Tips for using Text Help Read and Write Gold
1. PDF’s must be OCR recognized to use with Text Help. If your PDF
is not opening with Text Help then use Adobe professional to create
an OCR recognized PDF. If you do not have the Adobe professional
software, you can do this process in the ATC at the library or send it
to DSS and the OCR PDF can be uploaded to your Sakai site.
2. While reading a PDF in Text Help select a voice and pitch of the
voice in the toolbar under “Speech Options”. Often students prefer
“continuous” reading and either sentence or paragraph in the toolbar
as these options best reflect punctuation.
3. Text Help includes highlighting options. While reading materials in
Text Help, you have the option to highlight information in four
different colors. We encourage you to use highlighting effectively as
a tool to categorize and/or summarize important information. Over use
of highlighting may be ineffective as a study tool. Once highlighting
is completed, you may collect the highlighted information and select
how you want it to be displayed (either by color or collection time).
The highlighted information may be copied into a summary by
clicking the summary icon. This summary will be in a word
document and you may choose the percentage of the information you
want to show in the summary.
4. When a PDF is locked, you may read it by selecting “screenshot
reader”. You’ll need to box or highlight the information that you
want the screenshot to read.
5. While reading, words may be selected and defined by clicking on the
definition button. By clicking the “play button” the definition will
be read aloud. You may choose from the basic, advanced or web
dictionaries. Internet connection is needed to use the “Web
Dictionary”.
While writing, you may select the advanced dictionary which will
include a list of associated words. Clicking on the words listed will
provide a definition. You may also select a specific list of words such
as: nouns, verbs, adverbs or adjectives. Once a word is selected, you
may click on the “replace button” to substitute the word in your
document.
6. While reading or writing, you may highlight a word and click the
“Fact Finder” icon on the toolbar. This will open the selected search
engine results for the highlighted word.
You may save the information found via Fact Finder in a Fact
Folder. You will need to highlight the information and click on the
fact folder icon. The title, date, author and sources will be imported.
This information may be altered before saving and you will need to
name the category and add a brief description. The fact folder
information may be exported into a word document.
You may create a “Fact Mapper” by selecting the icon and naming the
fact(s). You may link the facts in the map by clicking the icon and
you may add notes in the notes section.
7. While writing, you may click on the “word prediction” icon. As you
begin to type a word, panels of words will pop-up. You may select
the word by clicking on it in the panel. The dictionary icons will also
pop-up on the panel so you may check the definition before selecting
the word.
8. The Text Help website has page of short video guided tours
(http://www.texthelp.com/page.asp?pg_id=10019) to assist with using
the following features and study skills:
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Calculators
Daisy Reader
Dictionary
Fact Finder
Fact Folder
Fact Mapper
Homophones
PDF aloud
Scanning
Screen Masking
Screenshot Reader
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Speech Input
Speech Maker
Speech
Spelling
Study Skills
toolbar