Schools Test E-Reader Devices With Dyslexic Students

Educators seeking new ways to personalize instruction for students with dyslexia and other reading disabilities are turning more and more to e-readers such as Amazon's Kindle, Apple's iPad, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and the Intel Reader. But the jury is still out on just how effective those digital tools are in helping struggling readers. And that's largely because educators only recently began testing the tools with students with reading disabilities. "It's beginning to be looked at very closely," says Alan E. Farstrup, the past executive director of the Newark, Del.-based International Reading Association. "But regardless of what the preliminary research says, and much of it is inconclusive, kids are growing up as digital natives, and we're really thinking about literacy in a different way now."

E-Reader Tips

1. Changing the font size of the text and the number of words on the e-reader screen can help students customize the text to their preferences, which can be especially helpful for struggling readers.

2. Using the built-in dictionary function of some e-readers may help students quickly define words they don't know and provide pronunciation information that can help them sound out unfamiliar words.

3. Having students record their thoughts or respond to specific questions with the "notes" feature of some e-readers provides individualized insight to their comprehension of the text for teachers.

4. The text-to-speech feature of some e-readers could provide the scaffolding for struggling readers to better understand a text by reading aloud the words that cause them the most difficulty.

5. Most e-readers can convert books into audio files quickly for students who struggle with reading, a process that previously was more cumbersome and time-consuming.

Read the full article HERE

E-book Revolution - is It an Evolutionary Need in Digital Form?

I received my Amazon Kindle, the latest e-book reader from the online retail-giant Amazon, three weeks ago, after waiting for the arrival of the gadget for months. In a matter of minutes, I did, not only master the art – or science – of using it, but also managed to purchase few books from Kindle Store, Amazon’s own e-book store at the click of a button.

No sooner I had ordered the books than they landed in my Kindle; So, Amazon’s claim of buying a book – and receiving too - in less than a minute is not an alluring exaggeration; on the contrary, it is an amazing form of short-cut, which in turn, virtually frees the reader from the clutches of postal industry.

Kudos goes for Amazon for introducing the device; it lives up to the hype, indeed and also plays its role in reversing a suicidal trend in modern society – the lack of enthusiasm for reading books.

It is a fact that kids don’t want to read any more, no matter what you hear to the contrary in terms of statistics, unless the teachers or the subjects that they pursue, demand of them. When they need information, they just ‘google’ for it – and often get much more than they look for! If there is a risk of being caught – red-handed or in a bit more honourable manner than that – there is special software for the completion of the job, without leaving any traces behind the act; the programmes just jumble up words for you in a piece of writing in such a way that it appear to be one of your own.

Read the full article HERE