Acrobat Can Read to You!

A lot of students can understand more orally than reading it themselves. Here is a trick for having text read out loud. It can also be handy for having students review what they've written to see if it sounds right when read aloud.

1. Start with a Word document. (Or paste a Web document into a Word document—ideally as plain text, without hyperlinks.) 
2. Save the document as a PDF.
3. Open it in Adobe Acrobat's free PDF reader.
4. Under View, choose Read Mode
   

   

   Screen snip: Acrobat Read Mode

5. Read This Page Only or Read Tp End of Document

 Screen snip: choosing Read To End of Document

It's a "robot-y" voice, but it really does work. I think it could help a student who is struggling with reading. And, as I said, I could help a student who has written an essay that leaves out some words or skips some thoughts that the student thought were in there: hearing it might help the student "see" the gaps.