The Read&Write toolbar is a Google Chrome extension offering a range of powerful support tools to help students (especially those with accessibility needs) gain confidence in reading, writing, studying, and researching skills across all content areas. It’s designed to help users engage with digital content in a way that suits their abilities and learning styles.

How can educators apply Read&Write in the classroom?

This app:

• Reads aloud words, passages, or whole documents with easy-to-follow, dual-color highlighting
  
• Gives easy word definitions and sentence examples with text and picture dictionaries
  
• Allows educators to create and listen to voice notes within Google Docs
  
• Makes sentence construction easy and quick while typing with intuitive word prediction
  
• Collects highlights from the text in documents or the web to summarize lengthy content in seconds
  
• Turns documents into audio files for easy listening offline
  
• Reduces visual stress with screen masks and tints
  
• Simplifies online text by removing ads and other visual distractions
  

What do you love about it?

My heart goes out to students with special needs, so I love that this tool helps students struggling with Internet use. And I know this tool works because I witnessed it help my dyslexic son immeasurably as he transitioned into Internet-related classwork.

In what platform and on which devices will it work?

Read&Write works on any device that runs Google Chrome. 

How much does it cost? 

Read&Write is free for educators. Many useful portions of the toolbar are also free for students.

Vicki Davis is the Instructional Technology Director and a teacher at Sherwood Christian Academy in Albany, Georgia. She blogs at coolcatteacher and hosts the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast.