Updated in June 20, 2022
The purpose of this post is to share with you this collection of Chrome extensions to help particularly students and kids with dyslexia enhance their reading skills and improve their learning. The tools bring added functionalities to Chrome browser converting it into a clutter free space where students can focus on their reading. Most of these extensions offer features such as annotations, OCR services, speech to text, dyslexia fonts, dictation, and many more. For those of you interested in mobile apps, check out this collection of the best iPad apps for students and kids with dyslexia.
1- Read&Write
Read&Write offers students with dyslexia a wide variety of tools to help them with reading, writing, and research. These tools include text-to-speech with color highlight, picture dictionaries that provide visual illustrations of words, speech-to-text dictation, word prediction, create and access voice notes right in Google Docs, and many more
2- Helperbird
Helperbird offers over 20 features to help learners with dyslexia. These features are arranged into the following categories: text features (e.g., specialized fonts for reading, dyslexia fonts, word and letter spacing), content features (e.g., reader mode, Microsoft Immersive Reader, highlighter, picture dictionary, spell check, annotation, screenshot function, word prediction, and more), display features (e.g., emphasize links, auto scrolling, dyslexia ruler, line focus, color blindness controls, and more), speech to text features (e.g., text to speech, speech to text, volume booster, etc), color features (color selectors, font colors, link colors, and background colors).
3. Snap & Read
Snap & Read is ideal for struggling readers. It offers various helpful features including read aloud, dynamic text leveling, translation (supports 100+ languages), study tools, remove distractions, color overlay, picture dictionary, screenshot reader, OCR, annotation, and more.
4. Merury Reader
Mercury Reader is another good Chrome extension for dyslexia. It basically removes ads and distractions from any page and provides readers with a clean reading view. Some of the features it provides include adjust typeface and text size, send to kindle functionality, printing optimization, sharing through social media.
5. BeeLine Reader
BeeLine Reader helps students with dyslexia enjoy their reading experience using a color gradient that guides their eyes as they read. 'This seemingly simple tweak makes reading easier and faster because it allows you to transition between lines quickly and effortlessly. Many people are able to read 20% or 30% faster with BeeLine, even on their first try.'
6. OpenDyslexic for Chrome
OpenDyslexic is a Chrome font to help readers with dyslexia. Once installed, it overrides all the existing fonts in a web page and formats pages using OpenDyslexic font. 'OpenDyslexic is completely free for individuals, companies, schools, and in short: everyone.'
7. Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader
Readme reads aloud the content of any text using natural sounding voices, It works on web pages, PDFs, eBooks, blogs, textbooks and more. Read Aloud supports 40 languages and a wide variety of voices 'including those provided natively by the browser, as well as by text-to-speech cloud service providers such as Google Wavenet, Amazon Polly, IBM Watson, and Microsoft'.
