TestTalker™ Featured on KELOLAND TV

04/02/2006 – KELOLAND TV

TestTalker has recently been featured in KELOLAND News' Eye on KELOLAND.

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Text Transcript

Monday morning many students in South Dakota will be getting number two pencils out ... ready to take the Dakota Step Test. It measures students skills, and there's now help for students with learning disabilities who struggle taking tests.

Under No Child Left Behind, 3rd through 8th graders and 11th graders in South Dakota all have to take the Dakota Step Test.

All students in each grade have to answer the same questions, read the same passages and solve the same word problems - but the comprehension level of every student is far from the same.

To level the playing field, the Sioux Falls School district is helping students who have trouble understanding the words on a page.

It's called TestTalker, and it does exactly what its name says.

Marie Rickert with Elementary Special Education says, "It allows them an advantage to hear the questions read to them, and they then have the opportunity to answer the questions on the computer."

Each test booklet is scanned into a computer. The TestTalker software creates an image of the page and converts the text into speech.

Rickert says, "It really allows kids to work at their own pace at their own individual rate, and we find that they really are engaged when their working on the computer rather than a small group...that technology just makes it so much more successful for students."

Before TestTalker, teachers had to read every single question and list of answers to students with such disabilities.

Assistant Technical Coordinator Terri Noldner says, "Its very difficult when you have a group of students all in one classroom and they all have to be on the same question and then there's that fear of 'I need it repeated, but I don't want to interrupt' and 'I don't want anyone to know I need it repeated.'"

Student Anna Christensen says, "Sometimes teachers would read it too fast and you don't quite understand it and you have to have them repeat...it takes longer and with this you can just go at your own speed and stop and pause."

Christensen is a Junior in high school and plans on taking the Dakota Step with the help of the Test Talker Software. Teachers have been reading tests to her, but she says Test Talker gives her something she was missing.

She says,"I think it makes you feel more independent with yourself."

"There are some that are so excited, they've never had the opportunity to take a test independently its always been read to them and at the teachers pace and so they get pretty pumped up that once they get used to the computerized voice then they like that ability to go at their own rate," says Noldner.

So when the testing begins, students will get out their number two pencils and some will put on head phones...so that the state can evaluate their weaknesses, but most importantly...their strengths.

Students will be testing April 3rd through 21st and results should be available in August.

Kelli Grant
© 2006 KELOLAND TV. All Rights Reserved.

Original Transcript located at KELOLAND.com.

About The Learning Systems Group, Freedom Scientific®

The Learning Systems Group, headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, was founded in 2000 by a team of education and assistive technology experts to address the needs of students with reading-related learning challenges. The group’s award-winning products, WYNN™ and TestTalker™, are best known as the “teacher’s choice” among competitors and are currently sold in all 50 United States, Canada, the U.K., Puerto Rico, Mexico and Australia. Freedom Scientific, Inc. is also the world's leading manufacturer of assistive technology products for individuals who are blind or visually impaired.

For more information about WYNN, TestTalker or the Learning Systems Group of Freedom Scientific, please visit www.freedomscientific.com/lsg or call (888) 223.3344.

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WYNN and TestTalker are trademarks of Freedom Scientific, Inc.