Read & Write Gold: Text Help Systems Inc.: Text to Speech Software

1. Read & Write Gold: Text Help Systems Inc.: Text to Speech Software By: Ashley, Kathryn, Rine, and Samantha

2. What is text help? • Text help is an innovative piece of software that helps students with reading difficulties read more proficiently • dyslexia, • mild visual impairments • ESL students

3. What is text help? • Text help is designed to provide help to computer users with reading and writing difficulties. • It is a literacy software solution that allows students to access any curriculum & complete reading, writing, & research assignments as well as take tests independently • It can read text aloud and help you construct words and sentences. • It also has many other features, such as; • advanced spell checking • document scanning • internet tools • Average cost $615.00

4. What is Text Help • Texthelp Systems Inc. was formed in January 2000, several versions of this software have been published since then • The design philosophy of the company strongly supports the principles of Universal Design for Learning • Received several awards • Education Resource Award 2010 in the category of Best Special Education Resource • Software Award of the year 2004 • Best Use of Technology in Education and Training, 2007

5. What is text help? • It features a customizable easy-to-use toolbar that integrates with familiar applications such as Word, Internet Explorer, and Adobe Reader. • Provides students access to reading, writing, and research support tools • Easy to use, drop down menus with videos that demonstrate how each feature works.

6. Key features • Text-to-Speech functionality with natural sounding digital voices • Phonetic Spell Checker • Homophone Checker • Word Prediction • Dictionary with definitions • Web Highlighting • Daisy Reader • Word Wizard

7. Text help features • Text to Speech - color highlights and reads the words, sentences or paragraphs in your document providing audio-visual reinforcement and helping to develop recognition of new words and vocabulary. • Phonetic Spell Checker- incorporates a fast advanced spellchecker specifically designed to solve the most complex of phonetic errors. The spellchecker can be customized to suit individual needs and provides audible definitions of alternative suggestions to help you choose the correct one.

8. Text help features • Homophone Support - identifies and provides audible definitions for like sounding words to improve the accuracy of your work. • Scanning - Scan any document into MS Word, PDF or Web based HTML format enabling on screen editing and text reading. Scanned material will be incorporated into a familiar mainstream environment, allowing the document to be made easily available to other users

9. Text help features • Speech Input - speak into your computer and have what you say converted to text on the screen. Help is provided to assist you to train the software to recognize your voice. • Word Prediction - This feature will aid in sentence construction by suggesting and predicting words. Word predictor will learn as correct text is typed, dramatically aiding the development of literacy and increasing accuracy. • Dictionary - 180,000-word talking dictionary

10. Text help features • Speech Maker - converts selected text into speech, which can be saved as an audio file capable of being played on any suitable device. • Fact Folder - This desk research tool allows you to capture text from any application, classify it, attach pictures and bibliography information and record it’s source. This information can be converted to a slide show and documented to help study and revise. • Fact Finder - this web search tool searches the web to find relevant information associated with your research topic. Search engines in 6 different categories are provided for you to choose from.

11. Text help features • Simple and Scientific Calculator - On screen calculator provides all the main functions of a simple or scientific calculator with audible feedback and audit trail. • Word Wizard - Assists in developing creative sentences by offering solutions for vocabulary. When you are searching for the word you want to use Word Wizard takes you though a simple step-by-step process until you find the word you are looking for. • Pronunciation Tutor - The Pronunciation Tutor will break words into syllables allowing easy recognition and pronunciation. Includes a moving animated mouth and lips, to aid the development of more accurate speech

12. Benefits for reading • Blocks any text that is not being read to provide valuable concentration aid. • Other options include: whole screen tinting, underlining the line being typed to help with tracking and others. • Simple and accurate way to read text from word documents, email and from the web. • Audio-visual reinforcement provided when the option for words to be highlighted is chosen.

13. Benefits for reading • PDF Aloud: Enables user to read PDF files. • Scanning: OCR (Optical Character Recognition) facilities provided which allow the user to scan a text document such as letter or a page from a book to convert it into a readable format. • Screenshot Reader: Makes inaccessible on-screen text accessible; with option to save to MS Word.

14. Benefits for writing • Translator: Easy access to the Spanish, French, German or Italian translations of English words. Works with any digital content, on-screen selections, accessible applications, website content or digital textbooks. • Spell Checker: Corrects even more spelling mistakes than before. Corrections are based on the users own spelling patterns. Dictionary definitions of the suggested corrections can be read aloud. • Homophone Checker: Highlights homophones in the passage of text being written and offers solutions which can be read aloud. Words such as 'there', 'they're', and 'their' where the sound of the word is correct but the context maybe wrong.

15. Benefits for writing • Predictions: Learns the user's vocabulary and provide dyslexic people the opportunity to have the correct spelling at their fingertips, as unusual spelling can be added to the dictionary. • Talking Dictionary: is a dictionary with definitions which can be accessed from any application

16. Benefits for research • The Fact Folder will enable the collation of key facts from websites and other applications with the date and website address being automatically saved; ideal for any bibliography that maybe required. • Study Skills Toolbar: Toolbar that enables to highlight and collect marked text from MS Word and web pages in Internet Explorer.