Stafford Grammar School improves learning and wellbeing with ReadSpeaker TextAid, empowering neurodiverse students with assistive tech for reading and comprehension.
“For a child with dyslexia, reading takes all of their mental energy and that’s before they’ve even thought about understanding the text and answering questions on it. ReadSpeaker TextAid just takes that load away from them so they are actually able to show the teacher what they are capable of without being so overwhelmed and tired from having to read through the text.” — Jenny Cromey, Special Education Needs (SEN) Coordinator, Stafford Prep School
One in ten people in the UK have dyslexia and 13% of students have special needs support in school. Wellbeing at SGS is a key focus and in addition to the creation of a centralised Wellbeing Centre on school grounds in September 2023, SGS has also incorporated assistive technology to better support students with diverse needs.
Prior to adopting ReadSpeaker TextAid, the school had limited experience with assistive technologies and primarily relied on reading pens, which were limited in their functionality (no dictionary look up, word predict etc) and clunky to use.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the integration of technology into daily classroom activities, paving the way for the introduction of ReadSpeaker reading, writing, and studying literacy support tools.
Jenny Cromey, the Special Education Needs Coordinator (SENCO) at Stafford Prep School, identified dyslexia as the most common need amongst students, and has overseen the rollout of ReadSpeaker TextAid to students and staff.
The suite of speech-enhanced reading and studying tools has been transformative, she says, and has really helped to elevate student learning, particularly those with a neurodiversity such as dyslexia.
In the prep school, students primarily use ReadSpeaker TextAid for its e-reader capabilities. This tool significantly reduces the mental load associated with reading comprehension tasks. By enabling students to listen to the text, ReadSpeaker TextAid allows them to focus on understanding and interpreting the material rather than expending their energy on decoding and the reading process itself.
For students with dyslexia, this reduction in mental load is crucial. Reading can be an exhausting task, often leaving little energy for comprehension and response.
TextAid has proven to be an invaluable asset for neurodiverse learners in improving learning outcomes. The technology helps streamline the learning process by minimizing distractions and allowing students to concentrate on the core tasks.
This independence is not only beneficial for academic performance but also for social skills, well-being, and confidence. By using ReadSpeaker TextAid, students can participate in the same classroom activities as their peers, fostering a more inclusive learning environment.
ReadSpeaker TextAid helps by:
“TextAid has made me more willing to work and more confident to work independently. When it reads it to me, it helps me pick out the information from the text instead of me reading it. When I’m having it read to me, I can take it in a lot better. I knew I could do it, but I didn’t know how, and now I can, it makes me happy and I can get the work done a lot quicker.” — Bea, Stafford Grammar School
Hear more from Bea, pupil at Stafford Prep on how she uses the literacy support tool.
As students progress to the grammar school, their use of TextAid evolves and more of the available functionality is used including spellcheck, and exam mode. The tool additionally becomes a vital revision aid, allowing students to download and listen to lesson content and online resources repeatedly.
This functionality provides a personalized learning experience, enabling each student to review material at their own pace and as often as needed. Additionally students can use the tool for personal email, SMS and image text, facilitating all written communication.
“Over the past few months our dyslexic daughter has been using TextAid software, which enables her to upload documents and listen to them through her laptop, copy and paste from the document and dictate her written work. Since she has been using the software, our daughter’s confidence has grown beyond expectation, along with her ability to work independently. This has eased many of our concerns as she enters Grammar School education next year. We are now confident that she will thrive with the support of Text Aid.” — Vicky, mum of Bea at Stafford Grammar School
One of the most significant advantages of ReadSpeaker TextAid is its continuity. Students retain their logins throughout their education, from prep school through grammar school and into higher education.
This consistency of use of assistive technologies both helps them develop good study habits, become independent learners, and achieve academic success equipped with tools that support both their learning and day to day reading and writing tasks.
ReadSpeaker tools are just as impactful in day to day communications such as text messages, emails and even interpret image text.
The introduction of ReadSpeaker TextAid at Stafford Prep and Grammar School has been a resounding success.
Special Education Needs Coordinator at Stafford Prep, Jenny Cromey comments:
“TextAid has proved an invaluable addition to our classroom learning. We have seen growth in our young individuals as TextAid has supported their independent learning.”
Students at SGS are also benefiting from the additional wrap-around care accessed through their centrally located, Wellness Centre. This provides students that have experienced overwhelm, or students that have experienced unsettling or difficult situations in school, anxiety, panic attacks, a low sensory environment – a place they can decompress.
Roz Tarr, Assistant Head of Education Support at Stafford Grammar School says:
“This has been beneficial to reduce the sense of heightened response and to enable them to open up, talk and express themselves.”
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About ReadSpeaker
With 25 years of expertise, our text-to-speech solutions and voice-enhanced learning tools help make content accessible and engaging for a diverse population of learners. Integrated directly in learning platforms, or as an individual tool, ReadSpeaker provides easy-to-access and easy-to-use text to speech for any content, on any device, including assessments, assignments, STEM, OCR and quizzes. ReadSpeaker is 200+ voices in 50+ languages, working with 12000+ customers in over 70 countries.
Visit http://readspeaker.com/education for details.
ReadSpeaker: Tell us about what steps you’ve taken at SGS and Prep to improve wellbeing and learning outcomes.
Roz Tarr: We’ve noticed since COVID-19, an increase in the number of our students requiring mental health support and so we decided that people needed a single place to facilitate access to support for students and teachers in once central location in the school.
This is what has led to us creating and launching the Wellness Centre in September 2023.
Another way that we’ve improved outcomes for our students, especially those with learning needs is through assistive technology and especially ReadSpeaker TextAid which we’ve rolled out for all our students with SEN needs regardless of what that learning need might be.
ReadSpeaker: What is the most common support need at SGS/Prep?
Jenny Cromey: The main need across the school is dyslexia. For a child with dyslexia, reading takes all of their mental energy and that’s before they’ve even thought about understanding the text and answering questions on it, that’s why we’ve taken steps to improve outcomes for our students, especially those with neurodiversity needs by providing assistive technology in the form of ReadSpeaker TextAid which has really helped elevate their learning.
The tool has been transformative, especially for our neurodiverse students.
ReadSpeaker: How have students been using the Wellness Centre?
Roz Tarr: It’s been a real asset. We’ve been able to support students that have experienced overwhelm, providing a place they can decompress in, or students that have experienced unsettling or difficult situations in school, anxiety, panic attacks and the low sensory environment we’ve created has been beneficial to reduce the sense of heightened response and to enable them to open up, talk and express themselves.
ReadSpeaker: What does the Wellness Centre consist of?
Roz Tarr: Downstairs we have our learning support space, it has a classroom area, offices, meeting room, but it’s the upstairs that really provides something quite special.
We’ve transformed it into a sensory space, so there is low level lighting, bubble tubes, plenty of soft seating, and even a cubby hole space where students with sensory needs can take themselves away from all the stresses that school can exert on a student that is carrying a lot of need.
ReadSpeaker: What additional successes have you seen by providing a Wellness Centre?
Roz Tarr: We have had a real success with our wellness centre lunch-club because we have a number of students that struggle with that unstructured time, some due to sensory needs, some don’t like the canteen, others are a little socially awkward, and we’ve found the centre provides a safe space for these students to eat, socialise, build friendships, it’s an across year groups thing, which we don’t often get in school.
We’ve found that it has improved attendance, and engagement in the classroom for those students for which there was a real barrier to attending school.
ReadSpeaker: What would you say to other schools considering investing in assistive technologies?
Jenny Cromey: Transformative! From a teacher perspective I’d say that the learning curve isn’t steep.
We were able to train all staff very quickly and both teacher and student are quickly able to see that the assistive technology takes the focus away from the reading task itself, and enables a focus on the task in hand or the skill that the teacher might be asking the pupil to perform.
From a student perspective they benefit enormously from being able to show the teacher what they can achieve on a level playing field once the mental load of reading is fully supported. Students are less tired, more engaged, more confident and at ease in the classroom.
Hear Jenny and Roz from Stafford Grammar School discuss ReadSpeaker TextAid and wellbeing initiatives at SGS at this recent webinar Wellness vs Workload in partnership with Booost Education.
Stafford Grammar School is a co-educational private day school located in Staffordshire, England. It was founded in 1982 and is housed in a historic building designed by the famous Victorian architect Augustus Pugin.