Readability

As technology becomes more and more a part of everyday life in the classroom is has become a concern for me on how we will help students who have any kind of issues with dyslexia. I taught students who needed enlarged handouts, used colored overlays over their handouts, etc. With more and more documents being projected on a wall, used on a laptop or desktop I have become increasingly concerned with how to help those students.


Fortunately there is a great tool out there that not helps with several visual issues but is FREE!! The site Readability.com has an add-on you can use to transform an article on the internet to fit your viewing needs. I have found that articles tend to be on white backgrounds with black text. This can be very hard on the eyes, especially if projecting it on a screen for the entire class. I have kids who refuse to wear their glasses so being able to quickly increase just the font size of an article is awesome! Also I love that I can hide the pictures of an article if need be.

Below I have article from the Houston Chronicle as it would normally be viewed on a standard web-browser. You will notice that is high contrast with the white background and black text. Also the font may deemed somewhat small due the current web-browser settings.












Below is the same article but the view of it has been modified by the readability add-on. I went with a black background and white text which I have heard is great from some students. I changed the font type and increased the text size. You can also take the articles and print them or save them to your Kindle (or Kindle app) for easy viewing on the device of your choice.