Day+2


 * Table of Contents **

**Day2 **
toc
 * Name of Presenter: Beena Raichura **
 * Workshop Title: **
 * Using Kurzweil to support Reading and Writing for Students in grades 3-8 **
 * Subject: Special education students in grades 3-8 **
 * Audience: Teachers teaching students in grades 3-8 **

**Pre requisite **

 * Knowledge of Kurzweil **

**Content **
“Kurzweil is text reader software that has the capability to read text on the screen. Kurzweil helps students focus and better attend to reading tasks. It reduces reading distractibility and allows students to read faster, with less fatigue, for longer periods of time, and complete reading assignments in less time (Hecker, Burns, Elkind, Elkind & Katz, 2002). It is a beneficial tool for students with a variety of reading and decoding delays.” (Wilson, 2011)

To use Kurzweil effectively in the classroom, you need to put in some thought as to how it will benefit your students and how it can be made available to them in the classroom. Kurzweil can be an effective tool when used during regular class work and as an accommodation during testing.

**Note:** Using Kurzweil just for testing is not a good idea. It puts students at a disadvantage as they are not used to the program when it is used only for testing.

**Objectives for this lesson **

 * 1) Participants will learn creative ways to integrate Kurzweil in their classrooms even when only a few students in the classroom need to use it.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Participants will identify students that will most benefit from the using Kurzweil in the classroom based on their needs and the features of Kurzweil.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Participants will learn to help students with mild to moderate learning disabilities; low vision and auditory processing disorders take a test independently.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Participants will help students that struggle with spellings; reading and writing improve their academic achievement in school.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Participants will help ESOL students and students with decoding, spellings and vocabulary issues learn better.

**<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">How will you teach the lesson? **
<span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Participants will be provided tips to effectively incorporate using Kurzweil with their struggling students in the classroom.


 * <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Guidelines to be successful when using Kurzweil in the classroom **


 * <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">1. Create and have available digital reading material to support your content area **

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">a) Worksheets – scanned or created in Word and saved in a shared folder <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">b) PDF files – converted using the //Professional version// of Kurzweil and saved in a shared folder <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">c) Information from the Internet – copied and pasted into Word and then saved to a shared folder

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Kurzweil can open Word documents without any scanning or conversion required, so this is the easiest and quickest way to get meaningful content in a digital format. Use materials you have created in Word, or copy and paste content from the Internet into a Word document.


 * <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">2. Demonstrate using Kurzweil to your students **

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Model good reading strategies for the whole class on the Promethean board if one is available to you.

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">a) Re ‐ <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">reading <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">b) Highlighting important information <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">c) Checking vocabulary words

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Kurzweil should be used as a teaching tool not a teaching replacement. It is an effective tool to use with students struggling with reading and writing skills.


 * <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">3. Give students at least one period in the computer lab **

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Use a simple assignment so students can focus on the new skill of using Kurzweil and you can focus on observing them.

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">a) Allow students to experiment with speeds and voices so that they can understand what works best for them <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">b) Observe students carefully to see how they benefit from Kurzweil.

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">As with all new things, students need to get their hands on Kurzweil and experiment before they can be expected to use it responsibly and meaningfully. Help them see what works best for them by allowing them to experiment with the different options. Provide students detailed instructions about the tools available in Kurzweil.


 * <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">4. Provide opportunities for students to use Kurzweil as an alternative to reading independently **

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">a) Use a headphone splitters so that more than one student can use Kurzweil at a time <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">b) Allow students to read during independent work time in the classroom <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">c) Allow students to go to the media center or a computer lab when they need to read

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Now that your students understand why they are using Kurzweil, you need to give them a chance to use it. This cannot happen on a regular basis if the expectation is that all kids are doing the same thing at the same time. You may need to make some changes in the way you teach.


 * <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Note: **<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Kurzweil comes in two versions a //Professional version// and the //Learn Station version//. The //Professional version// has a built in scanning feature and needs to be connected to a scanner. The // “ <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Learn Station ” //<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;"> //version// is for students' use and has text to speech and study tools. Materials scanned using Kurzweil Professional are converted to a .kes file that retains the graphics and page layout. You can also use Kurzweil to scan a document to be read with SOLO ReadOutLoud. In that case use **Save As** to convert the files to a .rtf file format. • rtf files can be read by SOLO ReadOutLoud software, however, you will lose the graphics and some formatting.

**<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">How to use Kurzweil in the classroom **
<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Kurzweil can be used in the classroom to:
 * 1) <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">complete worksheets
 * 2) <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">to study and write
 * 3) <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;"> to bubble notes
 * 4) <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;"> to scan passages and notes so that students can use Kurzweil to read
 * 5) <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">to save e-text from the Internet
 * 6) <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;"> to read books on [|bookshare.org] ( MCPS has a subscription for it, check with the media specialist to get a log in and password)
 * 7) <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;"> to help students, who cannot read fixed hard copies of text to read independently
 * 8) <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;"> to help students who can integrate auditory and visual information, but have poor unaided reading rates or endurance to read. (Elkind, 1998).


 * <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Resources for Kurzweil 3000 from **<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">[| SET-BC]

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">1. [|Kurzweil 3000 v.10 Self Directed Course] (2008) <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">This is a self directed course to Kurzweil 3000 v10. It has presentations, demonstrations, activities and tutorials for teachers desiring to implement Kurzweil in their classrooms.

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">2. [|Kurzweil 3000 v. 9 and v.10: Essential Skills Guide with Accompanying Assignments (2006)] <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">This link provides guides and assignments for users to become confident in using Kurzweil in their classrooms. The accompanying assignments help individual become proficient with the basics of the program.

**<span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;"> Additional Resources **
<span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">[|Video tutorials on how to use different versions of Kurzweil] <span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">[|Kurzweil free trials page] <span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">[|Kurzweil Lesson Plans] <span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">[|Educational Resources] a collection of resources to help teachers use Kurzweil in their classroom.

<span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">[|Kurzweil test samples] the link demonstrates the many ways Kurzweil can be used in the classroom for testing.

<span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">[|Dyslexia and Kuzweil] this pages provides information about the different kinds of problems students with Dyslexia face and how Kurzweil can help them.

<span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">[|Introducing text readers in the classroom:] this article talks about Patrick O’ Hearn Elementary School in Dorchester MA that became an all inclusive school in spring of 1989. At that time it decided to use text to speech software like Kurzweil to help its special needs students succeed in school with their same age peers. The article provides an overview of text readers, what to select, when to select, implementation process and its quantitative and qualitative impact.

**<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Evaluation/Test Yourself **

 * <span style="font-family: 'Serif','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Complete these activities and then complete an evaluation survey on the evaluation page of this wiki. You can navigate to that page from the table of contents or the navigation menu on the right. **

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Open Kurzweil on the school computer <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Turn on the text to speech and word predictions features on it <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Then make a fill in the blank worksheet on a topic of your choice <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Next select a book from [|bookshare.org] <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Scan a few pages of a chapter in the book into Kurzweil and have it read the chapter to you. <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Adjust the volume and voice (type and speed) using the controls in the tool bar.

<span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Next, using the electronic bookmark in Kurzweil bookmark the page <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Highlight a few sentences in the book using the highlighter pen. <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Make notes about the chapter (few words to a sentence) using the foot notes, stick notes and record your voice features.


 * <span style="font-family: serif,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Table of Contents **