What is Capti?

Capti Voice is an offline and online reading support tool that can be used for education, work and entertainment.

How does it work?

Students login to Capti, through their web browser (or app). From there, they can import digital books from Bookshare, articles from the Internet, and even files from their Google Drive. It is from within the Capti platform that students can listen to books, articles, and more on multiple devices, even without an internet connection.

How does this help students?

Capti has many different features that give students the ability to take control over their learning by using the tools they need, when they need them.

These tools include:

• Text-to-speech - with the click of a button, students can select the text they want to read, whether it’s the entire selection, a sentence or just a word.

• Sometimes, the amount of work it takes for some students to decode is so great, the effort detracts from the student’s ability to read for understanding. TTS takes the weight off so the student has access to learning the content.  The students can read for meaning and participate in discussions at school. For some students, TTS is a tool they can use to help them while they are building their decoding (sounding out words) and encoding (spelling) skills. For others, these reading skills may not be as easily attainable making TTS a critical key for their access to content that is at their developmental level.
• Another critical reason we teach our students these tools is because it gives them the ability to be independent in their learning. Mom, dad, big brother or sister, grandma or teacher are not always going to be there at their side, especially when they get into the high school, college and years beyond. Our mission is transition and this means providing tools that help our students be independent learners.
• TTS offers students more control over their reading. They can choose the pace and highlight words as they read reinforcing the speech-to-print match.
• TTS also serves as a model for helping students understand correct grammar, vocabulary and punctuation. All of these are important parts of the revising and editing process of writing.
• Sometimes vocabulary is above a student’s listening comprehension level. Having the ability to increase or decrease the level of text complexity increases a student’s ability to understand content at his/her academic level. Students have control to use the dictionary when they need it, too.
• TTS gives students more exposure to text. For students who struggle with decoding and comprehension, this gives them more opportunity to hear how language works. This includes listening to correct sentence structure, learning new vocabulary, listening to different genres of writing and how they are written differently as well as learning about content through realistic fiction and nonfiction text. This increased exposure supports their ability to learn and independently use the reading skills being taught by their teacher.

• Dictionary - Reads the definition aloud

• A student can learn the meaning of a word that may be too difficult to sound out or unfamiliar. This gives students the ability to move through the text without losing their train of thought. And this helps them comprehend text. Being able to use the dictionary supports fluency and comprehension.
• Helps students choose the correct definition within the word’s context
• Saves the words in a word bank plus gives students the ability to write in their a definition in their own words

• Annotations and Highlighters

• Students use highlighting as a way to create meaning from what they are reading. Highlighters enable students to deliberately select text for a specific purpose. This includes, but is not limited to finding the main idea, character traits, and vocabulary.
• Students also use highlighting to find evidence to support their answers to comprehension questions. This technique teaches students to pay closer attention to certain parts of the text as it is relevant to what they are trying to understand.
• A third way to use highlighters to take notes of important information while reading informational text.
• Taking notes, or annotating, helps students engage with and understand what they are reading. It is also helpful for research papers.

• Exporting word banks, highlights and annotations are helpful for students when they are writing narratives or research papers.
• Connect Capti with Bookshare. Here’s how to import books into Capti from Bookshare - https://www.captivoice.com/capti-site/public/entry/help_import_docs. Video tutorials are also helpful - https://www.youtube.com/user/captivoice. See the Bookshare Tech Guide for more information.
• For more information about Capti’s features, go to https://www.captivoice.com/capti-site/public/entry/explore

What are the steps to using it on your child’s HPDS laptop?

Our students use Capti by logging into their account through the Chrome browser.

Capti provides many online guides that they keep updated on their latest version: https://www.captivoice.com/capti-site/public/entry/support

How much does it cost?

There is a free version of Capti that gives students the ability to use text to speech. The features that most help our students are available through Capti Premium. HPDS pays for the subscription to Capti Premium through the tuition fee while your child is enrolled at Hyde Park Day School.

Pricing for school and for personal use can be found here: https://www.captivoice.com/capti-site/public/entry/get_capti_subscription#individuals

Does it work on other devices?

Yes. Capti can be used on a variety of different devices including PCs, Macs and mobile. The trick is discovering which format works best with the tools the student needs and on the device s/he is working. Here is more information about the different devices that are supported by Capti - https://www.captivoice.com/capti-site/public/entry/help_basics_platform_support

What do I need to know when my student transitions?

• Reflect on your child’s use of Capti and think about whether this is something you would like to continue on a personal basis or talk to your child’s transition school about providing.
• If you decide to continue to use Capti, consider having a conversation with your child’s teacher about how to integrate it into your child’s learning.

What else is good to know about working with Capti?

• As you may have noticed, some websites are very busy. They have many types of ads and links to social media. When a student imports a website into Capti, all this clutter gets cleared.
• Capti Premium has a wide variety of high quality voices.

Where can I find more information?

Capti Voice - https://www.captivoice.com/capti-site/

*Please note that technology and pricing is always changing. This document reflects the most recent known information as indicated by the Last Updated Date at the top of the page.