Dyslexia in school: technology for an inclusive reading experience

Dyslexia in school is an increasingly common phenomenon. Even though reading, writing and speaking can be heavily affected by this condition, it doesn’t prevent students from learning. They simply learn at their own pace and deserve equal opportunities to grow in the classroom. 

This disorder affects pupils of any economic and ethnic environment. Today, educators are growing more and more aware of teaching methods to provide students with special needs with everything they require to succeed in their learning. 

Nevertheless, alongside appropriate and well-known best practices, the right EdTech companion can be a game-changer in assisting students with dyslexia to get the best out of their learning process. 

Defining dyslexia and how it affects learning

Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty interpreting or reading letters, words or symbols. Individuals who have dyslexia experience issues identifying speech sounds and decoding them. To rephrase it, they struggle with learning how letters and words relate to sounds.

Statistically speaking, it is much more widespread than you might think. According to dyslexia.com, roughly 780 million people worldwide could be suffering from this disorder, and it’s a common condition among children. 

For dyslexic students, reading can require exhausting levels of concentration and cause frustration and reluctance. Even the most common classroom task, such as reading aloud, can mine students’ confidence in such a vital part of the age of learning. 

On top of that, this type of hereditary disorder impacts comprehension and ultimately affects the lexicon and background knowledge. 

Supporting students with dyslexia in school with Texthelp’s Read&Write

At Acer for Education, we team up with the best EdTech partners to unlock the potential of all students. Our associates at Texthelp provide solutions to support people in reading, writing and communicating across all stages of their lives. 

While discussing dyslexia in school, their Read&Write software is a literacy support toolbar that you shouldn’t be without in your classroom.

For starters, students with dyslexia usually struggle with comprehending what they read. Thanks to Read&Write’s text-to-speech technology, your pupils will by having texts read aloud. That means a better understanding of tasks, lectures, and written information in general.

Moreover, the additional dictionary support is another unmissable key feature. As we mentioned above, one of the consequences of students with dyslexia’s reading difficulties is expanding their vocabulary. Thanks to the dictionary feature, pupils will get the chance to have a description and sample sentence for each word in a text. It’s a win-win situation because they can enjoy more visualisation while enhancing their writing and reading skills.

Texthelp’s Read&Write has some more aces up its sleeves. To encourage dyslexic pupils to exercise their writing skills, the toolbar also allows voice recording and transforming it into written text.

Finally, to reduce the impact of attention difficulties, thanks to Read&Write, learners with dyslexia can also highlight what they want to focus on while masking the surrounding areas. In other words, no more distractions among all these pieces of information. 

Acer & Texthelp: the best match to create an inclusive classroom

Now, all you need is the proper device to pair with Read&Write. Have you checked out our portfolio of companions for K-12 schools yet? Watch our EduTorials to meet your students’ next laptop and find the one that fits your pupils’ needs.

Would you like to learn more about the combination of Acer devices and Texthelp’s Read&Write? Contact us today: acerforeducation.emea@acer.com