KeyStone Literacy Products
|
KeyStone Products |
|
|
$49.00 |
Spell Checking the 21st Century Way
|
|
It would be easy to
describe KeySpell Ellipsis as a supplementary spelling aid to, for example,
the spelling checker in Microsoft Word, but that would be only a very small
part of the story.
The difference between Ellipsis and other spelling checkers is that it suits the individual using it. In addition to the comprehensiveness of the dictionary (350,000 words), it can be easily divided into groups - of specific levels of difficulty or areas of interest - something you don't get from other spell checkers. An inexperienced writer (a child, for example) could reduce the number of suggestions produced by choosing a lower level (the Junior dictionary, for example). A doctor could reduce suggestions by choosing the Medical dictionary. To help in the selection of the correct word, thesaurus-type alternatives are provided, as are examples of the word used in context, in a meaningful sentence. As well as the simple correction of spellings, it also assists in the use of dictionaries and encyclopaedias. These (annoyingly, sometimes) require the exact spelling of a word (or at least the start) to find the correct reference, Ellipsis can help quickly get the correct spelling to find the information required. Those using recent versions of Microsoft Word (97 or later) and/or Dragon NaturallySpeaking (5 or later) can utilise the direct link the product has with those products. A simple keystroke transfers the word under inspection to Ellipsis, and (when chosen) the correct word can be transferred back, replacing the original. The checking mechanism works in a unique way. Unlike a conventional spelling checker, Ellipsis provides sensible suggestions based on the phonetic similarity to entered word(s). In this way the correct word can be produced from even complex misspellings. Powerful enough to cater for the complex needs of dyslexia sufferers it remains easily accessible for the user without any specific literacy needs. Ellipsis Reader adds a screen reading element, allowing words to be read out to the user, and also allows Microsoft Word documents to be scanned for spelling errors and homophones (which are highlighted as such). |
|
|
System Requirements: |
|
|
$225.00 |
Making
spelling simple for everyone, even those with dyslexic and literacy
problems.
|
|
|
KeySpell is a
powerful spelling-checker which works as a standalone product, with speech
recognition programs, and alongside Microsoft® Word™. It provides invaluable
aid for early learners and those with literacy difficulties, helping them to
understand how words are spelt, how they sound and the context in which they
should be used.
The unique system is even able to handle the complex problems caused by dyslexia. Words like ‘elephant’ for example, can still be found when misspelt with a consonant (‘lefamt’). With its direct link to Microsoft Word, KeySpell can be evoked as soon as the program ceases to be of assistance - which many people find to be surprisingly often. |
|
The
easy-to-use, friendly, interface of KeySpell, allied to its detailed
tutorial and comprehensive on-screen help, allow the user to ensure accuracy
of correction through the use of a number of features: KeySpell's 250,000 word dictionary can be partitioned, using 32 categories, to suit the needs of the user either by age group or area of interest (Arts, Sciences, Sports, Business etc.). It also has a huge lexicon of British place names and personal names. In Microsoft Word, a document can also be scanned for sound-alikes, enabling the user to check each occurrence quickly and efficiently. KeySpell offers a selection of phonetically similar words and confusable terms and an example of those words in context to assist in the selection of the correct word. Searches can also be conducted based on the beginning or the end of the word according to the preference of the user. KeySpell incorporates voice synthesis technology from ScanSoft® to provide a text-to-speech capability - allowing selected text to be read out as it appears on the screen. KeySpell also helps with the pronunciation of words with phoneme-by-phoneme guides and allows the steps taken to correct a word to be retraced. |
|
|
System Requirements:
|
|
|
$485.00 |
Gives those with reading and
writing
|
|
|
KeyStone
ScreenSpeaker is delightfully simple, yet has power and versatility. It
gives invaluable assistance in the use of Microsoft Word® to create
documents without relying on the computer monitor (and keyboard, if voice
recognition is used).
Overwhelming difficulties in writing, often made worse by poor reading skills, hamper the educational development of many people. However, within a few hours of starting to use KeyStone, they can be generating creative written work quickly and accurately. Even those as young as six years old can use the simple system. KeyStone has been designed to assist those with visual impairment, blindness and dyslexia. A user can listen to their work being spoken back, while the text is being typed or dictated (using voice recognition software). Any mistakes can be quickly found and corrected using advanced spelling and homophone checkers, while the work is being created or after it has been completed. Any amount of the text can be read back at any time. |
|
A
selection of accolades from schools in Somerset and Oxfordshire where
KeyStone has enhanced the use of speech recognition:
"The school are convinced
of the huge value of KeyStone and want to do everything possible to widen
its use." ScreenSpeaker is a powerful system: KeyStone works directly with Dragon NaturallySpeaking®, DragonDictate® and Microsoft Word® 97 (8) and later. Innovative Solutions When working with ScanSoft (Dragon) speech recognition, KeyStone …
When typing in Microsoft Word, KeyStone …
Whether using voice recognition or typing text, KeyStone always …
Provides detailed help, both on-screen and audibly. |
|
|
|
|
|
System
Requirements (without voice recognition): 75Mhz Pentium® processor, 32 MB RAM, Windows® '98 (second edition)/ Me/ NT4/ 2000/ XP, 100MB HDD, CD ROM Drive, 16-bit sound card (full duplex soundcard required for use with voice recognition). System Recommendations: 166 MHz Pentium processor, 64 Mb RAM, Microsoft Word 97 or later. |
|
|
$89.00 |
The Finishing Touches
|
|
Particularly in
their most recent guises,
Dragon NaturallySpeaking® and Microsoft Word are both immensely
powerful pieces of software. Together, they promise a Holy Grail of easy
document production - free from the physical process of writing everything
down. NaturallySpeaking creates text from what is said, and Word
assists with the manipulation of the text. However, like many products of
such power, there is a catch. Unadorned, many intrinsic features are almost
unusable to those who would most benefit from their treasures - people with
literacy difficulties.
There is now a solution to this impasse in KeyStone ToolSet - a collection of tools that promise to allow voice recognition to fulfil its potential. KeyStone ToolSet comprises tools for use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Microsoft Word. Included in the package is a spelling checker, a tool to easily alter the menu structure and content in Word (often too complex for even the most fully-fledged of users), and the ability to amend the training scripts and vocabularies in NaturallySpeaking: |
|
 With a direct link to both Word and the correction mechanism in NaturallySpeaking, Ellipsis (a phonetic-based spelling checker) helps both the person who dictates and the person who prefers to type; and can be summoned with a simple keystroke. As well as assisting with the correction of spelling errors, it also assists in the use of dictionaries and encyclopedias, which require the exact spelling of a word to find the correct reference. |
|
 Those who wish to simplify the arrangement of menus, or use voice recognition to navigate through the menus will find this a tremendous boon. The program allows the user to easily insert and/or remove arrangements of menus into and out of Microsoft Word. Several arrangements are included, altering the display of menus and functionality therein. |
|
 By default, the training stories that users have to read to "train" NaturallySpeaking are displayed as paragraphs to speak out loud. For someone who cannot easily read, this can be an arduous, or even insurmountable, problem. The Organiser provides stories in smaller chunks (word-by-word or phrase-by-phrase) along with the ability to move these into and out of NaturallySpeaking as necessary. As an added bonus, users can even add their own stories to read. |
|
 The vocabulary used by NaturallySpeaking is not always the most appropriate. It could be too large (producing unusual words) or too small (lacking technical terms, for example). The Builder allows users to construct vocabularies containing either a limited set of words (for young users, perhaps), or specialized words (like medicinal terms). |
|
|
System
Requirements: As with the voice recognition program in use. Stories Organiser works with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred and Professional versions 5, 6 and 7; Vocabulary Builder requires Professional 6.1 or 7.
|
|
|
$650.00-Preferred $1125.00-Professional |
Gives people with limited writing skills the vital confidence to produce accurate text after just a few hours. |
|
|
Overwhelming difficulties in writing, often made worse by poor reading skills, hamper the educational development of many people. However, within a few hours of starting to use KeyStone SpeechMaster, they can be generating creative written work quickly and accurately. People who have struggled for years can now produce work without support from others. Even those as young as six years old can use the simple system. Many people are denied the benefits of speech recognition by the nature of the enrolment process - but no longer! KeyStone SpeechMaster provides extra training stories, and reads out any script in small phrases for the user to repeat. Users don't have to be able to read a single word to use the system. They can even write their own stories, using KeyStone's unique facilities. |
|
When using KeyStone, the user dictates into a microphone attached to a suitable computer. Speech is converted into text by Dragon NaturallySpeaking® and this is displayed on the screen using Microsoft Word®. KeyStone then speaks out the text in its own clear computer-generated voice so that the user can compare this with their dictation to discover whether the correct words have been displayed. When a correction is needed, KeyStone helps by speaking the displayed alternatives. If the correct text is heard amongst the options, it can be chosen with a voice command like "Choose 3". Otherwise, the intended text must be entered and KeyStone's unique in-built spelling checker helps the user to produce this accurately, safeguarding future recognition performance. KeyStone's advanced spelling and homophone checking functions and reading back of text can be started at any time - as dictation proceeds, or on completion. Where questions arise, detailed help is supplied both on-screen and audibly. A hot-line telephone and e-mail service is also available. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred is the speech recognition program included in the KeyStone SpeechMaster package. For those with speaking difficulties, ScreenSpeaker can also be used alongside DragonDictate®, and for those not using voice recognition, ScreenSpeaker provides powerful support for Microsoft Word®. For those who have already purchased Dragon NaturallySpeaking, KeyStone ScreenSpeaker provides the vital extra support to give the same functions as SpeechMaster System Requirements:
|
|
|
Description |
Product # |
Price |
|
|
KeyStone KeySpell |
KeyStone KeySpell |
$225.00 |
|
|
KeyStone ScreenSpeaker alone |
KeyStone ScreenSpeaker |
$485.00 |
|
|
KeyStone ScreenSpeaker bundled with DNS Preferred 4.0 |
KeyStone SpeechMaster |
$650.00 |
|
|
KeyStone ScreenSpeaker bundled with DNS Preferred 4.0 and KeyStone KeySpell |
SpeechComplete |
$895.00 |
|
|
ScreenSpeaker bundled with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional 4.0 |
SpeechMaster Pro |
$1125.00 |
KeyStone literacy products assist users with spelling, homophones, screen
reading, training/enrollment in speech recognition programs, speech-to-text and
much more.
ScreenSpeaker is ideal for people with reading problems and Dragon NaturallySpeaking helps those with writing problems; put them together and you have the ideal package for dyslexic people.
KeySpell and ScreenSpeaker Questions and Answers
Q:
What Is ScreenSpeaker?
A:
ScreenSpeaker is a screen reader/spelling assistance/homophone checker
program networks transparently in the speech recognition program Dragon
NaturallySpeaking. ScreenSpeaker
also works for those individuals who are typing in a word processor rather than
using speech recognition. ScreenSpeaker
provides the ability to have text that is being readback highlighted, either
word by word, or sentence by sentence, or paragraph by paragraph. ScreenSpeaker can echo after typing or after dictation by
speech recognition. When an
individual is typing, ScreenSpeaker will auditorally notify the typist that a
spelling error has been made and will read the suggestions to the typist.
Homophone checking can be done as the individual dictates or types, or
the individual can scan for homophones after completing his sentence, paragraph
or document.
Q:
What kind of individuals can ScreenSpeaker help?
A:
ScreenSpeaker provides bimodal feedback that is helpful for most
individuals. However, the
individuals who most benefit from ScreenSpeaker are individuals who have
learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, dysgraphia or dyslexia, and
visual impairments.
Q:
How does ScreenSpeaker help individuals with learning disabilities?
A:
Many individuals with learning disabilities have average to above average
listening and speaking vocabularies, but have significantly lower level reading
and writing vocabularies. This
means that even if someone tells them how to spell a word and they write or type
the word correctly, or if they dictate the word into speech recognition
software, they will have difficulty reading what they have written. When an individual dictates into speech recognition software,
the word is always spelled correctly. With
ScreenSpeaker, individuals with learning disabilities are able to listen to what
they have written as it is read back to them. The highlighting facility in ScreenSpeaker enables these
individuals to see exactly which word is being read to them as it is read.
Additionally, when an individual is dictating into speech recognition
software, while there is no need to spell during the composing stage, when an
error is found in recognition it must be corrected.
Without ScreenSpeaker, the individual is not able to hear the choices in
the correction dialogue box read to them.
Q:
How does ScreenSpeaker help individuals with Attention Deficit Disorder?
A:
Individuals who have Attention Deficit Disorder often have focusing
difficulties and may be dysgraphic. ScreenSpeaker
helps these individuals to focus by providing bimodal feedback and colored
highlighting. Additionally,
ScreenSpeaker enables individuals with dysgraphia to focus on and to read what
they have typed or dictated into speech recognition. Because many individuals who have Attention Deficit Disorder
have language organization difficulties, a combination of Dragon
NaturallySpeaking and ScreenSpeaker enables those individuals to dictate into,
and then read, programs that assist them with organizing in prewriting
activities, such as Inspiration and Student Report Writer.
Q:
How does ScreenSpeaker help individuals with visual impairments?
A:
When an individual who has a visual impairment dictates or types text,
she is unable to see what she has written.
ScreenSpeaker reads the text back to the individual.
ScreenSpeaker will read any editable text.
Q:
Why can't students with these kinds of disabilities just type their work?
A:
Traditional spell checkers in word processing programs are unable to find
homophone errors in writing and are unable to suggest corrections for spelling
errors made by typical individuals with learning disabilities and/or with
Attention Deficit Disorder. Additionally,
most spell checkers are unable to read the suggested correction possibilities to
the individual, and most times, an individual with learning disabilities may not
be able to read the suggested correction possibilities. Additionally, many individuals with learning disabilities
also have fine motor issues, motor planning issues or other issues that
interfere with the individual' s ability to keyboard successfully and fluently.
Q:
Why not just let the students use word prediction software programs?
A:
Word prediction programs can be helpful working at the perceptual or
print level. However, we also need
to focus on enabling these individuals to compose, which is a higher level
thinking skill. This higher level
thinking skill sometimes breaks down when a student has to focus overly on the
perceptual level because spelling or handwriting issues are weak.
Word prediction programs also are heavily reliant on sound/symbol to
correctly predict the next word. Most
students begin to do well with word prediction programs at the first or second
letter level, but run into difficulty with the second or third letter, which is
almost always a vowel. Students
with reading and writing disabilities struggle most with vowel sounds. This difficulty often leaves them blocked in a word
prediction program, as they are unable to figure out what the vowel should be.
For instance: a student is attempting to type the word guest.
He types g, then tries e. The
list of words that is presented to him does not include guest.
So he tries a. No luck.
Next he tries i. Again, no luck. By
now, the student has no idea what he was writing about, were even what his next
word in the sentence was going to be.
Q:
How does ScreenSpeaker help an individual in a speech recognition
program?
A:
ScreenSpeaker guides the individual through the speech enrollment
process. If an individual cannot
see the enrollment text in front of him, he will be unable to enroll his voice
into the speech recognition program (Dragon NaturallySpeaking). If an individual cannot read the enrollment text, she will be
unable to enroll her voice into the speech recognition program.
ScreenSpeaker prompts the individual by reading the enrollment text,
either in short phrases, in lines, or by words to the individual and then
prompting them to repeat it. ScreenSpeaker adds a number of stories to the enrollment text
possibilities. The stories are
organized by phrases, by lines or by words and the individual can select what
will work best for him or her. Additionally,
any story that has been written and saved as the text file can be imported, for
ScreenSpeaker's Stories Organizer into Dragon NaturallySpeaking to be used as an
enrollment text. This is very powerful for students who have written a
language experience story, or who have dictated a story to somebody else, and to
have very little ability to read other texts.
KeySpell
Q:
What is KeySpell?
A:
KeySpell is a powerful spell checker and spelling assistance program that
can be used alone, with speech recognition programs and along Microsoft Word.
KeySpell helps individuals understand how words are spelled, how they
sound and the context in which they should be used.
It provides assistance with homophones as well.
It provides help with pronunciation of words with phoneme by phoneme
guides that have visual and auditory modalities.
A document can be quickly scanned for sound-likes so that the user can
check each occurrence quickly and efficiently.
Q:
Can KeySpell be used to help students recognize and track phonemes within
words?
A:
Yes, although no computer program can be considered a substitute for
direct teaching. However, with the
use of the phonix window, individuals can hear the phonemes read to them as they
see these phonemes represented by letters and by symbols. There is an intrinsic interest for the individual in this
process, because, in the phonix window, she is examining words that she needs to
write.
Q:
How is KeySpell helpful in Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the speech
recognition program?
A:
For individuals who are very learning disabled or dyslexic, KeySpell can
provide assistance in the correction box dialog.
The phonemic searching ability to find phonemically similar words to that
which the student needs to correct enables the individual to bypass difficulties
with vowels and other difficult phonemes. KeySpell
can be evoked as needed and can transfer the troublesome word with a single
button click into KeySpell. After
searching and finding the appropriate word, the correct word can be transferred
back into Dragon NaturallySpeaking with another single button click.
Q:
Can KeySpell be used without speech recognition?
A:
Yes, KeySpell can be used as a stand-alone product or alongside Microsoft
Word as well as with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.