Features

We have modules differentiated both by age and by reading deficit.

On-line reporting to track student progress

Every student session is recorded and student performance can be viewed through a private teacher interface. Each type of exercise has its own reporting metric.

Low administration overhead.

We have cut the administration overhead for Literacy Toolbox to the absolute minimum. Whilst you can add children yourself if you want to, the default behaviour is for students to add themselves to the system the first time they use it. In fact if a teacher is not interested in seeing on-line reports they need never do anything more than enter the licence key (once) on each device where the application is accessed.

Interface designed to allow students to work independently of the teacher.

We have had lots of feedback that part of the appeal of Literacy Toolbox for students is that they feel in control and can make important choices themselves. Literacy Toolbox requires no student training. It does not hurt to take a new student through the interface initially and some students may need an introduction but the overwhelming majority of students will pick it up intuitively on their own.

Over Two Thousand Passages

We have been adding material to the Literacy Toolbox for 20 years. Over that period we have expanded both the types of exercise available and the breadth of material. Reading material covers all deficits at all age ranges between 4 and 14. As times have changed so we have added topics that interest today’s children.

Lets students pick topics they are interested in within each teaching area.

We have found that it is a very significant help if students are interested in the topics they are reading about. To make sure this is the case we offer a wide range of subject matter and then let the student choose from among them. Most of the passages are non fiction because we have found that it is easier to interest all but the youngest students with a choice of non fiction than with stories. There are still plenty of stories for the 4-6 age range and some stories for older students.

Implements the principles of perceptual learning.

Perceptual Learning is a branch of psychology which studies how experience effects (develops) perception. This kind of learning is in contrast to instructed learning where material is broken down into a list of rules which are passed explicitly from teacher to student. We believe that for some students - at least as far as reading is concerned - perceptual learning may succeed where instructed learning has failed - click here for more about Perceptual Learning.

Optional Follow Up Exercises

The majority of the exercises in the Literacy Toolbox offer the option for the student to perform a follow up exercise away from the computer or with pen and paper in front of the computer. The most important of these are for books that have been read from the 'library'.