Any schools using Kindles for pupils with reading difficulties?

[laserblazer]

Having just watched a lad struggling to read from a book and I know he is pretty good at reading from the screen, I was wondering how he would get on with a Kindle. The fact that it's different might make him more interested. I'm sure that a lot of kids just need an incentive to read. J K Rowling proved that.

[timbo343]

Im not too sure about how our kids get on with the kindles but we have 3 of them and managing them in a school without wireless is an issue, esp when we have 3 and have to buy the book 3 times.

[SteveBentley]

I have heard comments that people with dyslexia and related conditions (Meares Irlen etc) find Kindles easy to use, not least because of the text resizing, and of course the very clear screen.

[laserblazer]

Im not too sure about how our kids get on with the kindles but we have 3 of them and managing them in a school without wireless is an issue, esp when we have 3 and have to buy the book 3 times.

 

Having access to the Site Manager's home wi fi helps a lot with such issues.

[clareq]

You can get coloured filters for kindles now, which are said to help dyslexia sufferers.

[Rawns]

I have heard comments that people with dyslexia and related conditions (Meares Irlen etc) find Kindles easy to use, not least because of the text resizing, and of course the very clear screen.

 

My wife has one. I know she's not a school child, but she does suffer with dyslexia and says that reading from a kindle is vastly easier for her then from a paperback. I think the combination of the non-white background, coupled with the fact that the text size can be increased makes it so much easier for her. She doubts she'll ever go back to a paperback novel again.

[pcstru]

We bought some for our 'better readers' groups. The kids like them and they seem to be well used. The wi-fi/management issues aren't particularly important in that situation, the content is all being managed by the group leader.

[jmak]

Im not too sure about how our kids get on with the kindles but we have 3 of them and managing them in a school without wireless is an issue, esp when we have 3 and have to buy the book 3 times.

 

You don't need to buy the book three times - you can register more than one Kindle to an account at a time (6 last time I checked). The book will then appear in the "Archive" selection on the homepage of each of the Kindles.

 

You can also download books to a Kindle without wireless. Buy the kindle edition book on an amazon account and download it to the PC you are using. You then mount the Kindle as a USB flash disk, using a microUSB cable and copy the file into the relevant directory (it prompts you as you do it). It's a bit clunky, but I use it at home so that my kids can't go on a spending spree!

[timbo343]

Sorry about the buying the book 3 times, but what i meant was you cant put books on from kindle1 to kindle3 via the USB lead. Each book has to be downloaded 3 times or however many kindles you have and be transfered over. They should bring a docking station out or at least it should come with a docking station and then you can plug as many as you want in as well as a manageable program.

[mavhc]

I just set up a wifi ssid with ipcop to do the transparent proxying. If the pupils start downloading unsuitable free books then I'll just disable that ssid when the teacher doesn't need it. Pity there's no gifting of books on amazon uk yet, would mean we could put money onto a different account, until then amazon's not getting our ebook money.

[laserblazer]

You don't need to buy the book three times - you can register more than one Kindle to an account at a time (6 last time I checked). The book will then appear in the "Archive" selection on the homepage of each of the Kindles.

 

You can also download books to a Kindle without wireless. Buy the kindle edition book on an amazon account and download it to the PC you are using. You then mount the Kindle as a USB flash disk, using a microUSB cable and copy the file into the relevant directory (it prompts you as you do it). It's a bit clunky, but I use it at home so that my kids can't go on a spending spree!

 

I looked on a Kindle forum and someone said you can have any number registered on one account?

[mavhc]

Yes, but you can only send 1 purchase of a book to 6 of them, or whatever lower number the publisher chooses.