Text-to-Speech Accommodation

For students who need questions read aloud, such as English language learners, you can enable Text-to-Speech tools that appear within the test toolbar. You can enable Text-to-Speech for any combination of students in a testing session.

Limitations:

  • Reading tests do not stop you from assigning Text-to-Speech, so be careful if your policies prohibit it.
  • For questions with text entry, the text a student types will not play.

Required MAP Role: School Proctor or District Proctor

  1. Open Manage Test Sessions.

  2. Set up a testing session, choose a saved one, or select Test My Class.

    For detailed instructions, refer to Proctor Quick Start.

  3. Use Assign Test to preassign the test each student will take.
    Note: Text-to-speech is available for both English and Spanish tests but is not available for K–2 tests.

  4. With test assignments complete, select one or more students from the list.

    Note: Only select multiple students if they will share the same accommodations. Selected students must share the same grade because some accommodation choices are grade-dependent.

  5. Select Assign Accommodations.

  6. From the window that appears, find Text-to-Speech under either category: Designated Features or Accommodations.

    The only difference is which category will appear in the student’s test records.

    Note: If the option is unavailable, the student might not have an appropriate test assigned (such as K–2).

  7. Specify which parts of questions you want enabled.

    For example, you might limit Text-to-Speech to answer choices only, per your student IEPs (Individualized Education Programs).

     

    Note: If you disable the option Assets such as reading passages, then paragraphs, formulas, graphs, tables, and equations that include answer choices will not play the answers. For example:

    Example question with a paragraph containing choices for the best verb to use in a sentence

    Example question with an equation containing choices of numbers, expressions, and words to simplify the equation and find the number of solutions.

    Example graph showing temperature outside over a 5-hour period.

To complete Text-to-Speech preparations:

  1. Allowlist for network firewall—Your network technician should use the latest firewall settings to allow traffic from the required sites. See Firewall allowlist and email configuration.
  2. Practice with tools—Within the MAP Practice Tests, students can select the Text-to-Speech checkbox to try using the tools.
  3. Headphones—Make sure participating students have headphones.

To change Text-to-Speech assignments:

If needed, you can change an assigned accommodation any time before a student starts testing. However, once the student starts testing, you cannot change the chosen accommodation, except by using Suspend, choosing Test Again, and then making the change. After you make the change, the student would sign in again.

Using Text-to-Speech Tools

Text-to-Speech tool icons for Play All, Play Selection, Pause, and Volume

If Text-to-Speech tools are enabled in the testing session Accommodations settings, students can use them to hear questions read aloud.

Students use either the first tool (ear) to begin at the top of the page or the second tool (finger) to select the starting point. Pause and Volume operate like most audio controls.

Students can become familiar with the tools using the MAP Practice Tests.

Note: When students use Text-to-Speech tools, the Highlighter and Eraser are disabled, and vice versa.

 

If there is no sound, try the following steps:
  • Check the volume controls.
  • Check the device. If you are using the NWEA secure testing browser, you must use the latest version.
  • Suspend the test, choose Select Action > Test Again, and open Assign Accommodations to ensure you selected the Text-to-Speech setting. If yes, the student could sign on again. If no, consider whether the student should start over (Terminate the test).
  • Consult your network technician to ensure the Text-to-Speech firewall settings were completed on all network devices.