Specific Learning Disabilities/Dyslexia

Website developed by the CT Dept. of Education and SERC. "This site serves as a resource to local education agencies (LEAs), administrators, educators, parents and others interested in learning more about accessible educational materials (AEM) in Connecticut and implementing them to support students with print disabilities."

"The following is an extensive and meticulously organized list of apps that may be helpful to individuals with dyslexia, parents of dyslexics, or the professionals who work with dyslexics (teachers, tutors, reading specialists, etc.). We carefully consider each app before we add it, ensuring that it claims to help dyslexics in ways that are in line with the evidence on how to help dyslexics. In other words, we add apps that aid with the cognitive processes used in speaking, reading, spelling, and writing, but we do not add apps that are visual aids for reading, because evidence shows that dyslexia is not a visual disability."

Find information and resources about assistive technology that can help kids with language-based learning disabilities become stronger readers and writers. Assistive technology is any device that supports the independence of a person with a disability. Assistive technology can be “low-tech” (something very simple and low-cost, like a pencil grip), or “high-tech” (something sophisticated, like a computer). See also: Inclusive Classrooms.

Comprehensive list of assistive technology devices and applications for individuals with dyslexia. Organized into 15 different headings with 88 options put into defined types of assistive technology.

2021 article: "October is National Dyslexia Month, an occasion during which Educational Technology and Mobile Learning highlights resources and tools that educators and teachers can use to make learning more inclusive and accessible. In yesterday's post I covered the new and recent accessibility features added to Chromebooks and in today's post I am sharing with you this excellent educational resource from The National Center on Improving Literacy (NCIL) which I discovered through Lisa Monthie."

Family members, teachers, tutors, employers, and professionals often face difficulties in selecting appropriate technology to support individuals who struggle with literacy or math. This fact sheet offers an overview and some general recommendations for selecting appropriate tools for learning or practicing skills (instructional technology) and for allowing independent performance of a function that would be difficult without the technology (assistive technology). Technologies for dyslexia and other learning disabilities are increasingly available and accessible at lower cost.

The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) is here to support special education professionals and your ongoing efforts to apply good teaching practices remotely due to precautions surrounding COVID-19.
This page is a collection of suggested resources you can use as you determine the best means to provide services to your students and their families. They have been curated for you and will be regularly updated.

"In this section you’ll find the latest information about a range of technological tools—from voice recognition programs that let users dictate ideas and watch them appear on their computer screens to recording devices that take the stress out of note-taking. Each of these easy-to-use tools can make an enormous difference for dyslexic children and adults."

The Blending Board App is a powerful educational tool for teachers and parents working with dyslexic learners or anyone else still learning the foundations of blending sounds (phonics) and the multisyllabic rules of English. In this App users will find an easy-to-use resource that allows them to create a deck of phonemes that can be substituted and manipulated to create various kinds of blending activities. The decks enable users to practice decoding simple words, and multisyllabic words, too.

One of the best writing tools for people with dyslexia and others who struggle with handwriting or the expression of thought. Build libraries of words based on what you’re writing about, or select from ones already available. At $4.99/month for students, parents, or educators, the price tag is small. School districts can also buy a license for a large number of students and may be able to offer it free while your child is in school. Once you install the app or extension, it automatically syncs with Gmail, Google Docs, and many more.

Dolphin EasyReader is a free reading app that enables people who are blind, visually impaired (VI) or dyslexic to read text and audio books in ways that suit their vision and preferred reading style. EasyReader offers convenient access to your favourite accessible book libraries and talking newspaper stands, in one place. Neurodivergent readers – especially readers who have dyslexia – can customise their reading experience with dyslexia-friendly fonts, adjustable colour schemes and word highlights that synchronise with audio. Designed for accessibility, EasyReader enables blind and partially sighted readers to read with magnified text, with audio, or a combination of both - where each word is highlighted on screen as it’s read aloud. It also links to braille displays for braille readers. EasyReader is fully optimized for use with iOS VoiceOver and iOS supported Braille displays.

With a wide array of games that adapt to your ability, dyslexia.ai is perfect for students who need a little help improving their literacy. We cover reading, spelling, phonics, rhyming and vowels - everything you need to achieve your full potential!

What began as Recording for the Blind to help blinded soldiers after World War II is now a comprehensive library of more than 80,000 audiobooks designed for anyone with learning differences or visual impairments. A human voice reads the text, which some kids find easier to listen to than a computer-generated one. Ask your school’s special education coordinator to provide you with a free membership. If your school doesn’t offer one, you can buy the service for $11.25/month.

What began as Recording for the Blind to help blinded soldiers after World War II is now a comprehensive library of more than 80,000 audiobooks designed for anyone with learning differences or visual impairments. A human voice reads the text, which some kids find easier to listen to than a computer-generated one. Ask your school’s special education coordinator to provide you with a free membership. If your school doesn’t offer one, you can buy the service for $11.25/month.

Legere Reader is an accessible reading tool for mobile and tablet devices. With advanced text-to-speech and a highly configurable screen layout, it can be tailored to suit every reading style from completely auditory to completely visual, plus synchronized combination of both. The visually impaired will benefit from the ability to hear documents read in their favorite voices; students and others with dyslexia will appreciate the synchronized reading capability that integrates text and voice; and everyone who wants to hear or read their documents in their own way will benefit from the configurability of the visual and voice capabilities.

Lexico is a distraction-free reading aid for readers of all ages and abilities. In particular, Lexico is helpful for new readers or readers with dyslexia, learning challenges, or visual-processing disorders.

The program provides students with virtual graph paper, and they can use a touchscreen keypad to solve math problems without using a pencil. They will have to type equations on a keyboard, so if they prefer dictation, this app might not be for them. You can also save assignments in a searchable library. However, Mod Math is better for younger grades doing lower-level math. Mod Math is free but only available on Apple devices.

Based on the proven Montessori learning method, Montessori Crosswords helps kids develop their reading, writing, and spelling skills by building words from a set of 320 word-image-audio-phonics combinations using a phonics-enabled movable alphabet.

Dyslexic students use Omoguru for fluency practice in an enjoyable way. The app supports school and independent reading needs of every dyslexic student ages 10 - 16 but also works great for adults. What’s the secret? Visually comfortable font system and tools designed to make the text more readable. Research proves it reduces reading time, mistakes and mental effort. So far dyslexics read 150 000 pages with it. And it is free.

The purpose of PHONEMIC AWARENESS BUBBLES is to help build foundational reading skills for your child. This app helps your child develop their ability to listen for and discern sounds at the beginning of words. An example of this would be the child recognizing that the /b/ sound is at the beginning of the words ball, bat, and balloon. By practicing and mastering the games in this app, your child can develop neural pathways in their brain relating to sound recognition. When your child is introduced to the printed letters, your child will already recognize the primary sound each letter makes. This will make learning the alphabet easier than if no phonemic instruction were given to your child.

SOUND BEGINNINGS helps build strong alphabetic principle skills. SOUND BEGINNINGS helps develop foundational reading skills through entertaining, interactive games. * Twelve learning games provide practice in phonics and reading; * Identify the beginning, middle, or ending sound of a word; * Four Unique Games; *Learn the sounds of the letters and how to use them. Six learning games offer practice using the sounds, not the letters' names, and lowercase instead of uppercase letters at the beginning, middle, and end of words.

It’s a well-designed app for students and adults alike, and it’s free with in-app purchases. You can scan a book, import a PDF, download from Google Drive, and sync across all your devices.

One of the best writing tools for people with dyslexia and others who struggle with handwriting or the expression of thought. Build libraries of words based on what you’re writing about, or select from ones already available. At $4.99/month for students, parents, or educators, the price tag is small. School districts can also buy a license for a large number of students and may be able to offer it free while your child is in school. Once you install the app or extension, it automatically syncs with Gmail, Google Docs, and many more.

Over 32 accessibility & productivity features built to help with reading and writing on the web, in class, at work, or at home. With a delightfully intuitive and easy-to-use design, Helperbird is your all-in-one extension that provides personalized support to make web pages, PDFs and documents more accessible and productive to your needs. It’s designed to help everyone with the web in a way that suits their abilities learning styles and lifestyle. Helperbird offers a range of powerful tools to customize the web to your needs to improve accessibility, reading, writing, studying, and productivity, including Reader Mode, Immersive Reader by Microsoft, dyslexia support, dyslexia fonts, text to speech with natural voices, OCR with text extracting, dictation, Dyslexia rulers, translations, word prediction also 28 other features.

Learning Ally membership is required to use this app. Learning Ally is for students with dyslexia or other reading deficits who struggle with decoding, fluency or comprehension, who are blind or visually impaired, or who have a physical disability that prohibits them from reading standard print.
Access the largest human-narrated audiobook library, including key features for students with print disabilities
This app provides access to Learning Ally’s library of human-read audiobooks, offering an extensive selection of books students want and need to read, including bestsellers, classic literature and textbooks. Now students have interactive learning tools geared to help them succeed, including: highlighted text synced with the audio narration, speed control, bookmarking, highlighting, and note taking.

The Mercury Reader extension for Chrome removes ads and distractions, leaving only text and images for a clean and consistent reading view on every site. Features: disable surrounding webpage noise and clutter with one click; send to Kindle functionality; and, adjust typeface and text size, and toggle between light or dark themes.

tsimo is a certified and awarded educational game application developed for individuals diagnosed with learning disorders, attention deficit, autism, Down syndrome, Aspergers, and other special needs. Created under the guidance of parents, psychologists and special education teachers; assistive games in Otsimo teach fundamental education and concepts that develop cognitive, communication and motor skills with categories such as: Vocabulary and words; Numbers; Emotions; Colors; Music; Animals; Vehicles; and, so much more.

Boost reading and writing confidence across all types of content and devices, in class, at work, and at home! Wonderfully intuitive and easy-to-use, Read&Write for Google Chrome™ provides personalized support to make documents, web pages and common file types in Google Drive (including: Google Docs, PDF & ePub) more accessible. It’s designed to help everyone engage with digital content in a way that suits his/her abilities and learning styles. The basic extension is free, but the premium version includes support for Google Docs, specifically, multi-highlighting options for active reading, extracting highlights, a vocabulary chart, a regular and picture dictionary, and word prediction.

It’s a well-designed app for students and adults alike, and it’s free with in-app purchases. You can scan a book, import a PDF, download from Google Drive, and sync across all your devices.