set to read automatically as soon as a period/full stop is used. This has been great in reinforcing the use of capital letters and full stops. My son is able to check his work as he goes and edits immediately instead of waiting until the end when he has forgotten what he has written. He prefers the voice in this program as the other was more or less on one tone. He is more able to independently find correct spellings and he is able to listen to each word then select the one he needs. This is helping him to work with greater independence and is building his confidence to try and complete a task." (S. B-W, Somerset, UK)

# "When I took S out to work with him we spent some time discussing “good” words to use for our leaflet about the school. I helped him with some of the words because as a very reluctant and struggling reader he hasn’t come across lots of exciting adjectives. When we had a comprehensive list I spent a few minuets turning it into a user friendly Clicker grid. I decided to use Clicker because you can create any grid you want with any amount of words in it . You can also have graphics and or sounds with the words. The child is encouraged to type small well known words but when it comes to a longer word or one that is difficult to spell the child uses the mouse to click on the word in the grid, this then appears next to the already typed work. This works particularly well when the child is timid about using words they are not too sure they know and are also very scared of spelling correctly. When they click on the word the computer will speak it, so they know if it is the word that they want or not. When the child has written a sentence the computer will automatically read out loud what the child has written before they move on to the next line/sentence. This program gave S the opportunity and satisfaction to produce work of the same quality as his friends and with only a very marginal amount of input from a adult. " (C.B., Surrey, UK)

• • • Dragon Naturally Speaking - well reviewed program which turns your speech into writing on the screen! Highly recommended for dyslexic teenagers and students: 'An invaluable program, which I use every day. The more time you spend at the 'training stage' - reading chapters of a book out loud - the better it works. Also, let it take a look at your 'My Documents' folder, so that it can learn the kind of expressions you use a lot. You are offered the option to do this during the training stage.' (John Bradford).
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• ReadPlease - Free - "Shatters the myth that computers must sound robotic and monotonous. Just imagine having web pages and e-mail read aloud to you. If you are finding there is just too much on-screen reading with all of this technology, then you will love using ReadPlease".

• WordQ - a writing tool used along with standard Windows word processing software. It uses advanced word prediction to suggest words for you to use and provides spoken (text-to-speech) feedback.

• PenFriend - Supportive writing software featuring word prediction (predictive typing), on-screen keyboards, screen-reader speech feedback, etc. Penfriend XP's core strength is in predicting the next word you want to write. It does this using a dictionary of known words, along with detailed knowledge of when they are likely to be used, their grammatical type, words you have used before, and so on. Every time you type a letter, it comes up with a new list of the most likely words which fit your letters. Choosing one is a simple matter of pressing one more button, or clicking on the word with the mouse. If you're not sure how to read it, you can hear it spoken before you choose a word.

BOOKS AND SOFTWARE

• Books for teachers

• Research into dyslexia and teaching methods

• Children's books

• Magazines and Journals

• Software and Technological Equipment

• Speech to Text Software

• Phonics Programs on CD-Rom

• Specialist bookshops and publishers