Assistive Technology for Dyslexia: A Student’s Journey to Confidence and Access

Imagine starting a race…
Everyone begins at the same starting line. But as the race begins, someone places weights around your ankles. You try to keep up, but reaching the finish line is much harder than it should be.

That is how Makenzie, a high school student with dyslexia, described learning without the assistive technology (AT) accommodations and supports she needed. At times, she felt that using assistive technology was seen as “cheating” rather than necessary support.

“Without my accommodations, it is like having a weighted jacket on me, or like wearing weights,” she explained. “Obviously, I’m not going to run as fast as people without the weights.”

As a student with dyslexia, Makenzie often struggled to process and understand written text, making it difficult to fully access the learning materials and keep pace with her peers. “All the words were there… but I don’t understand what’s going on,” she shared when describing what reading once felt like. Timed reading activities and traditional approaches sometimes left her feeling frustrated and isolated. What was at stake was not only her academic success, but her confidence as a learner.

How Makenzie’s Journey Began: Advocacy and Early AT Accommodations

Makenzie’s journey toward more accessible learning developed gradually with support from her family, flexible instruction, and targeted assistive technology tools.

Her mother, an educator, played a significant role as her first advocate. When academics were not progressing, she pushed for accommodations for her daughter. Over time, Makenzie’s IEP included supports that made school more manageable. It started simply with highlighting important information. Even that small adjustment made a difference and enabled her to identify what needed extra explanation.

How Assistive Technology Opened Access to the Curriculum

A major turning point arrived when Makenzie discovered audiobooks and multi-modal literacy tools. Simply changing the way information was presented opened the door to learning materials that had previously felt out of reach. As her confidence grew, she began pairing printed books with audio, highlighting key ideas and taking notes as she read and listened. This combination helped her make stronger connections between concepts and deepen her understanding. Text-to-speech tools provided an additional layer of support, giving Makenzie an independent way to access digital text whenever she needed it.

On her own, she also began to discover how she learns best – and that, according to her teacher Ms. Stoeffler, is ultimately the goal: “to help students find the way that their brain works.” Makenzie did exactly that. She realized that using graph paper made her handwriting more organized and easier to read by keeping spacing in order. When writing essays, speech-to-text tools eased the burden of spelling and punctuation, allowing her to focus more on getting ideas out rather than getting stuck on mechanics.

Even as Makenzie became more confident, new challenges started to emerge. Geometry felt especially difficult, partly because of its abstract concepts and highly specific vocabulary. As she explained, “colors help,” offering another way to organize and make sense of information. For example, she used different colors to organize information, and Ms. Stoeffler offered physical shapes to manipulate instead of relying only on written explanations. Makenzie’s experience reflects a core idea of the Center on Inclusive Technology & Education Systems (CITES) Framework: meaningful access often begins with collaboration among families, educators, and support teams to identify and remove barriers to learning.

Combining Technology with Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Assistive technology is most effective when paired with flexible instruction. Rather than relying on a single teaching strategy, Makenzie’s teachers applied the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to provide multiple pathways for engagement and representation.

Through visuals, acted-out scenes from literature, and alternative ways to access the curriculum, teachers provided multiple means of representation and engagement. In her English class, acting out scenes from Macbeth helped make difficult texts feel more understandable and engaging. Describing herself as a “big picture person,” these approaches made learning more meaningful for Makenzie and her learning more successful. This flexibility also reflected the mindset of her principal,

As her principal, Mr. Walbaum, noted: “There are many ways to approach one problem. And there might be multiple solutions.”

Overcoming Stigma: Relationships as the Foundation for Growth

Over time, Makenzie grew academically and gained confidence in advocating for herself. Although AT and extra support sometimes made her feel different, especially when she had to leave class and peers saw this as unusual or unfair, supportive relationships and environments helped her view the tools as strengths. Adults who viewed AT as access rather than a stigma empowered her to embrace the tools that enabled her to learn and thrive. Feeling understood, connected, and accepted were key factors in boosting her confidence in the AT accommodations that were critical to her learning.

During middle school, one teacher played an especially important role in helping Makenzie feel understood and more comfortable. They met regularly to talk through challenges and reflect on successes and areas of need. At first, the teacher accompanied Makenzie to conversations with other instructors, explaining her accommodations and modeling how to communicate her own needs.

What started as guided support became confidence in self-advocacy. Whether asking for a quieter testing environment, relying on visual supports, or speaking up when certain technologies malfunctioned, Makenzie started to thrive. As Principal Walbaum reflected, he most admired her “ability to advocate not only for herself, but for others with dyslexia as well.”

With the right supports and mentors, Makenzie’s race was no longer defined by the weight she carried, but by the confidence and access that helped her move forward.

From Individual Accommodations to Inclusive Technology Systems

Makenzie’s story shows that individual accommodations, flexible teaching, and self-advocacy must be backed by a broader culture of collaboration. At Greenfield Central, school leaders and teachers work together across departments on grading, mastery, and learner variability, while principals across schools share ideas and mentor new teachers into an access-focused culture.

That flexibility helps shift the focus from providing accommodations to removing barriers so more students could access learning in ways that worked for them. Mrs. Stoeffler noted that student struggle is too easily misread as a lack of effort when it actually signals a need for a different kind of support. Her approach centers on a simple question: “If one way is not working, what is another way to teach it?”

Safeguarding Technology Access Amid Policy Shifts

This commitment to access is put to the test as schools implement classroom cell phone restrictions. Mrs. Stoeffler reflected that while phones can be a distraction for some students, they are essential access tools for others who rely on text-to-speech or other supports.

As Greenfield Central prepares to navigate these new policies during the school day, she acknowledged that staff would need to continue finding ways to ensure students do not lose access to tools that support learning. In Makenzie’s story, inclusion depended not on one tool or one accommodation, but on a school community willing to listen, adapt, and protect access.

Takeaways

• Assistive technology works best as part of an inclusive technology ecosystem. Makenzie’s growth was not the result of one tool alone, but of coordinated support from family, teachers, school leaders, flexible instruction, and accessible learning options.
• Access is personal, flexible, and often includes both high-tech and low-tech supports. Audiobooks, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, graph paper, colors, visuals, manipulatives, and quieter spaces all helped Makenzie learn in ways that matched how she processed information.
• Student confidence grows when support is paired with belonging and self-advocacy. When adults listened, reduced stigma, and helped Makenzie understand what worked for her, she became more confident using accommodations and advocating for herself and others.