Reading Tools…
We’re avid readers in this house – well, five of us are. Only one of my four had difficulty initially with reading, and with him, there was a significant vision issue complicating things. Took care of that, and smooth sailing followed. There’s no challenge to getting my kids to read – it’s dragging their noses out of the books that’s the hard part. (And keeping track of library books… but that’s a whole different story.)
Since we’ve been so fortunate, reading aids aren’t a product that I’d normally seek out for us. It has made the opportunity to take See-N-Read products for a test drive interesting in ways I never would have anticipated.
Introducing See-N-Read and MemoryMark
See-N-Read and it’s sibling, MemoryMark, are thin pieces of plastic, about 3 1/2″ in height. Think very heavy, sturdy, transparency paper, and you’ll be pretty close. Subtract the glossy surface, to take away the glare, and make it a shade of medium gray. Add in a clear rectangular window – or cut-out, for MemoryMark – about a third of the way down. Both versions come in two different widths: book, at 5 1/2″, works for most paperbacks and hardbacks; document, 8 1/2″, works well for full-size sheets of paper or larger books.
Intended to help the reader focus and use their concentration on the content of the words, not the movement of their eyes, See-N-Read improves on the old index card as a place marker trick. The clear window directs the eye to where it needs to be, while the semi-transparent outer area allows the reader to continue on at the same time as moving the tool. The cut-out section of the MemoryMark version is so a highlighter may be used without having to lift it off the page.
Both are quite usable for reading. The gray helps reduce the brightness of the pages, making books that are printed on bright, glossy paper much easier on the eyes. Since my kids are fairly fluent readers, I had them try See-N-Read on their own, and also while reading out loud. On their own, they’d use them if reminded to, and said that yes, it was a little easier to keep their place. When reading out loud, I noticed that they were less likely to miss words and were reading more smoothly then was their norm. I don’t think it changed things enough they felt it was something they “needed” enough to want it every time they sat down to read.
Additional uses we found for See-N-Read
I’d mentioned that it might help them keep numbers lined up in math problems, and Tiger is one of those kids for whom long division squiggles down the page. Halfway through a day of convincing him that yes, the problems really were wrong and he needed to try them again, I suggested that he try the See-N-Read. And so he did. It helped – but the next day, he resorted to drawing lines on the paper with a ruler. (Yes, I am considering a change to graph paper for that child. Sigh.)
Some days later, I noticed my doodler-in-residence was drawing. Buildings. In perspective. And his straight-edge? The See-N-Read. (All the rulers were on vacation, and the See-N-Read was handy, and sturdy enough for the job.)
Just before Christmas, one had migrated to the kitchen counter. Wondering why it was there, I asked around.
“Mike made banana bread.” said the Princess.
Okay… so Chef Wannabee made banana bread, but… what did that have to do with the See-N-Read?
Turned out he’d been using it to keep his place in the recipe. Convenient – and washable.
eSee-N-Read is their high-tech cousin
The software version, eSee-N-Read, is available for PCs. A 7-day eSee-N-Read demo is available if you’d like to try it out for yourself – scroll down to the very bottom of the page to find it. I’d downloaded the demo before I had access to the lengthier trial we were given for the TOS crew… enough to discover two things. First, that it was fun to play with, and easily adjustable. Definitely makes those really bright-white backgrounds easier on the eyes. Second – that if I was trying to get work done, it drove me nuts. I’m used to using the cursor for a place marker. Every time I turned around, I was misplacing it behind other windows.
Don’t get me wrong – some people will love eSee-N-Read. For reading a website full of text, it was far more effective and convenient then a glare-reducing screen. For my normal computer pattern, though, switching frequently from window to window, the delay it caused in having to find it and reset it was more then my impatience would allow.
The kids tried out eSee-N-Read, and had a lot better luck with it. They rarely have occasion to read anything lengthy on the computer, and so I had to create a project for just that purpose. They found it easy to use, spend more time playing with the settings then reading, and promptly forgot what they were doing. So much for decreasing distractions.
Our overall impression of See-N-Read products
The software, isn’t something I’d purchase for the kids. No fault of the software… it’s just that my kids don’t have much reason to make use of it. As for me – I wouldn’t consider it a high-priority need, though at times, it could be useful. Your mileage may vary – so make sure to test out the demo.
See-N-Read and MemoryMark, though, are tools that are worth having. Like a ruler or a hole-punch, every family might not use them every day, but they’re very much worth the low cost of keeping them available in the toolbox.
See-N-Read, MemoryMark, and eSee-N-Read may be purchased from See-N-Read Reading Tools. See-N-Read and MemoryMark are $2.99 for the book size, or $3.49 for document size. (Or get both for $5.99.) A license to use eSee-N-Read on one computer is $29.99. Quantity discounts are available on all three products.
To see what other crew members had to say about this product, check out the TOS Homeschool Crew blog post, See-N-Read.
**I received this product for free as a member of the 2010-11 The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew so that I could provide you with an honest review of it by our family.**
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