5 Tech Tips to Help Struggling K-12 Students

In a crowded classroom, it can be hard to notice a struggling student. And in a teacher’s overloaded day, it can seem impossible to spend extra time helping each and every student.

But many kids really do need extra help. In a study by Renaissance Learning, more than half of students read less than 15 minutes a day. When kids struggle with reading skills, it can impact later school success. Renaissance conducted another study of 4,000 students, which showed that 23 percent of third graders who struggled to read at basic levels ended up not graduating high school by age 19. On the other hand, proficient third-grade readers graduated at a 75 percent rate.

The good news is that there’s convenient help available for teachers with busy schedules, which is essentially every teacher. Modern technology tools can help students struggling with reading and other areas — here are 5 tech tips for helping struggling students.

1. Personalized Instruction

A study by the Research and Development (RAND) Corporation notes that students experiencing personalized learning made greater academic progress than comparable students over a 2-year period. On average, students improved from below the national average to above the national average.

Personalized learning depends on access to tech devices, websites, applications, and platforms. According to a recent Center for Digital Education report, “Not only does technology provide students with an array of interesting materials to motivate their learning, it also empowers teachers with the data necessary to understand students’ individual learning needs and adjust curriculum and content accordingly.”

Personalized learning adapts instructional strategies using real-time assessments, learning management systems (LMS), digital gradebooks, and dashboard/insight tools to fit each student’s strengths, weaknesses, interests, and pace. It blends teacher instruction, technology-based instruction, and student collaboration to tap into each student’s learning style and interests, both of which create deeper learning.

Educator, blogger, and podcaster Vicki Davis, known nationally as “Cool Cat Teacher,” incorporates digital teaching methods into her instruction to personalize the experience for her students. She uses videos, personal websites, and other tech tools to help students personalize their pace and learning as they work through projects.

“It’s important that assessment and feedback are personalized to match the personalized instruction,” she says. “If every student is in a different place, and you stop for a quick check of the class for one topic, you won’t know whether each student is ready for that quick check. So, embedded assessment is better.”

2. Improve Reading with Aids like Microsoft Immersive Reader

Giving students personalized, individual attention can be greatly enhanced by online, self-paced tools such as Microsoft Immersive Reader through Word or OneNote Online. Immersive Reader has capabilities for read-aloud, breaking of words into syllables, and highlighting important parts of speech for the student, including nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. In addition, Immersive reader has a built-in picture dictionary and a line focus feature. The tool is a full-screen reading experience to help increase content’s readability, improve reading comprehension, and encourage independent reading. It’s designed to support students with dyslexia and dysgraphia in the classroom, as well as anyone who wants to make reading on their device easier.

Here’s what one teacher says about the tool:

“With Immersive Reader, my students have been able to listen to the text distributed to their class notebook as many times as they want. This has given my struggling readers a greater chance to successfully identify the evidence they need to answer text-based questions. Immersive Reader also supports my students through syllable control. By turning it on, students seize control of words they struggle pronouncing. This also supports explicit guided reading instruction by reinforcing decoding skills and strategies, taught at the guided reading table.”

3. Create Authentic Activities to Connect

Content is always more engaging when it’s genuine and connects with each individual student. For struggling students, when you create authentic activities for them to engage with, they’re more likely to experience meaningful learning that they won’t forget.

Authentic activities can include collaborative technology tools like classroom wikis available in many digital learning management systems. In an LMS, teachers can integrate personalized and project-based learning by having students upload projects to online wikis. Students can create, communicate, and collaborate with each other. Students can make choices about how to structure their space and demonstrate their knowledge using multimedia tools and web apps.

4. Combine Visual and Audio Tools with Text-to-Speech and Speech Recognition 

Text-to-speech and speech recognition tools have become increasingly available in mainstream educational software to help a broad range of students — not just those with disabilities. The power of tools that provide multiple modes of input for students can have a positive impact on gaining and holding a student’s attention and ability to remember content. Poor readers have shown improvements when reading text both visually and audibly, as well as when text is highlighted as it’s spoken.

Additional benefits of text-to-speech and speech recognition software include:

• Struggling readers can focus on comprehension rather than the difficulty of decoding words
• Improved ability to identify and correct errors when using text-to-speech for proofreading
• Young readers can have a fun and interactive way to engage with books
• Improved access to classic literature that is traditionally too difficult for struggling readers to comprehend

Speech recognition software has led to improved literacy skills, gained from the student’s focused experience in dictating and correcting errors. It’s also improved the overall computer experience for students who have difficulties with eye fatigue, handwriting, organization, and spelling.

5. Get Visual with Computer-Based Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers help struggling students with a visual aid to better grasp concepts and facilitate improved learning. Also known as knowledge, concept, or story maps, among other names, these tools have been used in classrooms for many years and are now available in easy-to-use digital formats. They can help students with writing, reading comprehension, study skills, and more.

The tool can be used for any curriculum to help teach any subject and facilitate brainstorming, concept mapping, and outlining. In a digital format, graphic organizers can provide word processing and text-to-speech support. In a study highlighted by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), students who made concept maps during the prewriting stage created “significantly more sophisticated and complete essays. Students who used computer-based mapping also reported a more positive attitude toward the writing process.”

Helping students who are falling behind doesn’t have to be a struggle for teachers to find the time and resources. With digital learning aids like Immersive Reader, personalized learning techniques, and other tools, any teacher can provide the extra attention needed to help students get back on track for success