Resources for Students
OpenDyslexic: A Typeface for Dyslexia
OpenDyslexic is a typeface designed to help fight against some common symptoms of dyslexia.
If you like the way you are able to read this page, and others, then this typeface is for you!
Letters have heavy weighted bottoms to indicate direction. You are able to quickly figure out which part of the letter is down which aids in recognizing the correct letter, and sometimes helps to keep your brain from rotating them around. Consistently weighted bottoms can also help reinforce the line of text. The unique shapes of each letter can help prevent confusion through flipping and swapping.
OpenDyslexic is free for personal use, business use, education, commercial, books, ebook readers, applications, websites, and any other project or purpose you need.
Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader
For dyslexics, having both visual and audible prompts helps reinforce words and improve fluency. Therefore, text to speech readers not only help you read more quickly, and estimate accurately how much time something will take to read, they actually improve your reading.
Read Aloud uses text-to-speech (TTS) technology to convert webpages, PDFs, Google Docs, Google Play books, Amazon Kindle, and EPUBs (via the excellent EPUBReader extension from epubread.com). It also allows you to select from a variety of voices. It’s free, and you simply add it as an extension to Chrome.
Accessibility Modes
iPhone
iPhones come with built-in text to speech software. To turn it on, go to Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content. From there, you can opt for the phone to read selected text aloud, or the entire screen.
​
You can also use Siri to dictate speech to text, and tell her to turn on text to speech.
iMacs & Macbooks
Apple computers come equipped with a similar in-built feature to iPhones. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content. From there you can select how you would like to hear text.​
​
