The Reading Toolbox is
produced by Millfield Books
Scotland's Premier Educational Book
Supplier
It contains the following programs
|
Screen Reader - this program will read
out most of the text on the computer screen simply by placing the mouse pointer on the text. It works well with MS Word and with the word processor included in this package. It has a good range of voices and speed and pitch can be varied. It is most suitable for reading short passages of text. It also works with MS Excel. |
Web Browser - This program when connected to the internet will allow students to do research and download information. Its great virtue is that it will read out the contents of all the web pages. Simply select the text right click and choose speak from the drop down menu and the selected text will be read out. It has a nice voice with good pronunciation. It can also be used to read any page saved as a web page such as interactive worksheets or white board pages. Simply drag these pages into the program and they will open. |
| E-Book Reader - This is another reading program more suitable for reading long passages. It can be set to read continuously and it will track the words as it reads. Designed to be used with E-Books and other books downloaded from the internet. It can be used to read other text documents such as MS word. It comes with twenty e-books many of which are used by Scottish Schools including Shakespeare plays. It can also convert the text into Audio Files in Wav or MP3. | E-mail - The web Browser above also has an e-mail option and it uses the same technology to read incoming and outgoing e-mails. These two programs can allow the poor reader to participate in interschool online activities and of course have a normal e-mail interaction with his friends and family. |
| Word Processor - This is a fairly conventional word processor with all the normal functions. It looks slightly different from MS word but will open word documents and it works well with the Screen Reader. It can be set read out each word or letter as they are typed and it will read back the text already there. It has a built in spell checker. | Media Player - This versatile program will play most types of Audio and Video files. It is simple to use, the files can just be dragged on to the tool bar and they will open and start to play. It will play the files produced by the recorder below. |
| Dictionary - A useful little program which can be used with any text document to look up the meaning of a new word. It can be open in the back ground and called up by just selecting a word and pressing the hotkeys. The meanings can be read by the Screen Reader. | Audio Recorder - A very useful program for students who have a serious difficulty with writing or typing. It is simple to use and can allow students to record verbal answers to question papers or create audio essays. The output can be saved as wav or Mp3 and placed in the Portable Docs folder to be listened to by the teacher. For more advanced students it can also be used to edit audio files |
| PDF
Converter - Many documents including the new digital exams are
now produced in PDF format. Unfortunately there is not a portable PDF reader
,however this program will convert PDF into normal text or RTF and it can
then be read using one of the readers. |
OCR Scanner - This is a scanning program which will work with any USB scanner and can be used to scan books or documents and convert them into text which can be read by one of the screen readers .It also claims to work with a normal camera. It has it's own built in voice and it can read back the scanned document but the quality is poor. |
| My Portable Docs - This is a folder for saving the students work on the flash drive. The student's work should not normally be saved to the hard drive of the host computer. It can sometimes be difficult to access files on the host computer from the flash drive due to the number of enclosing folders. It is best if they are saved to this file first | Typing Tutor -
One of the most useful skills a poor reader can acquire is good
keyboard dexterity and if possible the ability to touch type. Students
should be encouraged to practice this as early as possible and should if
possible have developed competence by the time they reach high school This program has lots of games and practice exercises to help with learning. Students should be encouraged to practice at home. |