Read and Write for Google

The staff at my school is currently undergoing SIOP training and today's session covered strategies. Part of the presentation revolved around scaffolding, or adding supports to allow students to unlock comprehension and meaning.  Staying within this theme, I showed my table mates one of my newer discoveries: Texthelp's Read and Write for Google.  This nifty add-on allows individuals to essentially use the Internet as one big textbook or handout.  A free subscription allows one to highlight text as well as activate the text to speech feature (with the choice of male and female computer voices). Upgrading to a premium subscription (gratis to teachers with a Google Apps for Education account for the first year) unlocks other neat features such as an online picture dictionary and a fact finder so that students can explore topics in detail.  Check out the video below.