What is Read & Write
Read & Write is a literacy support tool that offers help with everyday tasks like reading text aloud, understanding unfamiliar words, researching assignments, and proofing written work.
- Read & Write offers three different options for having text read aloud. Using text-to-speech options can improve comprehension.
- If you are an employee (staff, faculty, or adjunct), please get in touch with M. Patty Petersen at [email protected] for a license to access this software.
Screenshot Reader
The Screenshot Reader allows you to read many types of inaccessible text, such as images and inaccessible digital content or PDFs.
To use the Screenshot Reader:
- Open Read & Write.
- Choose the “Screenshot Reader” tool.
- Click and drag to select the group of text you need to have read aloud inside of the box.
- As the text is being spoken, the current word will be highlighted.
- Use the icons in the bottom corner of the text box to pause, play, and stop spoken text.
- You can also copy the text within the box to your device’s clipboard using the clipboard icon on the right.
- Learn more about the Screenshot Reader by visiting this featured digital tour.
Play Button and Hover Speech
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Did you know that you can read text aloud on a web page two different ways?
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Both the Play Button and Hover Speech features can read text aloud. To read aloud with the Play Button, highlight the text you want to read.
- Click the Play Button. The text will be read aloud. To use Hover Speech, click the Hover Speech button. Move your cursor and place it over the text you want to read.
- Read&Write will read the text your cursor is hovering over.
- Move your cursor to a new place on the website to have that text read aloud. Here is how to Open Read&Write.
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Both the Play Button and Hover Speech features can read text aloud. To read aloud with the Play Button, highlight the text you want to read.
- Choose the “Hover Speech” tool.
- A dot will appear under the hover speech icon and the icon will turn purple to indicate it is currently on.
- Use your mouse cursor to hover over a word for approximately 2 seconds. The text will be spoken starting with that word. The text currently being read will be highlighted yellow, and the current word will be highlighted blue.
- Use the play, pause, and stop buttons to control the audio playback.
- The text will continue to be read until the pause or stop buttons are pressed or the spoken text reaches the end of the page.
- Click the “Hover Speech” icon again to turn off the tool.
- Here is how to learn more about reading web pages with Read & Write.
Selecting Text
- Open Read&Write.
- Highlight some text on the page by either double clicking on a word or clicking and dragging your mouser cursor over the text.
- Press the “Play” icon in the toolbar. The text will be spoken starting with the first word of the highlighted text.
- Press the “Pause” or “Stop” icons to stop the text from being spoken.
Audio Maker
- Open Read&Write.
- Select any amount of text.
- Click on the “Audio Maker” icon in the toolbar.
- An MP3 file will be automatically downloaded to your device to be listened to at any time.
- You can find the file in your downloads folder.
Additional Resources
Learn more about all the features built-in Read & Write: