Hey @ahauser !

One thing we have done in our district is utilize the accessibility features on the student devices.  Built into some device operating systems are a select to speech option.  This allows you to select a word, phrase, entire paragraph, etc. and have the the selection read to you.  If you search online, you should be able to find directions to turn this accessibility feature on for Chromebooks, Mac OS, iOS, and Windows for sure.  The best part about it is that it is free and there is nothing else to install.  You just have to adjust the device's settings.  

This should read pretty much any text that can be selected on the screen.  An example of where this does not work is text in images and PDFs that have been scanned. (PDFs that have not been scanned should work just fine.)  Since the text cannot be selected in these items, the text cannot be read.

Hope this helps.