Have you ever tried to read something and the letters moved on the page? Do you struggle reading the letter b, d, or p? When you look at a word do you have to repeat the vowels in your head to try to connect the visual symbol with its sound? Did you know that "one in five students, or 15-20% of the population, has a language based learning disability? Dyslexia is the most common of the language based learning disabilities" (dyslexiacenterofutah.org).
I teach special education and have a large number of students who struggle with this dyslexia. I am teaching them how to use Microsoft applications that incorporate accessibility tools, which give my students better access to the curriculum. We use "Immersive Reader", which provides my students the ability to have text read to them, click on words they don't know to hear it read or give them a picture to help understand its meaning. We also use "Dictate" when writing. My students can verbalize their thoughts more easily than trying to process the sentence in their head and then put it down on paper.
To use the accessibility tools we need to use technology. We are lucky to have enough laptops but need to replace our headphones with sound-canceling microphones and wireless mice. Please support our efforts to help students with disabilities feel like they can learn with their peers.
About my class
Have you ever tried to read something and the letters moved on the page? Do you struggle reading the letter b, d, or p? When you look at a word do you have to repeat the vowels in your head to try to connect the visual symbol with its sound? Did you know that "one in five students, or 15-20% of the population, has a language based learning disability? Dyslexia is the most common of the language based learning disabilities" (dyslexiacenterofutah.org).
I teach special education and have a large number of students who struggle with this dyslexia. I am teaching them how to use Microsoft applications that incorporate accessibility tools, which give my students better access to the curriculum. We use "Immersive Reader", which provides my students the ability to have text read to them, click on words they don't know to hear it read or give them a picture to help understand its meaning. We also use "Dictate" when writing. My students can verbalize their thoughts more easily than trying to process the sentence in their head and then put it down on paper.
To use the accessibility tools we need to use technology. We are lucky to have enough laptops but need to replace our headphones with sound-canceling microphones and wireless mice. Please support our efforts to help students with disabilities feel like they can learn with their peers.