Auditory+Support

//** Auditory Support **//
//** Auditory learning **// //** ﻿ **//

**Who does it help?**

**Think of your students who would...**. . . Studies have shown that “talking text*” can support comprehension for some students. They may benefit from:
 * benefit from highlighting individual words and hearing them read. Or from hearing the definition of the word read.
 * benefit from hearing an entire selection or article on a website read aloud.
 * appreciate hearing their own words read by the computer.
 * Think of students who struggle with reading comprehension.**
 * Pre-reading to increase comprehension
 * Reading to access standard or advanced materials
 * Reinforcement from reading and listening together
 * Reading selected words or phrases
 * Who Benefits from Talking Text?**
 * The whole class, groups, or individuals, in order to preview new information, or as part of a final proofreading exercise.
 * The gifted student can use it to access more advanced text.
 * Kindergarteners listening to individual letters and working in an exploratory fashion.
 * English Language Learners who need help reading and hearing words together.
 * Writers who need to hear omissions or inaccuracies in their work. (@http://www.wested.org/cs/tdl/view/tdl_topic/3)
 * Video demonstrating the use of Talking Text (http://old.cast.org/tesmm/pal_ge_seed6/pal_ge_seed6.html)


 * Using audio tools allows students to listen to information as often as they need to. Audio allows students who need audio support to hear the information rather than having to read it.**


 * One of the simplest and more effective audio technologies is Talking Text -- where a personal computer can “speak” the words on its screen on user command. This technology already exists on most computers and can be easily implemented. Typically, the user highlights some words and clicks a button to have them read aloud. This spoken text feature can be a powerful learning tool, especially when accompanied by synchronized highlighting (having the words highlighted at the same time they are spoken).**


 * Audiovisual technologies**

//Free Text Tools://

 * eBooks.com offers thousands of books; user pays a fee for each copy of a book that is downloaded. Many current titles are available.
 * Natural Readers - text to speech - will create MP3 of text also
 * eSpeak - Free Open Source download that produces good quality English speech.
 * Spoken Text - SpokenText.net is a text to speech/audio converter, it allows you to record (English, French, Spanish or German) PDF, Word, plain text, PowerPoint files, RSS feeds, emails and web pages, and converts them to speech automatically. Using it you can easily create audio recordings (in English, French, Spanish and German) of any text content.
 * Vozme - paste text in and have it read to you
 * Read the Words - Paste the text and have it read to you
 * Audacity - Free, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds
 * Amazing Adventures - stories and activities with video