SATs – Why Should You Start Using Assistive Technology at Primary Level Examinations?

I’ve been very fortunate to work alongside Scanning Pens Ltd for nearly 5 years, and in that time I have undertaken a study with a primary aged dyslexic girl.  She is currently in Year 5 and, due to the school’s support of her accessing to the ReaderPen in class, they purchased ExamReader Pens for use throughout the school.  Therefore, it was a natural transition to commence a ‘how are you training your Year 6’s in using the ExamReader for the forthcoming SATs examinations?’ conversation with the SENDCo of the school.

Working with the SENDCo and the Year 6 teacher, who co-ordinates the SATs examination, I am exceedingly privileged to be invited into the school on a weekly basis to support two students who have been using their ExamReader Pens in the classroom environment for approximately 18 months.  Both students are confident with the pen, however, as we know sitting in an exam situation can be entirely different from the relaxed classroom approaches.  It felt to me it was important to have focused sessions on getting the most out of their ExamReader Pens.  I have therefore developed several strategies to help prepare the students, when using their pens, and would like to take this opportunity to share with you.

·       How are you holding your pen?

It may seem an obvious question, but we may sometimes assume the student was having 100% success when scanning a word or line of text so getting back to basics is imperative!  Re-train your student in holding the pen as upright as possible; this will not only enable them to focus on the word or words they wish to de-code but also encourages the student to pause, think, and proceed with an increased success rate of scanning and hearing that word correctly.

·       Have you checked the settings are appropriate to your student’s individual needs?

The ExamReader Pen has some fabulous settings within the Text Reader menu, such as:

Read Delay – will your student benefit from a pause between the pen being scanned and read?

Speed and Volume – ask your student to try different speed settings to see what suits them best.  Ensure the headphones are plugged fully in and the volume is set at a comfortable level.

Word pause – would your student benefit from an increased pause between each word?

Punctuation pause – perhaps a pause when a comma or full stop occurs will enable your student to be confident with the natural rhythm of a sentence or statement?

Take time to go through the menu with your student and ensure the settings are geared towards their individual needs.

·       Practice using the pen in old test papers*.

Nothing increases confidence for the learner then to ‘know’ what a test paper or examination question format is going to look like.  Make use of past test papers or online sites who offer examples of test papers.  However, do note some old test papers make use of ‘italics’ in their questions (which is no longer used) and this can be misread with the ExamReader Pen.  Check what you are offering your students to ensure you are helping and not adding to their exam anxiety.

·       Use the pen in every lesson!

Building habitual behaviours is the way forward, to help the student become increasingly independent and to develop a strategy for their education and their future!  Introduce a system where the pen is readily available to them on their desk in every lesson.  Getting into habits of using the pen with words and large bodies of text to enable them to keep up with their peers is a valuable skill; begin pushing your students to think for themselves and to make the most of their ReaderPen or ExamReader Pen in as many varying situations as possible!

Good luck SENDCos and Year 6 teachers and remember the more actively confident you are with reader pens, the greater outcomes for your students!

Christine Franklin

PRIMARY AGED PUPIL’S EMOTIONAL WELLBEING; CAN ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY HELP?

Our Research Team are about to enter their third year of study with 10-year-old dyslexic participant Hester**.  Hester has been able to help us to answer some of our queries (1) relating to the emotional well-being, self-belief and confidence a young person requires to achieve desired academic results.  Subsequently, enabling the potential for successful integration and attainment in their secondary educational journey.

14% of children with SEN reach the necessary levels of attainment in reading, writing and mathematics, this is in comparison to 62% of non-SEN pupils (2).  This bench-mark enables the pupil to access further education, work and careers.

SEN research is an area of huge potential with sadly little evidence-based studies achieved.  Support of the SEN child is an area teachers and parents wish to encourage.  Many are willing to explore differing approaches to enable favourable outcomes for primary aged children.  Strategies and programmes are in place and yet there appears to be difficulties for the young person accessing and succeeding with these fantastic opportunities.  What is causing this block?  During our research (1) we noted one element of blockage was clearly the emotional well-being and self-belief of the young person.

In 2014 Public Health Britain (3) published a report which included the following statements “pupils with better emotional well-being at seven, score higher in their SATs, than pupils with poorer emotional well-being”.  This statement was first made in 2012 by the Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre (4) (CWRC) who went on to say this relationship did not occur at any other age.

As a subsequence to such reports’ schools developed and encouraged awareness as to the importance of social and emotional use within schools.  However, social and emotional support may have been linked to actual events for a child, such as those in receipt of FSM or a life changing experience.  Social and emotional concepts may have been relegated to a standalone aspect rather than integrated into all areas of teaching including the use of assistive technology for SEN pupils.  What do we mean by such a statement?  To explore this thought let us first consider the CWRC (4) findings that children who ‘enjoy’ school between the ages of 7 and 10 will achieve academically better later in life. 

To enjoy school, one must be confident in their approaches and have self-belief they can and will achieve.  Hester’s confidence has increased immensely since working with assistive technology, the use of which is promoted and encouraged by her school.  However, the school also recognises the emotional well-being of their teachers has a direct impact on the pupil.  If a teacher does not have belief in the technology they are being asked to promote, or perhaps feel their training has not covered the variety of aspects a SEN child may present with, their lack of confidence will feed through to the child.  If the teacher lacks confidence, the child most certainly will. 

Our Research Team wish to promote and encourage the current and future outcomes of their longitudinal study that indicates links between academic success and confidence/happiness with the use of assistive technology and strategies.  A child may achieve and overcome a reading difficulty and pronunciation problems which impact on spelling achievements, keeping up with their peers and develop positive listening skill.  All these aspects can lead to positive attainment results, not only for the school but for the child’s long-term life goals and future adult happiness.  The use of the ReaderPen, for Hester and now several of her peers, is helping to encourage exploration of confidence at an age when the use of equipment is not stigmatised by the children but develops and evolves into positive habitual behaviour.

In conclusion finding and encouraging strategies and technology that enables the child to achieve and gain self-belief will result in the child who actively seeks to read independently, spell, listen and explore their abilities further!

Christine Franklin

** Hester – name used to protect identity of child

1.     https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56dea77e22482ee78112dd96/t/

5bdc21012b6a2830934e00aa/1541153025933/Study+2017-18%5B2%5D.pdf

2.  https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/about/

3.  https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data

/file/370686/HT_briefing_layoutvFINALvii.pdf

4.  https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment

_data/file/219638/DFE-RR253.pdf

What do 25% of the adult population in the UK have in common with 50% of serving prisoners? They both have a reading age of or below that of an 11-year-old!

Let’s start off with some statistics, who doesn’t love a statistic! When I began my prison studies approximately 18 months ago the focus was on enabling those who were unable to read to have the opportunity to access the written word! Prisons were provided with several scanning pens; the ReaderPen and the ExamReader Pen; in the hope that having access to assistive technology in a restrictive environment would open learning doorways. However, what I did not understand at that time was the sheer enormity of this task, particularly in relation to the emotional, physical, and mental blocks which illiterate prisoners face daily. I began by considering where the difficulties had originally started…

42% of prisoners were permanently excluded from school

In the opening title I allude to 50% of prisoners being at below Level 1 Functional skills in their learning; however, 20% of these are completely illiterate.  On 5 October 2018 there were 85,000 people in prison.  (Gov.UK, 2018) and therefore this equates to 42,500 non-readers.

Every day 35 children are told to leave school permanently = 6,685 children each academic year (Institute of Public Policy Research, 2017 cited in Gill et al., 2017)

Over the past 3 years there has been a 40% increase in permanent exclusions.  The Institute of Public Policy Research commissioned ‘The Making a Difference Report’ (Gill et al., 2017) which explained that this figure is only the tip of the ice-berg.  In fact, at some point during the school year 48,000 pupils are not being educated in mainstream schools or in special alternative education projects.  This figure is far higher than the 6,685 pupils we are told have been permanently excluded during the year.

During my study in Prison C I discovered that 20% of the participants had undertaken education in alternative settings, e.g. a pupil referral unit (PRU).  Furthermore, this 20% of participants had also left this form of education with no formal qualifications.  Gill et al., (2017) nationally publicised figures of educational outcomes for excluded children indicate only 1%, achieve 5 GCSEs, if we examine this further the figures suggest only 67 students who have been permanently excluded achieved the government sought number of qualifications at 15/16 years of age.

Part of my Prison C questionnaire asked the prisoner when they had completed or ended their educational journey and what qualifications they had achieved.  80% had left education, whether that be mainstream or a PRU, with zero qualifications, and one participant had left school permanently at the age of 10.

Of course, education is only one element of life which has influenced a prisoner in early life.  The other influences we need to consider include adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), (Public Health Wales and Blackburn and Darwen Local Authority, undated) which impact on the child.  ACEs include; poverty, parental drug and alcohol misuse, domestic violence, community deprivation and mental health difficulties.  Long-term studies of ACEs, such as that undertaken by Reavis et al., (2013), put forward potential causal links between ACEs and criminality.  Their research showed offenders had experienced nearly four times more ACEs compared with non-offenders. 

In this context, what changes have occurred to recognise these background issues for prisoners who are unable to read?  In 1997 Tom Shannon was serving a life sentence when he began corresponding with Christopher Morgan, a gentlemen farmer, who had joined the pen pal scheme operated by the Prison Reform Trust (now operated by a separate company called Prisoners’ Penfriends).  Morgan went on to found the Shannon Trust which instigated changes in approaches to supporting and teaching illiterate prisoners, including establishing peer support programmes which trained literate prisoners to mentor prisoners who struggled to read (Shannon Trust, 2018).

During my study in Prison B I interviewed a group of such peer mentors to find out why they felt it is important to help non-reading prisoners.  I was fortunate that the lead mentor trainer wished to implement and share assistive technology in this prison setting.  She proved how the prison mentors could use the ReaderPen to support their non-reading peers as part of the mentor training programme.  The peer mentors in Prison B recognised their role and explained they offer their support in any setting, whether workshops, classrooms or on the wings, “anywhere we were needed”.  They were quick to pick up and use the ReaderPens which were available in the education department and commented that these would be a ‘good tool’.  However, since the pens could only be accessed within the education department, not in prisoner’s cells or on the wings, their ability to support use of the pens was limited.

Although the mentor programme is a fantastic resource a fundamental element of human nature, and a barrier particularly for prisoners, is trust.  In Prison B and C, the issue of trust and relying on others was raised as a consideration of whom you would ask to help.  One prisoner told me that he would wait for days until he felt he had a good mate that he was sure he could rely upon:

“I would have to wait two or three days before I could have a letter read to me because I don’t trust everyone you see?”.

Having a ReaderPen alleviated this trust difficulty and enabled him to be more independent.

So, if trust is a problem, and the prisoners are not taking their private correspondence into the education department the issue of access comes to the fore.  Peer mentors were not the only ones to recognise this hindrance and a group of participants in the 20% group of prisoners who were completely illiterate, spoke of this hurdle too.  These illiterate prisoners had started to read and were enjoying the experience.  They wished to do so in their own time, in order to access their own probation papers and other important documents.  In Prison C a prisoner told me that he had always hidden his inability to read from family members and work colleagues, however, now he had begun to read with the support of his tutor and the ReaderPen he wished to continue reading in his own time.  He offered a solution to his request to have the pen overnight in his cell; “signing for (the pen) for us to be responsible for it and having to give it back in the morning”.  His plea to prison management was as follows:

“… if you are going to talk to them [management], I would say to them it is their job

to improve people who have bad records, who can’t read or write;

it’s a great help for them to be educated,

for them to be able to see the other side of life”.

This prisoner has identified the ‘Them’ (readers) and the ‘Us’ (non-readers) divide and he clearly indicates that the inability to read is creating difficulties and choices for the non-reader.  He is describing Tajfel’s 1974 social identity theory, those within an ‘in-group’ will seek to find negative elements of the ‘out-group’ to promote their own sense of importance or superiority.  However, if such behaviour occurred within prisons then surely education and peer mentor support would not succeed?

Through potentially no fault of their own in-group behaviours, there continues to be a great number of obstacles occurring daily which allows the reader (‘in’) and non-reader (‘out’) groups to persist.  A major obstacle is:

LOCKDOWNS!

During lockdowns prisoners will essentially spend all their time in their cells until the situation has been resolved.  So why do lockdowns occur?  There are a myriad of reasons: unacceptable behaviour, including prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, drug use, self-harm or suicide, assaults on staff, insufficient prison staff to enable the safe movement of prisoners, and even industrial action as recently reported in a prison in the south west of England, when prison wardens were urged to walk out as a protest against prison violence levels (Wood and Davis, 2018).

Lockdowns may be over in a matter of minutes or may continue for longer periods of time, particularly when there are low staff numbers.  During my study at Prison B there was a period of non-movement of prisoners to and from the education department for 3 weeks.  This interruption can have an impact on the re-engagement of the learner, as identified by a tutor in Prison A.  He told me that when the prisoners return to the classroom it often takes time to settle students back into the surroundings of the classroom which wastes potential learning time.  Using his many years’ experience, he was able to accommodate this delay, however, it is easy to understand the fragility of re-establishing a relationship of trust and learning (Franklin, 2018) for other prison educators in similar situations.

To summarise, we have ‘in-group’ and ‘out-groups’, plus we have a distinctly poor childhood educational journey, and adverse childhood experiences plus the day to day reality of life in a prison with long periods of restricted movement denying access to assistive technology and support.  Seasoned prison educators will explain patiently to the most enthusiastic researcher who demand naively ‘why’ their brilliant new ideas are not being implemented and unfortunately, the reason is often:

the sudden removal of the prisoner!

Now, and I empathise, you may feel this incredulous statement leaves you feeling exceedingly sceptical?  However, it does occur!  Prisoners do disappear, and their teachers may be told nothing about it or if they are aware their student is scheduled to leave, they may not be able to track the prisoner or ensure he picks up where he left off within his next prison or outside, with probation.  Alternatively, the tutors experience a mixture of frustration (that their student did not complete their course); and joy (because their student was released!).  The educators in all 3 prisons I have visited have all expressed that movement of prisoners occurs on a frequent basis and how this impacts negatively on outcomes such as prisoner exam results.

Alongside this ‘missing students’ phenomenon, there is also no fixed ‘starting point’ to study in prison.  New students may start every week, so teachers must adapt to ensure they are covering their subject during the time available and engage the prisoner as effectively as possible from session one.  Consider the frustration of working towards getting a student to sit an examination when suddenly there is no student, and no exam because time has run out.  Students should have longer time periods to study and learn; inside and outside the education unit, especially in case of a lockdown or other restrictions. 

I am about to embark on a study with Prison D, who will help me look at the exam results for prisoners using the Exam ReaderPens.  Despite the ‘disappearing prisoner’, we hope to provide evidence supporting why we need to move onto our final major research study:

the prisoner using the ReaderPen in their cell!

This will enable the prisoner to access the written word, to validate their reading abilities, to gain confidence and independence, and perhaps be ready to take their exam sooner and therefore increasing the probability of achieving this within the time frame of their custodial sentence!   

Keep following my journey; please do read all my prison studies and I look forward to the next adventure when I hope I will not be as naive or overwhelmed by the complexities of education in prisons!

Christine Franklin

References:

Franklin, C. (2018) Functional Skills Within Prisons – C-Pen ExamReader and ReaderPen Supporting Functional Skills in English, Levels 1-3 [Online].  Devon, Scanning Pens Ltd.  Available at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56dea77e22482ee78112dd96/t/5b4c5fb08a922da49bb7c6ed/1531731892220/Final%2BResearch%2BReport%2B2018.pdf (Accessed 11 October 2018).

Gill, K., with Quilter-Pinner, H., and Swift, D. (October 2017) Making The Difference: Breaking the Link between School Exclusion and Social Exclusion [Online].  Available at https://www.ippr.org/files/2017-10/making-the-difference-report-october-2017.pdf (Accessed 11 October 2018).

Ministry of Justice, HM Prison Service and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (2018), Prison population figures: 2018, Population bulletin: weekly 5 October 2018, [Online].  Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-figures-2018 (Accessed 11 October 2018).

Moss, S. (2017), Half of Britain’s prisoners are functionally illiterate.  Can fellow inmates change that?  The Guardian, 15 June [Online].  Available at https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/jun/15/reading-for-freedom-life-changing-scheme-dreamt-up-by-prison-pen-pals-shannon-trust-action-for-equity-award (Accessed 11 October 2018).

Public Health Wales and Blackburn and Darwen Local Authority (undated) Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) [Online].  Available at http://www.aces.me.uk/in-england/ (Accessed 11 October 2018).

Reavis, J. A., Looman, J., Franco, K. A, and Rojas, B. (2013), ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Criminality: How Long Must We Live before We Possess Our Own Lives?’, The Permanente Journal, vol. Spring 2013, no 17.2, pp. 44-48 [Online}.  Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662280/ (Accessed 11 October 2018).

Shannon Trust, (2018), Our History [Online].  Available at https://www.shannontrust.org.uk/about-us/our-history/ (Accessed 11 October 2018).

Tajfel, H. (1974) ‘Social identity and intergroup behaviour’, SAGE journals, [Online].  Available at   http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/053901847401300204 (Accessed 11 October 2018).

Wood, A., and Davis, K. (2018) ‘Updates: Reports Bristol prison ‘lockdown’ as officers walk out’.  BristolLive, 14 December [Online].  Available at https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/live-bristol-prison-horfield-lockdown-2003094 (Accessed 11 October 2018).

MINI STUDY OF THE READER PEN WITH VISUALLY IMPAIRED CHILDREN

We have often been asked if children with poor eyesight would be able to use the pen and have found that this question can only truly be answered by utilising the pen with the individual child.

Visual impairment is the term used to describe a wide range of eye sight loss.  80% of our learning is via vision (RNIB, 2018), therefore the impact of sight loss for the student requires other supportive techniques to be introduced and explored to enable learning to continue. 

We were very fortunate to be approached by WESC Foundation, The Specialist Centre for Visual Impairment School in the South West of England, who invited us into the school to meet their students and to bring along the Reader Pens for the students to have access to alongside the myriad of tech they currently utilise.  We understood this was potentially an enhanced area of need and the children may not only have visual impairment but a wide range of other disabilities and needs, therefore the reading pen may potentially be of use to only a small number of students.  However, we felt it was important to meet with the students and teachers to talk about visual impairment and the variety of tools the student may find of use to make up for their 80% of learning being impacted upon due to visual impairment.

Many of the WESC Foundation students have severe impaired vision and therefore it was obvious the reading pen would be a hindrance to them as there is a requirement to be able to have some vision to follow a line of text.  However, one of the tutors commented the pen would be useful for students who do have slight impairments and some reading difficulties.  Furthermore, another tutor commented:

“I felt that some students with adequate vision to identify a line of text, the pen is useful”.

Dexterity was also commented upon, some WESC Foundation students have physical disabilities alongside their visual impairments and therefore being able to align the pen could prove difficult.  Recommendations for double spacing of text and to be a larger font were considered and although this works well for the Foundation the ability to access readily produced information is of import for the children to familiarise themselves with, for when they become adults.  Alternatively, an identified positivity was the pen’s potential for every day use such as “good for labels and very short text”. 

Many of the tutors also have visual impairment and of note was one tutor with nystagmus; an involuntary ‘wobble’ movement of the eyes from side to side or up and down, resulting in an unclear image (RNIB, 2018).  For this tutor being able to control the pen to run along a line required a great deal of concentration and after a period would become difficult for him.

Summary:

For many students attending the Foundation the pen was unsuitable due to their level of visual impairment and/or disabilities.  The students with less severe visual impairment were able to use the pen; however, the school has a clear focus of enabling these students to lead independent adult lives and therefore accessing every day literature.  The Foundation could see the benefit of the pen, particularly when using double spaced text and at a font size that enabled the student to use the pens independently.  The pen was recognised as a good tool for reading labels and short pieces of text. 

Conditions such as nystagmus due to the movement of the eyes creating issues as the text will appear to ‘jump’, was thought to be helped with the pen doing the hard work, however due to the concentration required to try to refocus the effort becomes exhausting when using for large pieces of work.  Overcoming such difficulties have been considered by Scanning Pens, such as creating a vibration to enable the user to know the pen has lost ‘sight’ of the text to help the user to realign the pen.  Other users have made use of a ruler or guide to help them keep on track.

The staff and students of WESC Foundation were helpful and we would like to thank them for the time and effort they took to invite Scanning Pens and the Reader Pens into their wonderful school.  We have always stated the pens are a tool that may suit some but not others and the individual learning needs of the user must be considered above everything else. 

Christine Franklin

Projects Co-Ordinator

Reference:

 RNIB Supporting people with sight loss (2018), Information about vision impairment: Guide for parents [Online].  Available at : https://www.rnib.org.uk/sites/default/files/APDF-ENG021603_Early%20Support%20Parents%20Information_0.pdf (Accessed 21 June 2018).

Strategies For The Primary Child

STRATEGIES TO USE WITH THE PRIMARY AGED STUDENT AND THE C-PEN READER PEN 

 Children who experience reading difficulties will be introduced to a range of strategies and evidenced based programmes to help them overcome the issues they are facing when learning to read.  Their difficulties may include dyslexia, cognitive issues and hearing loss.   

The C-Pen Reader Pen is another supportive strategy which has been shown to help the student with dyslexia.  Therefore, to ensure you get the best use of the pen within the classroom environment we have put together a step-by-step guide to support the individual learning needs of your students. 

1.    How to hold the pen: It can be incredibly frustrating for the student who finds it difficult to hold the pen and they will often state ‘it isn’t working’.  Getting to grips with the pen and feeling comfortable is a positive step forward:

·      Place your index finger along the top of the pen, resting comfortably, place your thumb along the bottom of the pen, the rest of your fingers should fall comfortably behind the pen.  Wave it around, got a good grip?  Excellent, not too tight and if too loose it will fly across the room (not a good idea).

·      Now pop the front of the pen onto your paper or page, did a light come on?  Excellent because that is what needs to stay on!  Practice putting the light on and off!

·      You will notice a ‘window’ which if you move your head lower to the page you can see the words through.  You need to line that window up with the words, have a go, keep the pen on the page, the light lets you know you are doing it, and flow across the page.  How did that feel?

This may take time for some students, but perseverance is worth the time and effort as soon you will have a student who is showing independence!

2.    The printed word.  The type of text the student is wishing to be supported with reading is quite important at primary age.  Therefore, if your student requires larger gaps between each line then continue to do this, if they need a larger font, you can print up to 22 and that should work fine.  Contrasting text on coloured paper does work, but it must be a good contrast, black on green, blue, yellow should work well.

3.    When to use the reading pen?  The following strategies have proven to be a good basis for primary aged students of when to use the pen and how to use it alongside the other strategies that work for them, such as sounding out, sight recognition and overlays.

a.    Ask the student to look at the line of text and see if they recognise or know any of the words.

b.    Perhaps there are words they would like to sound out, if this works for the child’s way of learning encourage them to keep doing this.

c.     Do they use an overlay, now is the time to pop that on and see how the line of text looks to them.

d.    If they have identified a word they are struggling with and their other strategies are not working, then use the C-Pen Reader to read that word.

e.    Now ask the student to try to read the sentence for themselves, once they feel okay with this then use the C-Pen Reader to validate what they believe the sentence to be.

Validation is one of the most important aspects and requirement for the dyslexic child, this is often what prevents the child from moving on to the next piece of work, wanting to make sure they have got it right.  Time can prevent the teacher and/or teacher assistant getting to the student to enable them to keep up with their peers.  The C-Pen Reader will validate, will allow the child to feel proud of their achievements, will give them confidence and the independence to keep going.

4.    Using the C-Pen Reader in a productive and encouraging environment will alleviate concerns raised by some that the C-Pen Reader will prevent a student to learn to read.  Consideration as to why a student cannot read is always worth remember, why are they unable to process these words and what consequences this can lead to?  One such coping mechanism is to step back from learning; after all there is only so many times you can get something wrong.  Think of this from your own perspective, how many times are you willing to keep going before you think it’s time to let it go, you are often not surrounded by 29+ peers to judge you.  Enabling the student to have confirmation what they think they have got right to be confirmed is very powerful!  Equally getting it wrong, but not having this broadcast to everyone nearby, is perhaps less intimidating as the C-Pen Reader comes with headphones!

Good luck with these strategies and implement on a daily basis, eventually you will find you are watching from a distance an independent learner! 

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