Routines, Skills, & Supports

In each unit, students will be exposed to new and exciting content about the world and the people who inhabit it. While our geographic focus will change with each unit, many of our routines and systems will not.

Students will always be introduced to a new unit with a top-down web, and we will monitor our progress through the various topics and subtopics on the web each day. This will allow students to contextualize their learning, and always know when the end of a topic - and thus an assessment - is coming. They can also always expect to be introduced to essential questions that will help frame their learning as we go through each unit.

Students will consistently develop their main idea skills through the use of structured two-column notes, and the composition of summaries of their learning. Students receive direct instruction around finding main idea, taking two-column notes, and composing summaries of content-specific information.

Students will tackle content-specific vocab through the use of vocab previews at the start of each unit, Frayer four-squares throughout the learning process, and various review tools towards the end of the unit. Below you can see samples of some of these strategies.

You can see some samples of each of these routines and strategies in the carousel below.

Continue scrolling for information on Google's text to speech function, which may be helpful for many students.

Hear text read aloud

You can hear full pages read aloud with Chromebook’s built-in screen reader or hear parts of a page, including specific words, read aloud with Select-to-speak.

Listen to all text

To have pages read aloud to you, turn on your Chromebook’s built-in screen reader:

At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
Select Settings .
At the bottom, select Advanced.
In the "Accessibility" section, select Manage accessibility features.
Under "Text-to-Speech," turn on Enable ChromeVox (spoken feedback).

Note: You can turn Chromevox on or off from any page by pressing Ctrl + Alt + z. Learn more about how to use the built-in screen reader.

Listen to part of a page

To select specific text on a page to be read to you, turn on Select-to-speak.

Step 1: Turn on Select-to-speak

At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
Select Settings .
At the bottom, select Advanced.
In the "Accessibility" section, select Manage accessibility features.
Under "Text-to-Speech," turn on Enable select-to-speak.

Step 2: Select and hear text

To select what text you’d like to hear:
- Press and hold the Search key and select a line of text.
- Press and hold the Search key and drag the pointer over an area of the screen.
- Highlight the text and press the Search key + s.
- At the bottom right, near the time, select Select-to-speak . Then select a line of text or drag the pointer over an area of the screen.
- On a touchscreen: At the bottom right, near the time, tap Select-to-speak . Then tap a line of text or drag your finger over an area of the screen.
Your Chromebook will read the section aloud and each word will be highlighted.
To stop Select-to-speak while it’s reading, press Ctrl or the Search key . You can also select Stop .

Change the color of highlighted text

If you are using Select-to-speak, each word will be highlighted as it's spoken. You can turn off highlighting or change the color of the highlighted words.

At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
Select Settings .
At the bottom, select Advanced.
In the "Accessibility" section, select Manage accessibility features.
Under "Text-to-Speech," select Open select-to-speak settings.
Choose a color for highlighted words.
- Optional: To get the strongest contrast, we recommend using green or pink, especially if you’re using high contrast mode.
Optional: To turn off highlighting, select Highlight each word as it is spoken.

Change the language or voice

At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
Select Settings .
At the bottom, select Advanced.
In the "Accessibility" section, select Manage accessibility features.
Under "Text-to-Speech," select Text-to-Speech voice settings.
Customize your text-to-speech voice:
- Change the volume: Under the "Speech Properties" section, choose the rate, pitch, and loudness.
- Change the language: In the "Preferred Voices" section, choose the language you'd like to hear.
Choose the type of voice. By default, Chromebooks have 2 speech engines with voices: Chrome OS TTS and eSpeak. In the "Speech Engines" section, select Settings, then choose a voice.
- Note: Chrome OS TTS voices have a more human-sounding quality and are very responsive when navigating. eSpeak voices have a more computer-generated sound and are available in a wider variety of languages.

Buy personalized voices

You can buy voices through Acapela to personalize the voice that reads text aloud to you on your Chromebook. In addition to the voices available by default, you can choose from 100+ voices and 30+ languages.

Go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Acapela TTS Engine.
Select Add to Chrome Add extension.
At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
Select Settings .
At the bottom, select Advanced.
In the "Accessibility" section, select Manage accessibility features.
Select Text-to-Speech voice settings.
Under "Speech Engines," next to "Acapela TTS Engine," select Settings.
Select the voice(s) you want to purchase.
Return to Text-to-Speech voice settings and under "Preferred Voices," choose the voice you want to use.

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