Reply to Human Reader for textbooks/ journal articles?

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Reply to "Human Reader for textbooks/ journal articles?"

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[quote=Anonymous]Learning Ally has audio books for free some (many?) of which have human voices.

Bookshare also has a text to speech function. I haven't checked it in a long time - it had mostly electronic voices but those are getting better and it may have more human sounding ones.  It's free and kids with dyslexia qualify. Someone at your school can qualify you or you can qualify your dd by submitting some
paperwork to the Bookshare website. Bookshare has probably the largest collection of textbooks and scientific stuff - not sure about journals.  I think some apps (not clear if they are bookshare affiliated) have better voices - Natural Reader, Voice Dream, & others I think? The apps offer free voices and "premium" voices.

Speechify is an app or toolbar add on - the voice is great, but it is expensive (140/yr) and the reviews seemed to indicate that when it worked, the voice was good but that the app was very glitchy. Also seems to limit how much you get per month.

There is also Kurzweil 3000. Most schools and universities offer this to their dyslexic students because it includes workspace for writing. Not sure of voice quality.

Finally, the AI world is exploding and there are many new AI tools for recording lectures and converting to transcript as well as reading text aloud. I just tried murf.ai and the voice was great but it appears to be a business product.

Does your DD have an IEP or 504. Every school system must provide reading assistance tools to anyone diagnosed as dyslexic - at a minimum a dyslexic kid can qualify for a 504, which doesn't require "adverse impact".  Dyslexia, even if decoding has been remediated - is still so cognitively exhausting for dyslexic kids that they qualify for accommodations.  If rate, fluency or comprehension are impacted, there's even more of a reason. You can be a straight-A dyslexic kid in all advanced classes and still qualify for accomms on a 504.

If you are in MCPS, please ask for your school to contact HIAT (High Incidence Assistive Learning Tech or Team?) which is supposed to have the expertise to select and provide appropriate supportive technology.

If they aren't providing free natural voice reading - ask them why NOT?  It is out there and school systems should be buying licenses for this technology.

You might want to surf around various university disability websites - they all have to offer dyslexia accommodations like text to speech - you can see what they are using.

Oh, and I can't believe I almost forgot National Library for the Blind! Also free if you are dyslexic (and for other kinds of disabilities)

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