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Intel, stop the insanity!]]>Jan 7th 2010 2:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/Jan 7th 2010 3:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/Jan 7th 2010 3:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/Jan 7th 2010 3:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/Jan 7th 2010 3:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/Jan 7th 2010 3:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/Jan 7th 2010 6:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/Jan 11th 2010 7:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-reader-hands-on/
I serve a highly prescriptive reading program and provide strategy instruction to people who have dyslexia or other specific learning disabilities that are language-based and that impact their efforts to read and write. My practice spans public and private venues and reaches learners from PreKindergarten through Adulthood.

I saw the Intel Reader at the International Dyslexia Association International Conference in Orlando, FL earlier this past fall (2009). It had just been released to the public the previous week. The Intel Reader is well worth its price, especially when compared with the cadillac of e-text readers with all its accoutrements, the Kurzweil 3000, which is twice the price of the Intel Reader but does twice plus more the jobs of the Intel Reader. The portability and the appeal of the Intel Reader is highly valuable and is not an impediment nor a "crutch" to the students I serve who would benefit from using either or both technologies (the Intel Reader and/or Kurzweil 3000). It is a powerful, well-prepared device which fills a much-needed niche within educational technology.

Additionally, I understand that when one visits the Intel Reader website, there are lists of vendors who sell the Reader. One of those partners is the Don Johnson Foundation which, along with other organizations, may be able to help fund some of the costs of the Reader for those who have a demonstrated need for the device.

However, the real reason I want to write to you is this: I am so terribly concerned that it actually hurts my heart and soul to see headlines about the Intel Reader being a device for the "lazy" or "mentally disabled". I know there was more to this story, but there is so much confusion still about people who struggle with dyslexia and other learning/reading disabilities that those sorts of "teasers" and "headlines" have to be seen for what they are: unfair, unkind, unnecessary.

Right now, one of my former students who uses Kurzweil 3000 to help him with his college readings and writings, is investigating the Intel Reader as a more portable reader for his college work. This is the student who did not receive as many sessions from me in high school because he was working 2 part-time jobs while in school, volunteering every weekend, going to Church on Sundays, and ferrying his twin sister (an honors student) and elementary-aged cousin (who his mother is also raising as her own child) to many of their afterschool activities while their mother worked.

During that same time period, I remember clearly the tutoring session when he reached the "half-way mark" in his tutoring sessions with me. He had brought his best friend over, an honor student dually enrolled at the local community college, who sat on the couch while we held our lesson at the dining table. When we shifted into the nonsense word practice, my student grabbed the wordcards and took them over to his friend, playfully asking him to read them. His friend could not figure out how to read the sophisticated multisyllabic nonsense words, yielding to my student's victorious mastery of those words. I propose that my former student, who would dearly LOVE to have an Intel Reader, is NOT lazy!

He is only one example of the individuals who do and will benefit from the Intel Reader, a device which will set them free to achieve each to his or her personal best.

Thanks for listening. I know many of us share the same concerns and personal and / or professional passion to serve those who learn differently while encouraging them to become independent learners.

Sincerely,

Mandy Horton Walker
website: http://www.lovetoreadtutoring.com
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