How to Improve Learning with Text-to-Speech

Whether you are an educator or student, text-to-speech has powerful attributes that support improved learning at school and at home. Using an integrated, multi-sensory approach, Kurzweil Education's assistive technology products bring reading, writing, and test-taking tools all together to form one cohesive learning system.

Text-to-Speech Strategies for Educators

Working with students who are learning with dyslexia or who are English language learners can be difficult to find integrated strategies to provide an inclusive classroom environment. Text-to-speech technology is proven to improve academic performance among students who are living with a learning disability. As an educator, is it important that you are using text-to-speech strategies to help improve classroom performance for those that are utilizing assistive technology. Some top ways to better support literacy while using these tools include:

• Choose the Right Text-to-Speech Technology: Selecting the best-fitting educational technology for your classroom is crucial to the success of your students who are using it. It is important to look for accuracy in the conversion of text in reading materials, with tools like Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and the quality of the text-to-speech voices.
• Encourage Students to Use Different Voices for Different Content Areas: A key benefit to Kurzweil's text-to-speech technology is the ability to choose from 18 different languages and dialects along with natural, high-quality acapella voices. Encouraging your students to use a different voice for various subject areas will help keep content fresh and boost retention and comprehension.
• Move Test-Taking to Digital: Low standardized and classroom test performance is one challenge students with learning disabilities face. Kurzweil's assistive technology allows educators to move tests to a completely digital format on the platform. Students can hear exam questions read aloud and have the opportunity to re-read test content, improving academic performance.

Text-to-Speech Strategies for Students

As a student living with a learning disability like dyslexia, it can be challenging to process written and oral language in a classroom setting. Assistive technologies such as kurzweil 3000 can help you keep up at the pace of your peers and see strong academic success. Incorporating some of these strategies while using text-to-speech software will help you better improve your results.

• Use Different Voices: Choosing the right voice for your text-to-speech technology is important to help you increase comprehension and retention of your learning materials. Make sure to spend time identifying multiple voices that you feel comfortable listening to and using different voices for different subject areas in the classroom. Kurzweil offers 18 different languages and dialects coupled with high-quality acapella voices to give you variety.
• Take Advantage of Customization: Kurzweil's educational technology products feature a high level of customization. Take advantage of this by using different features such as highlighting spoken words and increasing or decreasing the rate at which the text-to-speech reads to you aloud.
• Do Your Reading on the Go: If you find yourself driving, going to the gym, or relaxing in your room, take your reading on the go. Kurzweil’s products allow students to create an audio file and add it directly to iTunes or Media Player playlist, so you can have access to a specific page range or the entire document wherever you go!