How do I enable the text-to-speech tool for individual students?

You can enable and customize the text-to-speech accessibility tool in item-based Enhanced Accommodation (EA) assessments for individual students. For an individual student, you can enable the text-to-speech tool for item-based formative assessments as well as benchmark assessments. You can also choose whether to enable the text-to-speech tool for passages.

Text-to-speech is not available for document-based assessments. Students who require text-to-speech for a document-based assessment should use a native OS screen reader such as VoiceOver for Mac or JAWS for Windows.

Notes:

  • When you make changes to individual student text-to-speech options, the tracker-level language and speech option changes to "Manually set for each student".
  • To manage and customize the text-to-speech tool for all students in a tracker, you can configure the text-to-speech tool at the tracker level.
  • The text-to-speech tool reads Spanish language items with Spanish pronunciation. To ensure that user-created Spanish items are read with Spanish pronunciation, they must either be Spanish language items or text must be tagged as Spanish in items or in passages.
  • From a tracker, you can export a student list that includes each student's text-to-speech settings.

Open Tracker

In the Global Navigation Menu, click the Trackers link [1]. In the Trackers page, click a tracker link [2].

Open Student Editor

Open Student Editor

Click the Students tab [1]. Then, hover over a student's name and click the Edit link [2].

View Accommodations

View Accommodations

In the Edit Student window, you can view the student's current accommodations [1].

If the tracker-level accommodations are configured for all students, those are the default accommodations for each student. Additionally, a warning displays [2]. If you make any changes to an individual student's accommodations, the tracker-level accommodations setting automatically changes to "Manually set for each student".

If the tracker-level accommodations are configured to be manually set for each student, no warning displays.

Configure Formative Assessments

Configure Formative Assessments

To enable or disable individual language and speech accommodations for formative assessments, click the Formative Assessments toggle [1].

To enable or disable text-to-speech, click the Text-to-speech checkbox [2].

Accommodations are available for passages. To enable or disable accommodations for formative assessment passages, click the Include Passages checkbox [3].

Note: The Include Passages checkbox applies to the text-to-speech tool as well as the dictionary tools.

Configure Benchmark Assessments

Enable for Benchmarks

To enable or disable all language and speech accommodations for benchmark assessments, click the Benchmark Assessments toggle [1].

To enable or disable text-to-speech, click the Text-to-speech checkbox [2].

Accommodations are available for passages. To enable or disable accommodations for benchmark assessment passages, click the Include Passages checkbox [3].

Note: The Include Passages checkbox applies to the text-to-speech tool as well as the dictionary tools.

Save Changes

Save Changes

To save changes, click the Save button.