Tech Tools for Reading & Writing
Text-to-Speech
If you would like to have written material read out loud, there are a couple of tools you can use on a Chromebook.
Read&Write
This tool is already installed and ready to use whenever you log into your school Chromebook. Click on the purple puzzle piece to bring up the toolbar.
The toolbar has a lot on it, but as far as having text read to you, the one that matters is the triangle. Clicking it will start reading the text, from the start of the page.
Use the buttons next to it to pause reading, or to stop.
You can adjust the speed at which it reads.
Clicking "Options" will bring up the window you see below.
Read&Write also works in Google docs. Click on the purple puzzle piece as shown in the picture above, and it will add a tab with the puzzle piece in the Google doc window. Clicking that icon again will make that tab go away, so if it's missing, just give it a click.
You can also use Read&Write with PDFs that your teacher might give you as part of an assignment.
Double-clicking on it will open it up in a preview window. You can look at it here, but it can't be read to you. To do that, you need to click at the top.
The first time you use this, it's going to need you to give permission for the tool to access your Google account (so it can see the PDF). A window will pop up, you'll click on your Google account name, and then on the blue button that says "Allow."
If you get to a blank page and nothing happens. look in the right side of the address bar. There may be a small box there with a red x. If you click on that, a message will pop up that says it blocked a pop up. Click the dot in front of the one that says to always allow pop ups from this site, save it, then reload the page.
Speech-to-Text
If you need to be able to have the words you say out loud typed as text for you, there are a couple of options. For either you choose, there are a couple of things to remember.
Speak slowly and as clearly as you can.
You need to say things like punctuation out loud in order for it to type it. So, for instance, when I get to the end of a sentence, I need to say, "period" in order for it to be typed.
After you are done speaking, your sentences, you can always go back and edit it with the keyboard if you need to. So you can do things like capitalize letters, and add punctuation.
Read&Write
If you are using a Google doc, you can use Read&Write, the same tool we looked at above for having text read to you.
Google Voice Typing
Instead of using Read&Write, another option, which is quite easy too, is to use the tool that's already built into Google Docs.
