Case Study

Case Study from New Ross Consolidated School

It is my pleasure to introduce one of my students who is a 13 year old male in grade 8 who has been diagnosed with a learning disability in both reading and writing. He is a conscientious student who always puts his best effort forward and who’s willingness and hard work is inspiring and has significantly impacted his academic success and learning. Although this student, let’s call him Charles, is motivated and tries his best, he continually has been struggling to meet the expected curriculum outcomes relating to reading and writing for his grade level and prior to having access to assistive technology was receiving C’s in both writing and reading strands of Language Arts. I am proposing that as a result of this student’s access to assistive technology, Charles is not only able to meet curriculum outcomes and is currently at a B level in both reading and writing, but his personality has changed, his organization has improved and he is using his device across all subject areas to illustrate his learning.

Charles lives on a farm, so it’s no surprise that he has many responsibilities at home to care for his family’s animals. He often works well into the evening following school and has little time for homework. Charles is well liked by his peers and his teachers. He is known as being easy going, hard working, cooperative and very bright. He excels in Math as his Math reasoning, perceptual reasoning, processing speed and number operations are above average. Although Charles has had success in school, he has always had to work much harder to succeed in reading and writing as he is below average in phonological awareness, spelling, reading comprehension, verbal comprehension, working memory and written output. Charles lacked confidence in his reading and writing ability and although he would be willing to share his writing with peers or read aloud he certainly did not display confidence. Charles is going to be in grade 9 next year and will be attending Forest Heights High School, which means the expectations placed on him academically and socially are going to be much heavier. He is used to being in a small class (currently he has 12 other students in his grade), so next year he will not be receiving the same teacher assistance. The importance of getting Charles prepared for next year’s challenges is crucial in his future success and for an overall release of independence. 

Prior to having access to assistive technology, Charles’ writing was almost illegible to his peers and teachers. He has wonderful ideas, but organization was a challenge. Charles would make frequent spelling errors even in high frequency words such as want, what, there, etc. It also would take Charles at least 3-4 times longer to produce the same piece of writing without having access to assistive technology, specifically the ipad. Fortunately, this year all students in the South Shore Regional School board who have been diagnosed with a learning disability were given access to an ipad to help them become more independent learners. Knowing that we were going to have a Learning Disabilities specialist come to our school and customize an ipad for my students, I began encouraging Charles to learn how to use the ipad. During our Science IBL class and Digital Citizenship IBL class, I would have Charles use an ipad to do his research and write up to get more comfortable using the ipad. Once our LD specialist came in to work with me and my students, she said that the most receptive student to the ipad was in fact Charles. He learned very quickly how to use his device and whenever possible would show his understanding through using the ipad. I have seen great improvement in this student and through speaking with teachers have also heard Charles has come a long way in his learning and what he is able to produce. The main applications that he uses on a daily basis include Claro pdf, Readiris, Notes HD, Google Drive for textbooks and novels (he uses text-to-speech in order to follow along with the English novel), Co-writer and BookCreator. Overall, Co-writer has probably made the most significant difference for Charles as he is able to produce a piece of writing that actually illustrates his thinking in a much more polished manner. 

In conclusion, Charles is able to show his thinking and understanding without the written output barrier, he is more engaged, has more self-confidence, his writing is more comprehensive, he is more willing to contribute to the class, his understanding of written work has improved as he is hearing and seeing what he reads and he no longer needs as much time to complete a product, which relieves the frustration both on him and his teachers. There are some draw backs that must be mentioned, which include his distractibility at times in the classroom and he can lose focus on the topic at hand. Also, he is not permitted to take his device home, so he is not able to complete homework using his ipad. Hopefully, next year he will have access to his device at home especially once he matures and shows he can care for the device on his own. Overall, it has been a truly life changing experience for Charles and it has been very exciting as an educator to see how greatly he has been impacted by the accessibility of assistive technology. 

Top apps for reluctant readers

Name of app: iBooks  

Description of app: The latest version of the iBook is particularly useful for children because it offers a read-aloud feature in which a narrator reads the book to you. For some books, the screen highlights words as you read along. You can also write your own novel (students, too), which can be published and shared throughout the class. This app allows you to download classic books, enjoy picture books and novels, so it’s great for students of all ages. In addition, there is a feature that allows interactive learning, diagrams, videos and pictures that go along with text to encourage reluctant readers. The font is easy to read and you have a choice of page layout.

Why I chose it: This is a great app to use in for students to share their published writing activities in addition to using this app for reluctant readers. I know for many students, this app is a motivator when writing and reading. Students are motivated to create a quality piece of writing which can be published in iBook, but also students rely upon their iBook book shelf during reading activities as opposed to the anxiety ridden paperback novels. I chose this app because it is an all around fantastic app to use for many different reluctant readers and for students who have a passion for reading. 

Who would benefit: iBook is an excellent app for students who require assistance in reading and need to hear the words for comprehension as opposed to just seeing/decoding the text independently.  I have a student in grade 5 who using this app daily. His classmates read the novel, "Holes' aloud each day. He has a hearing impairment and gets extremely frustrated when having to rely on his classmates to read aloud. He will put headphones on and listen to "Holes" on iBook while reading along. He then can participate in the discussion and complete a reading response to the book. Students can also post their own books (that they have published) on iBooks as well. Readers can change translate the text as it reads written text in 18 languages. This is a perfect app for ESL students who may find comfort in the ability to translate if needed. There is a built in word or phrase finder so you can locate quotes, characters and the like. You can adjust the brightness of the screen so students who are visually impaired can use this app as well.

Name of app: Read me stories

Description of app: This app helps to develop a daily reading habit that delivers a brand new book every day. Fun features include text highlighting as you read and the ability to touch characters and explore story lines.

Why I chose it: I was unfamiliar with this app until one of my students in grade 3 showed me while we were using his ipad. He was really excited to show me a story he had been reading and wanted to share it with me. He is a very reluctant reader, so seeing his excitement definitely suggested to me that this is a truly important app for him to encourage him to read more. 

Who would benefit: The student who shared this app with me has ASD and has great difficulty staying on task when participating in classroom activities; however, when using this app he is completely engaged and focused. This is a great app for someone who needs to be able to explore the story line and characters in an interactive manner and have the ability to hear the words aloud while reading in order to be independent. It is amazing to see a student who is often dependent upon his teachers and teaching assistant to enjoy using an app such as this to read and show his independence and confidence in his own abilities. 

Name of app: ReadIris 

Description of app: This app has an editable text feature that can be used for scanned documents and pdf files.This app allows you to import images from your photo library or import pdf files, not to mention it recognizes over 130 languages. This app is designed to allow users to select content they want converted, reordered scanned images and to choose the output format in which to be used and to export the new files into iCloud (no internet connection necessary) so it can be used at your convenience anytime. 

Why I chose this app: I love this app because it recognizes all text, graphics, images and tables in documents. It is easy to use, reliable and of high quality unlike many app that claim to have the same purpose. 

Who would benefit: Students who would benefit the most from using this app are ESL students, students who need documents converted in order to use the text to speech feature in claropdf. This is an app that I would highly recommend for students who have a learning disability in reading, students who have a visual impairment and need text read to them aloud (using this in combination with claropdf) and for students who need text read to them during tests. This also useful for students who tend to be disorganized. Instead of keeping track of paper documents, they can scan all of their paper copies onto readIris and rely upon having the copy at their finger tips. 

Claropdf 

Description of app: This is an app that includes features such as text to speech, highlighting text options, proofreading accessible text. It allows the user to have more accessibility to text documents. Claropdf allows the background colour of the pdf to be changed, to enhance readability. It also supports VoiceOver. You can increase the font using this app, so students with visual impairment can have access to the same documents. There is text search within the document, so you can search long documents for a particular place of interest.

Why I chose it: Many of my students at the junior high level and even at the elementary level use this app. It’s easy to use, comprehensive and allows students to participate in the same activities as the rest of the class and allowing students to have independence in their participation. This app allows students to read text and complete assignments with more independence because they are able to manipulate the text.