How to get screen reader to read Alt-text in form

I am working on trying to develop a form with fillable fields, I have people who are using Assistive Tech (screen readers like NVDA) and have been trying to muttle through finding a way to have the screen reader , read the ALT-Text or some other input field , which it will do in design mode but will NOT do in view mode . I would appreciate a little hand in trying to figure that out please.