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Elsi · 01-09-2009, 04:32 PM

Curly, are you talking about the Irlen colored overlays used as an aid by dyslexic readers? My daughter used these when she was in elementary school. The Irlen colored overlays are designed to change the white background in regular print books to another color, thus changing the contrast between the black print and the page background. In fact, one alternative to using the colored overlays that her teachers employed was to print her worksheets onto colored paper instead of the normal white paper.

So, the first thing you need to understand about the current generation eBook readers that use the eInk screen technology (Sony, Kindle, Cybook, and others) is that they don't have a white background. Instead the background is grey.

There are a couple of ways that the eBook reader might be a good fit for your son. The first is that the grey/black contrast of an eInk screen might be enough by itself to help with his reading difficulties. His reading therapist might feel that no overlays would be needed when using the eBook reader.

Or, if the therapist feels that he still needs a color overlay, you need to be aware that any overlay you would use with it would effectively be the same as combining his normal colored overlay (yellow, pink, aqua) with a grey overlay. I see no reason why you couldn't trim the overlay plastic to fit the screen of the eBook reader. It might not interfere too much with the readability of the screen -- depending on which color your son is using and the density of that color -- though your son might require brighter lighting than when reading a traditional book printed on white paper.

I would recommend finding someone near you who would lend you an electronic reader and then take it to your son's reading therapist and allow the therapist to assess whether it's a good fit for your son.

Also be aware that there are still some eBook readers that have back-lit screens more like a computer monitor. These may or may not be a good fit for your son, but the use of a color overlay may be much easier with the reader providing the lighting.

See the MobileRead wiki to investigate which readers have which types of screen.

Oh yes -- you might also ask your son's reading therapist whether he would benefit from eyeglasses with colored lenses as an alternative to the overlays. I'll grant that it's a more expensive solution.

And, as for the chapter books -- as AndyBaby said, most readers support plain text files and some even support rtf files. After you buy a reader, I'm sure you could convince one of the volunteers here to create proper eBooks from your son's Word documents. Keep in mind that eInk screens are monochrome and graphics might suffer when converting from full-color to grey-scale.

01-09-2009, 04:32 PM	#3
Elsi Wizard Posts: 2,366 Karma: 12000 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Texas, USA Device: Kindle; Sony PRS 505; Blackberry 8700C	Curly, are you talking about the Irlen colored overlays used as an aid by dyslexic readers? My daughter used these when she was in elementary school. The Irlen colored overlays are designed to change the white background in regular print books to another color, thus changing the contrast between the black print and the page background. In fact, one alternative to using the colored overlays that her teachers employed was to print her worksheets onto colored paper instead of the normal white paper. So, the first thing you need to understand about the current generation eBook readers that use the eInk screen technology (Sony, Kindle, Cybook, and others) is that they don't have a white background. Instead the background is grey. There are a couple of ways that the eBook reader might be a good fit for your son. The first is that the grey/black contrast of an eInk screen might be enough by itself to help with his reading difficulties. His reading therapist might feel that no overlays would be needed when using the eBook reader. Or, if the therapist feels that he still needs a color overlay, you need to be aware that any overlay you would use with it would effectively be the same as combining his normal colored overlay (yellow, pink, aqua) with a grey overlay. I see no reason why you couldn't trim the overlay plastic to fit the screen of the eBook reader. It might not interfere too much with the readability of the screen -- depending on which color your son is using and the density of that color -- though your son might require brighter lighting than when reading a traditional book printed on white paper. I would recommend finding someone near you who would lend you an electronic reader and then take it to your son's reading therapist and allow the therapist to assess whether it's a good fit for your son. Also be aware that there are still some eBook readers that have back-lit screens more like a computer monitor. These may or may not be a good fit for your son, but the use of a color overlay may be much easier with the reader providing the lighting. See the MobileRead wiki to investigate which readers have which types of screen. Oh yes -- you might also ask your son's reading therapist whether he would benefit from eyeglasses with colored lenses as an alternative to the overlays. I'll grant that it's a more expensive solution. And, as for the chapter books -- as AndyBaby said, most readers support plain text files and some even support rtf files. After you buy a reader, I'm sure you could convince one of the volunteers here to create proper eBooks from your son's Word documents. Keep in mind that eInk screens are monochrome and graphics might suffer when converting from full-color to grey-scale.