Can "Text-to-Speach" read words also, instead of just text?

Hi, I have been playing around with the speach functionality of the
application. It can read words in the speach properties widow that I access
via the control panel, but in the Narrator enviorment can only read text
characters if I have it minimized while typing in a Word document. Only, by
copying and pasting the entire text from Word into the properties text window
of speach-to-text, will it read what I typed in Word. This is a
"Work-Around" but still a pain because I cannot even see the text in the text
window, only the very top section of the words appear when I paste into the
text field of the properties window. Can this application read "words" and
not jsut text while I am in a Word document or Notepad?
thanks,
Thomas