Assistive Tech in The Primary French Immersion Classroom: Student Success with read&write for Google

To Listen to This Blog Post Follow The Directions Below:

When the Read&Write for Google extension is installed and you open a web page, you will see the Read&Write for Google icon next to the Bookmark star on the Google address bar (see image below). 

Click on the icon and the Read&Write for Google floating toolbar (see Image below) will appear. Click the tab again to hide the toolbar.

Click on the Hover Speech button that looks like a speech bubble with a cursor and then click beside the start of the next paragraph.

Assistive Technology(AT) can address many types of learning difficulties. A student who has difficulty writing can compose a school report by dictating it and having it converted to text. A student with dyslexia may benefit from AT that will read aloud instructions for an assignment.  An FSL or ELL student could access a story in the language they are learning with visual and audio support. There is a myriad of "text to speech" assistive technology available to our students nowadays, but  is so much more than that.  With this program our French Immersion students can:

Listening
Read&write for Google can help people who have difficulty processing and remembering spoken language. Such devices can be used in various settings (e.g., a class lecture, or a meeting with multiple speakers).

• Hear text read aloud with dual color highlighting (consider online books or pdfs for read along in French Canadian accents)
• Have words explained with text and picture dictionaries and translated into other languages (french vocabulary building within a contextual piece)

Reading
Read&write for Google help individuals who struggle with reading. While each type of tool works a little differently, all of these tools help by presenting text as speech. These tools help facilitate decoding, reading fluency, and comprehension.

• Simplify and summarize text on web pages (reduce the subject matter/language level problem by enabling age appropriate content to become accessible) 
• Have words explained with text and picture dictionaries and translated into other languages (french vocabulary building within a contextual piece)

Writing
Read&write for Google help students who struggle with writing. Some of these tools help students circumvent the actual physical task of writing, while others facilitate proper spelling, punctuation, grammar, word usage, and organization.

• Get suggestions for the current or next word as you type with Word Prediction (developing grammar and written second language skills) 
• Turn speech to text in Google Docs (enabling students to share their understanding in French) 
• Highlight and collect text; build vocabulary lists (vocabulary development and home to school support)

While this post was written from a Primary French Immersion lens, the applications for read&write for Google support all students and all student abilities.  This extension is more than just another great tool in the GAFE toolbox.  It is an opportunity for teachers and parents to provide children with accessibility to information, a method for sharing their voice and vehicle to promote self confidence.