IHMS Tech Tips

Last week, I posted about Readsy : a site where you can read text by isolating one word at a time.  Today's post is about a similar site called Spritz. " When you’re spritzing, you’re reading text one word at a time in our “redicle,” a special visual frame we designed for reading."  Using Spritz or Readsy to read helps readers to better focus their attention.  Instead of being exposed to large amounts of text, readers are instead given one word at a time.  What makes it so different? Using Spritz or Readsy allows you to read without eye movement.  Here's a link to even more science behind the concept. While Spritz and Readsy are very similar sites, Spritz allows you to add a bookmarklet to be able to Spritz from anywhere.  Bookmarklets are created with software that is stored in a bookmark that allows interaction with web browsers.  If students find Spritzing to be helpful, they can click the added bookmarklet and it will read any webpage to them....

Readsy  is a free website that " help[s] you skim large amounts of text by focusing your eyes on one word at a time without having to move them."   It was created by a computer science undergrad at Princeton.  Readsy is a great tool for struggling readers or others that get overwhelmed by a lot of text at one time.  Retention and comprehension should not be affected. To get started with Readsy, visit the site and have some text in mind to use, or you can choose a sample and Readsy will choose text for you.  You can copy and paste a URL (news article, blog post, etc.), copy and paste text (Google Doc writing sample, or student work), type into the site itself, or upload a file.  Once you have copied/pasted or uploaded your text, click "Readsy". Readsy defaults to 300 wpm, but you can adjust that speed to be slower or faster as needed. Here is a two-minute overview of Readsy in action: Next week, we will talk about the companion w...