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TextHelp 'Read and Write'
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TextHelp's excellent 'Read &
Write' software program is reviewed by Juliet Freud
| Read this article in Spanish | Most
of us find a word processor most helpful for writing because of the wavy red
line that appears under words that have not been spelt accurately. One click
on the word, and the right hand button of the mouse will bring up the correct
spelling. TextHelp Read & Write is an extension of this. A small black box sits on your word processor screen, and tries to predict each word as you start to type it. I am using TextHelp now as I type: as I began to type the ‘us’ of ‘using’, the word quickly appeared at the top of the box: F1 using so that I could just press F1 to complete the word. If I click on any word in the list, it is read out loud so that I can be sure of choosing the correct word. Brilliant! As I finished the sentence, the program read the whole sentence out loud so that I could hear if I had left out any words or written an incorrect word by mistake. If I select the whole paragraph or the whole piece, it will read it all out loud. As I type each word, the program will try to predict the word which will follow. For example, if I type the word ‘in’, the box will show: F1
order so that I can just touch the ‘F1’ at the top of the keyboard to choose ‘order’ or whichever word I need if there is a match. Computer voices can be irritating if you are listening to them a lot, so TextHelp allows you to choose your voice from a selection of eight voices, which you can alter as you wish. One dyslexic person who used TextHelp heavily during her degree studies appreciated having the program read out a whole paragraph when she had finished it, but found the reading of each word became irritating. She was easily able to stop this happening: you can adjust the program to read each word, read each sentence or read pieces that you select. As it does so, a ‘balloon’ appears in which the words appear as they are spoken, and you can adjust the size of the text and the balloon to suit yourself. If you go to Prediction Options > Learn, you can get the program to read through one or two of your commonly-used documents. This allows TextHelp to build up its knowledge of the particular words that you use a lot, so that its guesses at the next spelling get better and better the more you use it. For example, I use the word ‘dyslexia’ quite a lot, so TextHelp has learned to put the word at the top of the list as soon as I begin to type ‘dy’. In addition to all these features there is a drop-down thesaurus. I entered the word ‘tail’, and was presented with all sorts of alternatives like ‘fag end’, ‘hindquarters’, ‘tail assembly’, and others I would not normally use in print! Although it was a little confusing to hear words I had typed, but removed and changed, being spoken at the end of each sentence, overall, TextHelp is a brilliant program which is highly recommended for any dyslexic writer over 11 years of age. It costs $249 or £115 (school license $899) and the price includes free technical support for sixty days by telephone or email. Juliet Freud
Other related software: www.dyslexic.com - useful overview of software that speaks text. Computer dictation systems compared (e.g. Dragon Dictate, etc.) Wordswork - program which teaches study skills to dyslexic adults. Includes:
Essay writing; Wordshark - 'combines the excitement of computer games with the serious task of learning to read and spell. It offers 26 different games which use sound, graphics and text to teach, and reinforce word recognition and spelling. It is designed for early literacy to 13 years or so, although older people also use it.'
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