Hey, I'm still figuring out VoiceOver on Mac as well, but the easiest way is actually to use Spoken Content, not VoiceOver. The option you want to check is "Speak items under the pointer." You can then click on the options button next to it to set the verbosity, delay, and whether it speaks the content all the time or only when you are zoomed in. You can set the Zoom buttons up separately under the Zoom tab in Accessibility, if you want it to only speak when you're zoomed in.

If you want to use VoiceOver properly, though, here's how I have mine set up:

Verbosity tab, text sub-tab:

* When moving the cursor, dropdown menu: Speak text to the right of the cursor (Note: I originally had it set to "speak text the cursor passes" but it didn't work right. This option seems to work better for me, but you can experiment.)

Verbosity tab, announcements sub-tab:

* Check box at the very bottom of the page that says "Speak text under mouse after delay": checked

Navigation tab:

* Initial position of VoiceOver cursor dropdown: Keyboard focused item
* Synchronize keyboard focus and VoiceOver cursor check box: checked
* Mouse pointer dropdown: Moves VoiceOver cursor

Make sure Trackpad Commander is off under the Commanders tab as well.

Whenever you want to know about a specific VoiceOver command, check $1

> Describe the item under the mouse cursor VO-F5