5 Game Changer Apps to support kids with Dyslexia and DCD

How many times have you heard the saying,

"There's an App for that"?

Great! But how do you know which app to pick and how to use it?

Well, this is something I can help you with. I've outlined 5 game changer Apps below for students with Dyslexia and DCD.

I am focusing on the iPad, as I have found from my research that the iPad is best to support learning and therefore iOS apps work best.

iPad has some built-in accessibility features that are epic!

To help children who have difficulties in reading, Text To Speech (TTS) is very useful. As the name suggests, TTS converts text into spoken voice output.
If you have an iPad with iPadOS 13 or 14, go to Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content. Finally, slide the “Speak Selection” toggle to “ON”.
Now, you'll be able to have any document or webpage read back to you. All for free, too!

Here are my 5 Game Changer Apps:

1. TEACH YOUR MONSTER TO READ

This is a beautifully made and entertaining resource for young children to learn phonic sounds. They design a monster and take it on an adventure around a magic area to find the letter sounds and fix a spaceship. The storyline is good, and the activities are educational and motivational. Note, this is aimed at younger students.

COST: Free to €5.49

2. VOICE DREAM READER

This is a must-have app for students struggling with reading. It reads aloud text that can be pulled from PDFs, web browsers and Word documents. The whole experience can be customised for the student, including the voice, speech rate, sentence pause, visual layout (background colour) and even the font type (Open Dyslexic).

One key stand-out feature is the “Lines Visible” option – you can control the amount of content displayed for a student who struggles to follow a line of text; this is a super feature.

COST: €16.99

3. CLAROPDF PRO

ClaroPDF Pro allows students to access books that are in PDF format. It contains a built-in reader and has a highlighting function. It allows materials to be opened from all internet-based storage. Users can select from a choice of voices, speed of voice, and colour of highlighting according to their preference.

COST: Free to €10.99

4. VOICE DREAM WRITER

Voice Dream Writer works as a proof-reader. Using its text-to-speech functionality, it reads aloud text as it is typed using the keyboard or the dictate function. This helps students to spot grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and awkward sentences.

COST: Free to €10.99

5. SNAPTYPE PRO

SnapType Pro allows students to work on workbooks and photocopied worksheets by letting them fill them in on the iPad. Students can overlay text boxes on the images and work directly from there. Snaptype helps students keep up with their peers in class, even when their penmanship holds them back. Once finished working on a document, they can print, save it, or send it to their teacher. Great for those who find hand-writing difficult.