Inspiration 8 – Bec’s Poems

Inspiration 8

Student’s who have short term memories often find, that by the time they go through all the processes needed to get an idea from their minds onto a piece of paper, they have forgotten what they wanted to write. Due to this, to get their ideas down on paper or the computer they tend to write disjointed pieces that may make no sense to the reader.

 

Flowers 

Lavender  

Lavandula  

Fragrant and silvery  

Pretty  

                                                  

Wild garlic   

Allium vineale   

Clustered clove like  

Its pretty, but smells bad  

 

Noddy, musk thistle

Carduus nutans

Soft fluffy top, sharp prickly bottom

Calm

Becky age 12

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Shades

Amethyst

Gorgeous, fancy

Crystals and opals        

Indigo

Beautiful, glamorous  

Indigo sun sets

Violet

Vibrant, Magnificent

African, common, shrinking violet

Becky age 12

Natural Reader

Free Natural Reader version 9, is a text to speech program that allows any text that can be highlighted with a mouse to be read aloud.

Natural Reader 9

This program is a great way to trial text-to-speech programs on your home or school computers. Get everyone using the program, not just those with learning difficulties.

The program can help people read single words, sentences, paragraphs, emails, the web, MS word, PDF files and more.

A paid version is available for those wanting better quality voices.

For more information on how to use this and other assistive technology you can make an appointment with the SPELD SA Software Team on 08 8431 1655. The advisors will show which programs are available, and guide you to which ones would best suit your specific needs. We  demonstrate how to use the program and how simple they are to load on your PC.

Update MS Word Talk

FREE assistive software update!

MS Word talk 2009

A new version of MS Word talk was released early 2009.

This version has many new features and some that have been redeveloped.

You only need to install the one file that can be downloaded from http://www.wordtalk.org.uk/Home/

If you have an earlier version of MS Word Talk, please uninstall it through control panel/add remove programs, along with the configuration file that will be in the same list, before loading the new program.

New features include:
• a talking spellchecker on right click of word
• speech feedback by clicking on a word
• turning text into a spoken wav or mp3 file
• echo words (the word is spoken once you press the spacebar)
• echo sentences (the sentence is spoken with highlighting when the fullstop is added)
• clicking on a correctly spelt word to get a list of synonyms
• replacing synonyms with a click

SPELD SA Software Advisory team recommends that all schools update to this new version.

Timesaver tip – Be specific when you Google worksheets

Don’t waste time creating new worksheets, there are plenty on the internet for free. They can easily be adapted for your needs and used on interactive whiteboards.

Google search will be much more effective if you are very precise in your search. (e.g. if you need a work sheet for the sound ’sh” use the search term free worksheet+ sh

A great site to get you started http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/

Feel free to share websites you have found useful for teaching Jolly phonics in your comments to this post.

Specific Learning Difficulties

This blog has been developed to compliment the SPELD SA website