Tag Archives: ClaroRead

ClaroRead in the Workplace – Supporting Firefighters and Saving Money

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ClaroRead helps people be productive. Here is an example of how. Download this article as a PDF.

Andy Fell has been a disability assessor for over 20 years. Originally a rehabilitation officer working with people with visual impairments, Andy has worked at Guide Dogs for the Blind and Microlink and was one of the first visual impairment assessors for the Disabled Students’ Allowance.

These days he is a Workplace Assessor, a senior associate trainer for the British Dyslexia Association and an expert witness in tribunals.

He was a fan of Claro software from the very beginning because he could see that a facility to tint the screen would be of use to people with dyslexia and could help those who experience visual stress.

‘I like Claro software because it is just so easy to use,’ said Andy. ‘Instead of putting a host of different functionalities in one product, every element is simple so users can pick it up and get going straight away. This is so good for their confidence. I think the ClaroPDF is excellent; it is popular for dyslexia and VI and for anybody who wants to annotate a PDF whether they are disabled or not.’

These days people do not necessarily have a laptop at work – or even their own desk – so workplace assessors need to find solutions that are portable and adaptable. ClaroRead can be installed on a USB pen drive instead of onto a desktop or laptop. No more negotiating with the IT department or waiting for someone to install files on a machine or a profile. This means that employees now have control over the tools they need to do their job and can use ClaroRead to scan documents, capture text and convert it to an audio file that they can listen to later.

It is used by workers in many industries including some you might not expect. ‘Firefighting is one example. It is a very practical job,’ said Andy. ‘My role is to make sure firefighters with dyslexia can complete written reports and cope with the study units they need to advance their career. Often there will just be a couple of PCs in the crew area for all staff to use so those with dyslexia just pick up their USB and go online to write up their reports without needing extra support.’

A relatively new product – ClaroRead USB Creator – means that if they lose their USB stick, they can go online and download ClaroRead onto a new 4GB blank USB drive. They just need to keep a note of the serial number.
ClaroRead can make a real difference to individuals. Andy found one social worker who had not submitted an expense claim for over a year but once she had ClaroRead she caught up and very quickly realised just how much money she had been losing. ‘ClaroRead makes people more independent,’ said Andy, ‘and it can also save them money!’

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ClaroRead Case Study

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Our software helps our users to achieve more in education and life. Here is another story of a real-world ClaroRead user. Download as PDF.

Interested in ClaroRead for your school, college or university? Check out ClaroRead Site Licences. Want to know about using ClaroRead as a Computer Reader for GCSE and other exams? Briefing: Using Computer Readers in Exams.

ClaroRead Case Study from Wigan & Leigh College

Thanks to ClaroRead, Nicole is doing well at college and in her job in telesales.

Cheryl Bentley is an Enabling Technology Development Officer at Wigan & Leigh College. Her job is to recommend software, hardware and apps to students who are struggling with their courses and to make sure they get the right training. Here she talks about how ClaroRead helped Nicole Swift who was working towards a Level 2 Diploma in Business Studies.

Nicole was struggling with some aspects of her course. She found it hard to read black text on a white background, had problems with spelling and poor concentration.

She met the Additional Learning Support Team who recommended ClaroRead and arranged a one to one training session where she found out how the software could solve some of the problems she had when completing assignments.

As soon as Nicole began to use ClaroRead, she noticed a difference straightaway and the improvement was so dramatic that she asked her employer to buy a licence so that she could use Claro for her work in telesales. She has found that using the ClaroView yellow overlay means she can read the customer’s details from the computer screen more easily.

Benefits

  • Nicole has now become more confident in using a range of vocabulary
  • She uses the play back feature regularly to listen to written text as it appears on the screen
  • She can express herself more fluently in her assignments.
  • The dictionary and predictive text features let her be more independent and check her own spellings and correct them if necessary

I am extremely pleased with the progress that Nicole has made whilst at college, in the workplace and when completing her assignments at home. It is wonderful to see what a difference it has made to Nicole’s learning experience. I am a firm advocate for ClaroRead and I encourage everyone to use it. Having the ability to proof read your work can make all the difference. I think it helps students to expand their vocabulary and this boosts their confidence.

ClaroRead has helped to break down some of the barriers to reading and writing for lots of our students at college which can only be seen as a positive!

Want more case studies? ClaroRead Case Studies.

Claro USB Creator

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You can now create a totally portable ClaroRead on a USB stick. Using it is super simple: just insert your personal ClaroRead USB into any Windows or Mac computer, run ClaroRead from the stick and you have the whole program and extras – reading Word and PDF, high-quality voices, OCR and scanning, scan from screen, screen tinting and more.

Demonstrate ClaroRead on a student or client machine. Use ClaroRead on your machine without having to install it. Lend ClaroRead out while a laptop is being repaired. Run ClaroRead anywhere you want!

All you need is your normal ClaroRead licence key, a USB stick, and a tiny program you can download for free from our website: https://www.clarosoftware.com/usb

On a Windows PC you can make a ClaroRead for PC USB stick that runs on any Windows PC. On an Apple Mac you can make a ClaroRead for Mac USB stick that runs on any Apple Mac.

Your licence key is good for two of your personal devices, so you can create your personal ClaroRead USB even if you have used the key to install on a Windows or Mac machine already. You can check your key at https://www.clarosoftware.com/get to find out how many times it has been used.

The whole program – any version of ClaroRead, including ClaroRead Plus – is installed on the USB stick and will run on any Windows machine (for ClaroRead for PC USB) or Mac machine (for ClaroRead for Mac USB) – just you plug it in. You don’t have to install anything or be an administrator.

We really want our software out there being used by people who will benefit: we hope personal ClaroRead USB sticks will help.

Are you an accessibility professional? Do you want to have your own personal ClaroRead USB stick? Get in touch to get you your own ClaroRead licence key!

ClaroRead Case Studies

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Our software helps our users to achieve more in education and life. Here are the stories of two of the people who use ClaroRead. Download as PDF.

Interested in ClaroRead for your school, college or university? Check out ClaroRead Site Licences. Want to know about using ClaroRead as a Computer Reader for GCSE and other exams? Briefing: Using Computer Readers in Exams.

ClaroRead Case Study 1 from Barnet and Southgate College, London

Fayez, a mature apprentice at Barnet and Southgate College, says, ‘ClaroRead has made a world of difference to my life.’

‘I have always had trouble remembering things that have been said to me and when I started college it became a real problem. I found it hard to make notes and my spelling was poor. I fell behind on my work, my grades dropped and my confidence was very low.

‘I am a mature student and have mild learning difficulties. I’m a visual person and I started to use a lot of mind mapping software which I found very useful.

‘I first found out about ClaroRead when I went to FE college to do an apprenticeship course. The assistive technology coordinator recommended it and gave me the full training. I now use it in the college and at home.

‘I have changed how I work now. For example, I had a problem reading the text on a white background and now I use the filter screen and change to a colour that works for me. I could not proofread my work properly but the read aloud function helps me to understand the text. Now I use ClaroRead to proof read and to read back text to me when I’m writing an assignment so I don’t forget what I have written.

‘ClaroRead has made a world of difference to me. I really wish it could be rolled out into my workplace where I am doing the apprenticeship!’

Some hints and tips for getting the best out of ClaroRead are:

  • Don’t rush when using it. Take it one step at a time.
  • Find the bits that make your learning easier and work for your learning style
  • Choose a voice you can relate to and that is easy to listen to
  • Use it all the time so it becomes second nature

ClaroRead Case Study 2 from Barnet and Southgate College, London

Laila, a part-time student and mother says, ‘ClaroRead has transformed my work.’

‘I never had extra help during my studies or for exams when I was at school although the teachers recognised that I had some kind of learning difficulty. The only extra help I got was English lessons. I now have two children both of whom have learning difficulties. I have learnt about their needs and how to help them and found out that some of these techniques also help me.

‘Before coming to technology sessions, I was struggling, especially in English. The main difficulties I had were with putting my ideas onto paper, proofreading and checking for errors in my work. The more the tutor tried to explain things, the more confused I got.

‘I spent a lot of time on my work, continually making changes, trying to organise sentences so that they made sense. I used to read my work out loud in order to hear the mistakes that I had made. The trouble with this was that I could not always spot spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. Continually reading my work looking for errors was time-consuming. What now takes me around an hour to do was taking me three to four hours before.

‘I found out about ClaroRead when I was studying maths and GCSE English at college. My maths tutor recommended that I should see the college’s assistive technology coordinator. She was very helpful. She introduced ClaroRead to me and provided step-by-step training.

‘Since having assistive technology sessions, my work has become much easier to understand. At home, I still use mind mapping. This helps me structure my work. Now I can change the background colour and it has helped me immensely making my work look clearer.

‘Now using ClaroRead, hearing the computer read back to me what the work actually says, rather than reading what I meant it to say, has made me spot mistakes more quickly so I am able to correct errors straightaway. I now use ClaroRead for proofreading I listen to my work as I’m going along and can hear if the work makes sense, if there is a spelling mistake or if I have used the wrong word and where I need to put in punctuation. Then when I finish I listen to the whole piece to double check everything makes sense.

‘I can use ClaroRead at home by accessing the college remote desktop that allows me to access specialist software. Using ClaroRead has helped to be more independent, not relying on other people to help me to proof read my work. Now I can check my own work quickly and more effectively.’

ClaroRead Chrome V11 Released

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We have updated ClaroRead Chrome, our Chrome extension for Chromebook and the Google Chrome browser.

ClaroRead Chrome now supports reading with highlighting in Google Slides (the Google version of PowerPoint). Many people like to use presentations and slides in web documents, so we hope this will be helpful when you run across them:

ClaroRead Chrome reading Google Slides with highlighting

We’ve also broadened out word prediction, with new prediction languages (French, German, Spanish, Polish and Arabic) and support for phonetic prediction in Swedish. Word prediction is a good aid for getting the word you want (and making sure it is spelled correctly) so we’re pleased to have it in more of the many languages supported by ClaroRead Chrome.

Finally, we should note that Google has updated Chrome and as a result ClaroRead Chrome on Windows now allows access to more installed voices (SAPI5 voices, for the technical). You could always access the default system voice, but now you can choose from all the voices available. With many free voices this means you can read web pages, PDF files and Google documents with ClaroRead Chrome in more languages and voices than ever before.

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ClaroRead Plus versus ClaroRead Pro Video

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One of the most common queries we get for ClaroRead for PC is “What’s the difference between ClaroRead Plus and ClaroRead Pro?” And indeed they have similar features – reading, proofing, and scanning/OCR. ClaroRead Pro also has “Advanced Scanning” – but what does that mean?

Of course, there is a comparison chart to help, but we thought it might be helpful to create a short video to explain the key differences – the proofing dialog and the advanced save options. View it here or watch it on YouTube:

ClaroRead 7.1 Released

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We are pleased to announce the update of ClaroRead for Windows to Version 7.1.

This version makes it even easier to download extra text to speech voices. It also adds “Scan from Screen” to ClaroRead SE and ClaroRead Standard, speaking any inaccessible text from the screen.

We’ve done a quick video to show the full details:


You can also read our detailed ClaroRead 7.1 Release Notes.

You can get the latest ClaroRead 7.1 SE and Standard versions by logging in to ClaroRead Cloud and entering your ClaroRead licence key. You can then download ClaroRead 7.1, any of our other Windows programs, any of our 80 high-quality text-to-speech voices in 30 languages, and even ClaroRead for Mac! If you are a ClaroRead Plus or ClaroRead Pro user you can get the free update via the ClaroUp updater program.

If you own a copy of ClaroRead but don’t have a licence key, please contact support@clarosoftware.com. Note that ClaroRead 6.5 or 7.0 keys work still – you don’t need a new ClaroRead 7.1 key if you have a ClaroRead 6 or 7 key already.

We are committed to keeping up with the latest technologies. ClaroRead 7 (and ClaroRead 6) – both support the latest Microsoft Office 2016 and Windows 10.

We are also excited to announce an update to v8.08 of ClaroRead Chrome, a Google Chrome extension that provides text-to-speech and screen tinting for any webpage in Google Chrome on Windows, Mac or Chromebook – including speech with highlighting in Google Docs, Word Prediction and more. It is currently still free in the Chrome Web Store from:

“DYSboxing 8: ClaroRead Text-to-Speech Software Review”

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Another short but really useful video from the great Codpast blog goes through the stand-out features of ClaroRead for Windows PC. Proofing, reading, positioning the floating toolbar, shortcut keys, saving text to audio, spellchecking and homophone checking are all demonstrated in double-quick time.

Want to try ClaroRead out yourself? Download a free 15-day ClaroRead trial to try on your computer.