Many of you have seen this icon appearing
when you open the documents on the UGCloud.
Today, I’d like to offer a brief outline of how to use it…
First, when you open a document you may recognize
this toolbar at the top of the page. This is called the ‘Study Skills’ toolbar and is where you will find the
icons for the app. If you are having
trouble seeing the tools for the document you can click on the double arrow on
the icon it will hide it for you.
Similarly,
if you would like to use the study skills toolbar just click on the double down
arrows.
With the Read & Write app, you are able to have
documents (including scanned and uploaded PDFs) read to you. There will be no need for Kurzweil any
longer, and anyone, not just students with SEA equipment, will be able to have
text read to them.
First, open the document from your Google drive
(simply click if it is a Google Doc, if it is a PDF right click on the title
and select ‘open with’ and then select “Read&Write for Google”).
When the document opens, highlight the text
by clicking and dragging the mouse along the text you would like read. Then
in the toolbar, click on the black triangle and the text will be read to
you. To stop the reading,
click on the square box or tap the double bars in the ‘study skills toolbar’ to
pause the reading. As the text is being read aloud it will be
highlighted so that it will help the reader with comprehension and word
recognition.
The voice of the reader can be altered from male to
female and from a faster reading pace to one which is slower. To change the voice, speed, or translation
language, click on the gear in the upper right hand corner and select
from one of the voices in the drop down menu.
Of the available voices, I prefer the US – Ava, as I find she is the
least robotic and recognizable. By
choosing French – Virginie, you are able to have Read&Write read French
texts aloud for you. 
One of the key features of Read&Write is the Highlighting
aspect. By selecting text, you can then
click on one of the coloured highlighters in the ‘study skills’ toolbar to change
the text to that colour. Although this
appears to be nothing new, the highlighted information can be collected and
placed into a new document. By clicking on the ‘collect highlights’ icon, only
the information you have highlighted will be organized into another Google document. You can choose to have it collected by colour
(so say you highlighted everything about dogs in yellow, and everything about
cats in blue, all the dog and cat information would be grouped together) or order
it chronologically by selecting “position” from the drop down menu when you
click on collect highlights. This is a great tool for students who are learning (or need
practice with) how to summarize key points in an article they have just read
(CASI).
Additional Fun Tools
Dictionary - by double clicking on a word (or
selecting it with click and drag) and then clicking on the dictionary icon
(dictionary), the app will give you what part of speech it is and a definition
for it.
Picture Dictionary- by double clicking on a word
(or selecting it with click and drag) and then clicking on the picture dictionary
icon , you will be given a clip art of what the word means.
Translator - by double clicking on a word (or
selecting it with click and drag) and then clicking on the translator icon it will give you a few translations of the word in French or Spanish. If
you find the translator is translating to Spanish, simply click on the gear
icon on the right hand side and select French from the drop down menu next to
‘translation’.
Vocabulary builder - when you
highlight words and then click on the vocabulary icon a new
document is created which lists all of the selected words in a table, including
their dictionary definitions, a symbol for it, and a place for students to
write in notes.
Fact Finder - helps find information quickly by
searching the web for relevant information about a topic. To use Fact Finder, click on the fact finder icon.
I hope these are helpful for you and for your struggling readers.
Cheers,
S
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