[SENco-forum] coloured paper and reading experiment.

It is worth using any site ( BDA or iamdyslexic.com) that has colour
changing pages as a quick route to seeing if any student or teacher finds a
particular colour background easier to read.  Likewise highlight a document
in Word & change font colour to see if this helps.

I am likely to have Irlen Syndrome like 2/4 of my children.  I find black
text on white paper harder to deal with than pale paper or blue ink.  I
cannot cope easily with either text only formats or the APD friendly version
on the apduk site.  The ever changing colours and especially patterns there
make me feel nauseous.  I also get travel sick.

Graeme - is there an option to change text only pages to a different colour?
I have not visited your site lately (studying!)

Sharon.

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk]On Behalf Of dolfrog
Sent: 29 March 2007 00:39
To: middleroom at blueyonder.co.uk; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] coloured paper and reading experiment.

Hi Sally,

For those who may have phonological processing issues, it may be worth
considering different colours of text, which will not work for those who
have visual issues that cause their dyslexic symptoms.
We have used this and other visual aides as part of the design structure of
the APDUK web site to make the web site more APD friendly.

Best wishes

dolfrog

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of
middleroom at blueyonder.co.uk
Sent: 26 March 2007 14:01
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: [senco-forum] coloured paper and reading experiment.

The company which the Cornwall Dyslexia Assoc gets their (recycled)
coloured paper from is in SW Cornwall: Paper Pack tel 01209 212212.

Still on the topic of colour, I had a pupil who was struggling to read. I
had different coloured card we were using as bookmarks to help with
tracking. He chose light blue for his card.

One day, just to make a change from the traditional routes to decoding, I
suggested that when he got to an unknown word he just looked at the card
and said the first thing that came into his head. Wow! What a difference
it made! Neither of us could believe the change in his reading ability. We
repeated the experiment the following week with similar results so went to
talk to his teacher. It transpired that a couple of years previously he
had been tested for overlays and been given a blue one (which he didn't
like using because he found the reflection from lights a pain) and it had
all got lost/forgotten in his school file.

I'm the first one to point out that one effect of the 'breakthrough' was
that initial success would raise his confidence and contextual meaning -
further aiding subsequent reading. The novelty of the approach would also
have reduced the 'blocks' he was having as soon as he had to decode
individual words. However, the results were so dramatic, and obviously
made such a change, that it is something I've repeated with others - never
had quite the same impact, but (for whatever reason) have found it helps a
number of struggling readers.

I have a few ideas as to what might be happening but need to do some
research one day to investigate this further. If it is related to the
Meares/Irlen findings, then we wouldn't expect it to work for all.

If anyone tries this out themselves with struggling readers, I'd be very
interested in hearing their feedback.

Best wishes,
Sally

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