TextHELP Text-to-Speech (TTS)

You may have already noticed that there is a TextHELP toolbar floating over your Book Builder story.  This is a "Text-to-Speech" tool (also known as TTS).  You can use TTS to have the computer read the page text aloud.  

Watch the animation below for a demonstration of how to use TTS. Then, try out the TextHELP TTS tool by having it read this page to you.

text-to-speech tool demonstration
Description | Source
Highlight the text and click on the green arrow to start reading, and click on the orange square to stop reading.
The user moves the cursor to highlight a paragraph of text then moves to the textHELP reading bar and clicks the green arrow. The TTS reads some words. The user moves the cursor to the orange square and clicks. This stops the TTS reading.author
Vocabulary Support

In this book you will see words that are underlined with a dotted line . This means that the word is connected to a glossary that is built into this book.  You can click on any underlined word to see its definition instantly. 

Hyperlinks

Any words that you see underlined and in a bright blue color that look like a hyperlink are exactly that!  I've linked some of the text to websites that I think will help you better understand the documents.

Terry's Tips

Introduce technical features and provide opportunities for independent exploration

Take time to go over the Book Builder features with a short demonstration. Then, give students 'free time' to explore at their own pace.  Be sure to review: 

  • coaches
  • response box
  • Text-to-Speech (TTS)
  • glossary
  • hyperlinks

This introduction and exploration time is important!  It gives students an opportunity to not only engage with interesting features of the tool, it gives them time to cognitively process new skills so that they can be more focused on the content of the historical process.