When talking about good readers, we already know they are linguistically aware, understand the alphabetic principle, apply skills rapidly and fluently, possess strong vocabularies and syntactic and grammatical skills, and connect reading to their life experiences.
A child having difficulties in any of these areas can hinder reading development. Also, a child learns to read well even before going to school. Children with stimulating literacy experiences from birth have an advantage in vocabulary development, understanding the objectives of reading and awareness of the concepts of reading and literacy.
Conversely, some children are most at risk for reading failure. They lack consistent engagement in the language play that develops an awareness of sound structure and language patterns. This may be due to limited exposure to bedtime and lap-time reading.
On the other side, some kids have a learning disability, which impedes their reading capability. In a nutshell, we may say, some kids come to school without the literacy experiences they require to become readers. Some children struggle because they have received poor or inadequate reading instruction. And few with reading ailments.
Undoubtedly, it is a matter of concern for both parents and teachers. They would have to give unparalleled education to such students. However, with advancements in modern technology, the challenge can be tackled up to a certain level.
There are numerous apps designed specially to help such students master their reading skills effortlessly.
We've curated a list of 9 popular applications to help adolescents struggling to read.
Teen & Adult Phonics Library or TAP Library School Edition
The Teen and Adult Phonics (TAP) Library comprises a growing collection of sequential, decodable digital novels with edgy, engaging themes designed to appeal to teenagers and adults. The app aims at building a positive experience for older emergent readers, especially adolescents with SpLD such as dyslexia, ASD or ADHD.
TAPs School Edition incorporates FULL ACCESS to every story in the collection (no IAP). While the regular edition is free to download and consists of samples of every story reader wish to examine afore buying.
Blending Board
The Blending Board App is a great educational tool for teachers and parents who work with dyslexic learners or anyone learning the foundations of blending sounds (phonics) and the multisyllabic rules of English. The app has an easy-to-use resource allowing learners to form a deck of phonemes, which can be substituted and manipulated to create different blending activities. The decks' aid users in practising decoding simple words, and multisyllabic words, too.
With its easy-to-use QR code system, learners can easily create personalized decks and share them with anyone having the app, making it easier for the teacher to focus on teaching and not navigating complicated technology.
Rewordify
Rewordify is a powerful online software that makes reading easier–and faster than ever. This platform is great at intelligently simplifying difficult English for faster comprehension, effectively teaching words to build a better vocabulary, help teachers save time, producing engaging lessons, and improving overall learning outcomes. Rewordify is a free to use platform that requires installation.
Lexico Cognition
Lexico Cognition is designed to help develop language understanding, vocabulary building, cognitive and memory skills in the most playful way.
The application has over 30 games with 360 questions and answers in a variety of themes: pairs, relations, activity, descriptions, positions and opposites.
Lexico Cognition also has speech therapy for children without reading skills, reading exercises, language teaching (English as a second language) and independent practice for adults with a speech disorder.
The free version of Lexico Cognition contains the level "E", While all upgraded levels can be unlocked with one in-app purchase.
ComiXology
ComiXology is a cloud-based digital distribution platform, also popular as Amazon's comic books app. It offers more than 100,000 comic books, graphic novels, and manga across Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Windows 10, and the Internet. Rich in graphically intense and often violent and full of complex words can be highly motivating for those struggling to read.
Kindle
Amazon's eBook store with samples, Kindle Unlimited, and more.
Using Kindle, an amazon product, parents and teachers dealing with dyslexic kids can get great help. The application provides large print, specialized fonts, and audiobooks, making it easier to read.
You may already own another resource without realizing it – Immersion Reading on the Amazon Kindle. Amazon and Audible (their audiobook) have paired up to provide some excellent new technologies making owning a Kindle Fire just better than before. From surfing the web, answering emails, downloading apps and books, unlimited free cloud storage, to watching movies via Amazon Instant Video, Amazon provides Whispersync technology, Kindle Edition books with FREE Audible Audio edition. Moreover, those with difficulties can change the text's font size, use the built-in dictionary function, students can record their thoughts and use the text-to-speech feature.
Nook
Alike Kindle, Nook is Barnes & Noble's eBook store. From fiction to non-fiction, IT has a wide collection of books that might interest kids.
IXL
Ideal for K-12 students, IXL is an app that helps improve both reading and language arts skills with engaging photos and fun tests. The app offers personalized recommendations based on the student, including homeschool and family learning options. It allows learners to draw directly on the screen with their fingers, making it engaging and inviting. Also, celebrates accomplishments with virtual awards that can be shared digitally. The application membership begins at $9.95 per month.
Bookful
Bookful is one of the first applications to give life to books with the help of augmented reality. This is a fun and easy to read medium on any device. Users are allowed to select any book on the application and choose play or read modes, point it out to any surface and watch what the app has to serve. The app also narrates the entire book; zoom in to let readers see the animation closely and swipe pages to move forward in the story. With its interactive game mode, players can complete simple activities such as collecting cabbage in a basket and learn how to play.
If your children are having difficulty in reading, then these apps are surely going to be of great help. Do try them out!
