1. Text to Speech Software
Matt Mahony

2. History
• During the late 1960’s, the first complete
text to speech software was created in
Japan
• In America, the first complete text to speech
software was made by the Bell Atlantic
Company in 1973
• In 1976, the Kurzweil Reading Machine for
blind children was created

3. History
• In 1978, Text to Speech software became
commercially available
 Speak and Spell to by Texas Instruments
• Since the 1980s, development
has been focused on what the
devices are able to read and
the clarity and emotion of the
voices reading the text

4. History
• In the past 10 years, the goal has been to
make the Text to Speech software sound
even more human

5. Students Who Need the Device
• Reading Disabilities
• ELLs
• Hearing Impaired
• Vision Impaired
• Physically Impaired
• Regular Education
Students

6. Inclusion Classroom Lesson
• History Lesson about the Bill of Rights
• Students will write their own Bill of Rights
• Students who need to can use the
Kruzweil software on the computer while
writing their version. This way, these
students can go back and reference The
American Bill of Rights.

7. Positives
• Read any text on the computer
 Web Pages
 Word Documents
 Rich Texts
 E-mails
 News Articles
 Online Books, etc.
• Hard copies of texts can be scanned into the
computer and saved as a PDF or Word Document.
• The text to speech reading can be recorded and
saved as a WAV or MP3 file, which gives the
students the opportunity to listen to it later in their
MP3 or CD players.

8. Positives
• Read any text at any speed chosen by
listener
• Read any text using the voice or accent
(male, female, British English American
English, etc.) chosen by the listener

9. Positives
• Many free and easy to use text to speech
software is available online
 NaturalReader
 Kyrathasoft Text To Speech
 Text2Speech
 Panopreter

10. Negatives
• The voice can at times sound robotic and
emotionless, this makes it difficult for the
students listening to understand the
reading.

11. Kurzweil
• Paid for versions can be very expensive,
but they are absolutely worth it.
• Kurzweil
 Premier Software offers more than any other
software
Kurzweil Video

12. In the Classroom
• Writing
• Editing
• Reading
• Simply adding headphones can
make the device usable whenever.

13. “Ricky”
• 6th Grade Male Student
• Dyslexia
 Slow reader
 Jumbles words while reading and writing
• When Ricky writes a paragraph, he spells
20-30% of the words incorrectly
• When Ricky reads aloud, he
mispronounces about 40-50% the words

14. “Ricky”
• Ricky will be using the Kurweil 3000
 Provided by the school
• This device can:
 Read his own writing back to him
 Highlight misspelled words
 Read articles and books we will be reading in
class
 Allow him to take tests more easily as the test
will be read aloud to him
 Creates lists of words he constantly misspells

15. “Ricky”
• Over a 3 month period, Ricky will be
required to use this device during English
and History (Two 40 min periods a day)

16. “Ricky”
• To test Ricky’s abilities, he will be given a
weekly test. On this test, he will have to
write one paragraph and read a short
article
• Ricky will be given a baseline test prior to
using the device.
• We hope to increase
 Spelling by 60%
 Pronunciation by 80%