There is nothing more calming and pleasant than having poetry read to you by your favorite screen reader: JAWS. And that’s the expierence we are going to embark on now. Note: this tutorial uses laptop keys and also here JAWS key means the JAWS command key which could be either Caps Lock or Insert. Copy and paste the following stanza into your favorite text editor of choice (mine is notepad but you can also use Word):
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The commands here are going to be for laptop but the table at the end of the post will contain the keys for both desktop and laptop.
Let’s make sure we are at the top of poem. Press ctrl plus home. We’re going to read the whole poem now with JAWS plus down arrow. Tiger is spelled weirdly as t-y-g-e-r. Let’s listen by pressing the right arrow slowly. You will here y-g-e-r. You won’t here the t because JAWS reads the letter to the right of the cursor. To hear the t, we will need to spell the word. We can do this with JAWS plus k twice. That is press the k button two times while the JAWS button is held down. Now let’s read the rest of the poem one line at a time. You can do this by pressing the down arrow to the last line. So press that button three times slowly (that way we can here the poem). I really liked the second to last line. We’ll give it another listen by pressing JAWS plus u. This command reads the previous line. But let us not leave out those who like the last line. Let’s read it with JAWS plus o. This command reads the next line. Ok. Time to go back to the top of the poem with ctrl plus home. Now there’s a pattern I want you to notice. The last words of the first two lines rhyme. Let’s listen to the first line with JAWS plus i. Now press End to get to the end of the line. Press the left arrow until you here t. Press JAWS plus k. Did you here bright? Now press the down arrow. Let’s press JAWS plus k again. Did you here night? This JAWS plus k command is a bit tricky here because it might seem like it is a command to read the last word, but it is not. It reads the current word. The only reason it is reading the last word is because in this specific scenario, the current word is the last word.
Below are more commands you can use for reading. Try them out and happy reading.
| JAWS Command | Keyboard | Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| Read Character | JAWS + Comma | Num Pad 5 |
| Read Character Phonetically | JAWS + 2x[Comma] | 2x[Numpad 5] |
| Say Previous Character | Left Arrow or JAWS + M | Left Arrow |
| Say Next Character | Right Arrow or JAWS + Period | Right Arrow |
| Say Current Word | JAWS + K | JAWS + Numpad 5 |
| Spell Current Word | JAWS + 2x[k] | JAWS + 2x[Numpad 5] |
| Say Previous Word | JAWS + J | JAWS + Left Arrow |
| Say Next Word | JAWS + L | JAWS + Right Arrow |
| Say Line | JAWS + I | JAWS + Up Arrow |
| Spell Line | JAWS + 2x[I] | JAWS + 2x[Up Arrow] |
| Say Prior line | JAWS + U | JAWS + Up Arrow |
| Say Next Line | JAWS + O | JAWS + Down Arrow |
| Say Sentence | JAWS + H | Alt + Numpad 5 |
| Say Prior Sentence | JAWS + Y | Alt + Up Arrow |
| Say Next Sentence | JAWS + N | Alt + Down Arrow |
| Say Current Paragraph | JAWS + Ctrl + I | Ctrl + Numpad 5 |
| Say Prior Paragraph | JAWS + Ctrl + U | Ctrl + Up Arrow |
| Say Next Paragraph | JAWS + Ctrl + O | Ctrl + Down Arrow |
| Say to Cursor | Caps Lock + Ctrl + J | JAWS + Home |
| Say From Cursor | Caps Lock + Ctrl + L | JAWS + Page Up |
| Say All | Caps Lock + A | JAWS + Down Arrow |
A useful way to remember these commands is for the desktop, a lot of the commands will have Numpad 5. The JAWS tends to go in front of words or lines. Alt tends to go with sentences and Ctrl with paragraphs. For the keyboard,your m,comma,period,j,k,l,u,i and o keys act almost as a numpad. As you ascend upwards (in terms of position) from m to u, the object becomes bigger. JAWS+Period reads the current letter and logically, JAWS+U reads the next sentence. As you practice these commands try to see if you can spot any patterns.
These commands are good to know as with them, you will be able to read accross different applications. They work in both internet browsers and text documents (like Microsoft Word).