5 Must-Have Writing Tools and Learning Software for Dyslexic Students

Dyslexic students and content creators are the perfect examples of not letting your struggles get in the way of doing what you love. And, if you’re one of the millions of people with Dyslexia that struggles with the entire writing process, then you aren’t alone.

Like other neurological disorders, Dyslexic people struggle with executive function skills, especially difficulty with spelling, writing, reading skills, and understanding the relationships between letters and sounds.

Although in today’s society, grammatical errors aren’t the taboo they once were. That’s most true on social media. It’s still frowned upon in more formal settings, such as in the school classroom, as well as writing assignments and legal documents.

If you’re one of the many dyslexic students reading at school, poor readability may cause your grades to drop through no fault of your own. If you’re an online content creator (like us), it can affect page quality, the reading experience, and thus how you rank on Google.

So we’ve hand-picked some assistive software programs from our experience that make the process of writing as an adult or child with dyslexia as stress-free as possible.

1. Grammarly – Best All-Round for Reading, Writing, and Grammar

Grammarly is the most well-known of all the assistive technologies on this list. In the world of proofreading and content editing software, it’s become a household name as one of the most amazing tools and a brilliant tool for anyone who has trouble with spelling. It’s even available on most mobile phones these days in the form of a keyboard.

An excellent place to start is with the free version. The free version has everything you need to create clean, accurate documents for school, work, or anything else that requires writing.

Accessibility tools are vital for anyone with dyslexia

The premium version is more expensive but also offers many features that help improve reading and writing abilities in students with Dyslexia:

• Advanced Grammar Checker
• Plagiarism Checker
• Style and Tone of Voice Checker
• Reading Level Checker

Grammarly is a great option for grammar checking and contextual spelling, including sentence structures. In no time you’ll be making sure your writing experience is readable and error-free.

It also provides scoring for reading speed of the average reader. What’s more, it integrates with Google Docs and Google Drive too via a Google Chrome extension!

Sign up for free or go premium with Grammarly today!

2. VoiceIn Plus and Dictanote – Voice-To-Text on Every Website

VoiceIn Plus is a fantastic Chrome extension created by the people over at Dictanote. Like most speech software it translates your voice into text making note-taking much easier than ever before.

Yet, where VoiceIn goes one-step further is that by clicking the extension in the toolbar, you can automatically start using voice-to-text to type in whatever textbox you fancy. In fact, if you use Google Docs or Microsoft Office online within your browser, it’ll work with those too! As long as it’s in your web browser, it’ll save you a huge amount of stress and time.

This also makes it great for people with mobility issues including Arthritis who struggle with traditional typing and rely on a speech tool for the majority of their work.

Its sister app, Dictanote, is more of a traditional voice-to-text note-taking app, with full essay-writing capabilities. Dictanote is free to try, but voice features are only available on the paid tier, which is an affordable $3 a month.

3. ProWritingAid – Great for Spelling and Tone of Voice

ProWritingAid is an all-in-one solution similar to Grammarly. ProWritingAid is a writing and grammar checker for Microsoft Word. It works well with other research and publishing tools, making it so powerful that you can use it every day to make sure your spelling is always correct.

ProWritingAid takes the difficulty out of proofreading: it will automatically catch all spelling errors, grammatical errors, and repetitions. You’ll be able to concentrate on stylistic aspects of your work while ProWritingAid deals with the nuts-and-bolts stuff.

Sign up for free or take advantage of our special 20% discount on ProWritingAid using our exclusive link today!

4. Linguix – Best for Dyslexic Students Learning the English Language

Linguix is the newest all-in-one on this list. At the time of writing, it’s not great for UK English, and you can tell it’s designed for non-native English speakers as some suggestions don’t flow as well as Grammarly. That said, it does also have Google Docs integration via a Chrome extension, like Grammarly and for anyone speaking a foreign language, Linguix is a great choice.

Linguix has some great learning tools for non-native Dyslexic students reading and writing, learning letters, and spell check of the English Language. The documents are written in simple English, which is excellent. But that said, if you’re having difficulties with transcription, don’t be afraid to use specialist transcription software or dyslexic readers to improve your transcription accuracy.

If you value your privacy and don’t want your editing stored online, Linguix has a “secret mode” where you can check your text without storing it on their servers. This is great for anyone needing that extra peace of mind since tools such as Grammarly store your documents on their servers when you import them into the program.

But despite its teething issues, it’s brilliant for anyone with a reading disability. With a built-in plagiarism checker on the roadmap, we’re expecting this to take off in the future, so we’ve bought in for our writers! You can sign up for Linguix here.

5. Copyleaks – Best Plagiarism Checker for Online Writing

Copyleaks is a powerful tool for anyone posting content online. It’s a dedicated plagiarism detection service. It helps you catch instances where you may have accidentally used someone else’s work.

This is an essential issue for any writer. Still, for many dyslexic children and adults in education, it’s easy to miss any accidental plagiarism that may occur from using AI or accessibility tools, so it can prevent any unwanted stress down the line.

Copyleaks scans the internet and finds any work similar to yours. Then, it compares it to your original document line-by-line for any text that matches, making it great for adults or children with Dyslexia who struggle with comprehension and are worried about plagiarism.

As a bonus, Copyleaks’ search engine brings up results from both paid and free pages. So, if you are using the cost-free version of Grammarly without a plagiarism checker, then Copyleaks is a good companion.

You can sign up to Copyleaks for free, with a paid tier should you require more intense usage.

Studying can be a real challenge, but with the right support anyone can succeed

Difficulties With Writing

Whether you are one of the millions of dyslexic students or a dyslexic professional, writing is stressful and challenging at the best of times. And, though work and school are getting better at providing assistive technology tools for people with disabilities, we are far from where we need to be.

But having confidence in these affordable writing tools opens up a world of new writing strategies and gives you the strength to create new visionary content. You’ll find in no time your writing skills aren’t hindering you, but putting you on a level playing field that frees up your mind to do what you do best.

Keep clicking for tons of tech tips for the 21st century classroom and learn more about the struggles of being a neurodivergent student!

Last Updated on February 1, 2023 by Neurodadversity