If you work with students who struggle with reading and writing, Read & Write is a very cool and free Google Docs extension for the Chrome browser, which can be used on either Macs or Windows. The main feature of the extension is that it will read the content of a Google doc out loud for students.
Here’s a helpful YouTube video from Karen Janowski explaining how to set it up and how to use it:
If you don’t have Chrome on your computer, you can download it free here.
I’ve played around with the extension a bit, and it seems to work quite well. I noticed that it has problems with single words in quotations marks, but that’s a minor issue. Also, I find myself wishing I could select different voices, as the existing one is a bit tinny. Still, for a free, easy-to-use extension, this is very helpful and fast.
And thanks to Jason Backes for pointing this out!
Leave a Reply