J.W. Harris, an eighth-grader at Schroeder Middle School in Grand Forks, North Dakota, has dyslexia, and has struggled in class until he began using Texthelp's Read and Write for Google, a program for the Chrome browser.

"If you can't really type fast, you can just talk to it," Harris said. "It helps a lot."

The program works by summarizing text and offering text-to-voice translation and "other support that's especially useful for English language learners and students with learning difficulties," reports the Grand Forks Herald. "Eventually, about 5,361 students in third through 12th grade will have access to the program."

"Grand Forks students are among more than 1.2 million students using the program worldwide, according to the district's vendor, as more schools incorporate technology in the classroom," Grand Forks Herald reports. "Student progress has been tough to measure because the program is new, said educators. But some rave over what they've seen so far -- it gives students newfound confidence, autonomy and unleashes potential some educators didn't realize students had, they said."

The program is multi-use, and has helped students with spelling, vocabulary, and typing. Teachers also report the program helps with testing. "All Grand Forks students will soon be taking a new test that's aligned with the Common Core education standards for math and English," reports Grand Forks Herald. "Unlike past paper tests, the Smarter Balanced Assessment is taken online and adapts to student progress -- it adjusts the difficulty level of questions based on student response."

To see how Read and Write works in the classroom, watch the video at www.grandforksherald.com.

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By Samantha DiMauro, Education World Contributor