TEXTHELP – LEADING THE WAY IN LITERACY
SUPPORT IN EDUCATION
T
he team at Texthelp are well
known for their Read&Write
product. It’s been helping
millions of users for many years
right across the world - and, for the
last few years has been deployed in
schools across the Middle East.
As an education company who are
constantly
innovating,
Texthelp
have some big news for schools in
the region with the launch of a new,
dedicated Arabic version. Now for the
first time ever, this amazing tool that
helps to improve literacy and fluency,
can truly support everyone - in both
Arabic and English.
Read&Write has a simple aim - to
help everyone understand and be
understood. With that simple mission,
it provides a wealth of tools to help
improve literacy at every level, and for
every student.
“It’s fair to say that initially Read&Write
was adopted by schools in the region
as a tool for special needs students”,
said James Ball, Texthelp Education
Lead for the region. “But as schools
have embraced Read&Write over the
last few years, it’s grown as a solution
for every student”, added Ball.
Ball isn’t wrong. Traditionally viewed as
a tool for pupils with specific individual
needs such as dyslexia, Read&Write
now offers a comprehensive set of tools
for every student. Take those students
that perhaps struggle with reading and
writing, impressive features such as
text to speech, prediction, dictionary
and picture dictionary are all built with
the student in mind to scaffold and
support each step of their learning.
Pallavi Mallick, Head of SEND at
the Winchester School has been a
fan of Read&Write and its impact
with students from the very start.
“Read&Write enriches teaching and
learning for every pupil who needs
discreet, friendly support with day-to-
day literacy tasks.”, Mallick tells us. The
Winchester school case study shows
how pupils and teachers are benefiting
- summed up perfectly by one Learning
Support Teacher: ”Read&Write helps
us instill confidence in children to
attempt regular tasks involving reading
or writing that they would otherwise
find challenging”
Built on a solid understanding of
how to improve literacy and fluency,
Read&Write has proven its impact
in schools, colleges and universities
the world over. It has been shown to
increase comprehension, vocabulary
and correct word sequences - all
fundamental steps to increasing
literacy
levels
towards
raising
attainment.
It doesn’t stop there though, schools
have been using Read&Write as an
incredibly effective study and research
aid. One simple feature is the inbuilt
highlighter tool - allowing pupils to
draw out key passages and excerpts
from web pages and Word docs and
with a simple click of an icon, turn
these into a one page revision guide.
Further still, one more icon click and
the words on the page are turned into
an audio file - allowing pupils to listen
on the go.
All of these impressive features make a
compelling case for using Read&Write
with students to improve literacy.
Recently though, it’s use has really
stood out across the region in its
support for bilingual and multilingual
students. Those students who may
be studying through the medium
of English and have Arabic as their
mother tongue. Or, the reverse -
students learning English as their
second language. Either way, building