Devon Sikora

Assistive Technology

As far as assistive technology goes, Read and Write is a great resource to utilize in day to day life. Read and Write can be installed on most computers and tablets. This allows for use among different devices at work, home, or school. A great example of assistive technology that is free and accessible to all U of M students. I first heard about  Read and Write from the University of Montana Disabilities Services for Students coordinator. I was granted free access to this resource as a DSS member. As a teacher they offer  Some great qualities of this resource is that it works on most online sources. There is also a help and support website that can help with any problem with Read and Write. https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/support/  Read and Write is used to turn text into speech. The capability of doing this can be helpful for people with reading and writing disabilities such as dyslexia and dysgraphia. It is also considered to be useful as an IEP accommodation. Upon downloading the application it seems easy enough to operate. Adding it to the webpage and getting it to work can be a different story.

 I attempted to listen to a document while having multiple other pages open. This caused Read and Write to read a page that was not the intended page to be read. I was able to remedy this by closing other pages and reloading the application. The application will open a toolbar that allows the user to play, pause, and stop the audio of the text. By highlighting the text desired to be read, then clicking play, the application should begin reading out loud what the typed words say.  

This system program has been around since the early 2000’s. There have been many updates made to this sophtware, eventually a teachers and college version came out called Read&Write Gold. This free resource helps college students read textbooks, as well as have access to an electronic copy of the book. At the University of Montana there is a room in the Social Science building where you can bring in a copy of a physical book, and they will transfer it to an electronic/digital copy. I’m not sure if this service is free to all University of Montana Students, but it is accessible by students in DSS. Many of the textbooks the university uses aren’t in the Read&Write system, but I assume once its put on their once, it’s there for all users. This amazing assistive tool/resource is great for all ages, but specifically 3rd+. I really want to talk more about this resource, but as I attempted to download this application from the internet, I was faced with an issue of not being able to hear anything. Yes, my volume was up, not on mute, and I am not sure why it didn’t work. Luckily there is a help and service hotline, or email that you can message for help. I attempted this but was put into circles of trial runs and test this and that, all to no success. I thought it was an out of date program, but it turned out to be the current version. I have seen this program work in the past as I was signed up for DSS at the University of Montana and was privileged to be able to use the accommodation. I never used it due to stubborn reasons, but the capability to do so is amazing.

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