Google Speech to Text

I’ve used speech to text a few times but this past month I had no idea just how amazing it is. I have a student who was struggling with finishing a paper and I used text to speech along with a virtual graphic organizer and it was amazing how much this helped him get his thoughts organized into what turned out to be an epic paper.

I started to think of who this tool could be used in my classroom or even virtually:

1-For the student who struggles with focusing:

If you have a student who really struggles with focusing this is for them! Reading Rockets says that text to speech can allow, “ the student to get their thoughts out on paper without worrying about these or other technical writing components”. With my student this past month this was very true. I have had quite a few students who struggle with focusing because they have such an expansive thought process and find it hard to focus. Of course this is an amazing positive for how creative and detailed their writing can be. The speech to text then allows them to get it all out and go back through to edit it. Just make sure to teach them some bomb editing skills later on for their writing process.

2-For the student who struggles with reading/writing:

Reading Rockets also shares that, “as students speak and see their words appear on the screen, the speech-to-text tool directly demonstrates the relationship between how a word looks and sounds.” This is an awesome visual for them to connect how what we say looks like. It is also a great process for our beginning readers. They may be struggling with writing because they are still learning to read, but they can sure say their thoughts out loud. So why not allow them to use the speech to text tool while their writing and reading skills catch up.

3-For the student who struggles with typing:

We all have those students who are in the process of learning to type. Is it just me, or is it painful for everyone to have to write a paragraph or more when it takes a lot of time. Now I am not saying that they shouldn’t practice typing, but we also shouldn’t be wasting an hour of their academic time on it. I am a huge believer in a few minutes a day done routinely, can build our knowledge and skills. We do not need to be making our kids sit for an hour to type a paper during class time. Instead, let them build up their skill. Have them type just the first sentence and then dictate the rest. Then after a few papers have them type two sentences and then dictate the rest and so on. You want to build up to the end goal of typing a paragraph or paper. I also always make my students write the rough draft, edit in colored pen, and then rewrite a clean copy so they have a clean version to type from.

*A tip when you are using googles speech to text, make sure you are in a google browser ->tools-> voice type.

I hope these gave you just a few of the ways this can help your students. If you want to learn more by a credible source check out Reading Rockets which goes into way more detail and researched information on this great tool.

Happy Teaching :)