Once turned on, hold your finger on the text you want read, adjust the active copy box if necessary by dragging out the edges of the highlighted area, you will then have a choice of Copy or Speak, tap speak and hear the text.

Its been a hit with the students and people I have shown and is easier than the voice over for some students.

There are a few new accessibility features for those with different learning difficulties, have a play and see if they suit any of your students or family members.

There is also a voice over tool in that section, that some of my students find a little harder to use, but works over different kinds of text. This link gives instruction in how to use the voice over http://www.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/_1128.html

http://techinspecialed.com/2011/04/02/freediscounted-apps/

The site has also divided aps into different goals and skills you wish your students to achieve. http://techinspecialed.com/2011/08/04/technology-in-education-apps-by-goal/

With the motto of Play, Explore and Understand MathTapper apps currently have 7 different mathematical apps that are currently free to download for your i-phone, i-pod and i-pads and four more on the way. To read more about these apps go to http://www.mathtappers.com/ Tim has told us that there are 3 more apps that will be available shortly, so keep watching their site!

The abc PocketPhonic app is available in two versions through the i-tunes stores.

The light version is free and gives full access to activities, but only 6 of the letter sounds and 20 words.

The full version is currently available from the i-tunes store for $3.99 and it provides practice with letter sounds and the correct formation of those letters when writing. The app also introduces students to 170 words. We  like this app. abc PocketPhonics provides a fun way for students to learn something that can be very challenging for some students, especially those with specific learning difficulties.

Many teachers, tutors, parents and students are unaware or unsure of the rules of syllabication, but knowing those rules and some tips and tricks to help students identify the sounds within words is very important for students with specific learning difficulties. Below is a chart that was published in our SPELD SA SPRING 2010 newsletter that you may find useful.

I usually encourage students to use their text to speech program to read and explore the meaning of any unknown words with a digital dictionary. Wordweb is a very good program that is available in a free version.

Features of the free version include:

Students who tend to use safe words in their writing can also highlight any repeated words and use the thesaurus feature to make their writing more interesting.

The program starts in your computer’s start up process which makes it available at any time, and can be used in almost any program.

Wordweb is available for download from the following link  http://wordweb.info/free/

A list of resources in our recommended order of importance/value/usefulness

 1. The Phonics Handbook 

Jolly Phonics can be taught with just one resource: The Phonics Handbook.

It includes everything you need to know and/or photocopy to get the program up and running.

If the budget will stretch to visuals for the classroom, next on our list is

2.  The Wall frieze of 42 sounds

3. SPELD SA Letter Sound Booklets

 These are photocopiable materials that provide practice with the formation and sounding of each grapho-phoneme and additional opportunities to trace and copy the correct formation of the graphemes.

4. Flash Cards – of letter sounds and words

We recommend you make your own flash cards, using the words in the Word Boxes on pp 137-148 of the handbook, enlarging them to a suitable size and laminating them. 

Lists of words can also be taken from the Jolly Phonics Word Book.

 5.  SPELD SA Phonic Books

The Jolly Phonics program recommends the teaching of letter sounds and blending techniques before students are asked to read books for themselves. This approach helps children understand that there is a code to reading and that most words can be worked out.

The SPELD SA Phonic Books contain short texts to consolidate the learning of the sounds following the order used in Jolly Phonics. There are 57 texts available free on the SPELD SA website at speld-sa.org.au. We recommend creating, or purchasing, hard copies of the readers to give students the experience of holding a book in their hands, and reading the words without help as they turn the pages.

This tool was created to work in an add on tab in MS Word 2007 and is definelty worth a trial with your students. The Fx toolbar gives you options to highlight and collect parts of the text from one MS Word document into a new document, it will speak highlighted text, identify confusables(honomyns), change the case of the selected text and identify if your sentences are overly long. A must for anyone studying if they are using Word 2007. Give it a go and let us know if you like it. Please explicitly teach all students, not just those with learning difficulties how to use the toolbar.

Below is an example of the Fx Toolbar idenftifying confusables (in red) and long sentences (in blue) from a section of my daughter’s year 12 essay for art.

A visual search engine also makes it easy for teachers who are trying to teach their students which websites are more likely to have the information they need.

The visual search engine content will be governed by the parent controls and filters you use in your home or school. For instance if your school blocks YouTube the students will not be able to see content from YouTube.

Below is a link to a visual search engine I regularly recommend in consultations.

http://search.spacetime.com/

SpaceTime3D a visual search engine

http://www.mystudybar.org/?page_id=7#Download+MyStudyBar

Please be aware there are different versions for XP uses and Vista/Windows 7 users

For specific advice as to which assistive technologies will suit your specific learning difficulties

 please contact Sandy Russo at SPELD SA 8431 1655

“MyStudyBar is a tool which helps overcome problems that students commonly experience with studying, reading and writing. The tool consists of a set of portable open source and freeware applications, assembled into one convenient package. Easy to install, simple to use, handy and effective, MyStudyBar provides comprehensive learning support at the desktop, where it is needed. And if this is not already attractive enough, a further eye-catching feature of MyStudyBar is that it is completely FREE to download and free to use.

MyStudyBar has been produced by the same team at RSC Scotland North & East which created the award-winning AccessApps software suite. Although MyStudyBar is designed to support learners with literacy-related difficulties such as dyslexia, the toolbar can offer potential benefits to all learners.

Features of MyStudyBar

 MyStudyBar puts a whole range of individual and essential tools at your fingertips. Together, these have been designed to support the complete study cycle from research, planning and structuring to getting across a written or spoken message. MyStudyBar has 6 sections; each has a drop down menu offering personal choice, flexibility and independent learning, particularly for those learners who require additional strategies to support their learning. With over 15 apps to choose from, MyStudyBar is the perfect study aid.

The webpage provides step-by-step tutorials to get you started with the applications on MyStudyBar

Examples include: Xmind for planning and organization; T-Bar for customising font and colour backgrounds; Lingoes for when you need a talking dictionary; LetMeType for help with text input, and Balabolka for converting text to audio. And if all that’s not enough, there’s even a speech-to-text app which allows you to talk to your computer.

You can use MyStudyBar straight from a USB stick (if, for example, you are using a machine that is not your own) or you can install it directly to the desktop. (Technical staff in colleges or universities also have the choice of installing it on the network for everyone to use). “