Natural Reader
Access: www.naturalreader.com
Free and pay versions available (range from personal, profession and educational use). School packages are advertised for 50% off on the Natural Reader website. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. Online Website. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.
Summary: Natural Reader is a text-to-speech (TTS) application that converts PDF files, MS Word documents, and e-books into spoken words. Natural Reader is a great help to students with dyslexia or other learning difficulties. Students are better able to comprehend reading materials or detect spelling errors in their own work by listening to text. Natural Reader provides an alternative to struggling to read small text on your iPhone or other devises. It is an efficient proofreading tool; it not only picks out mistakes in your work, but gives you a good sense of the natural flow of what you have written. Natural Reader is also a tool with which to learn a foreign language. You can practice your comprehension and pronunciation skills by listening to any written words being spoken at your preferred speed. Natural Reader also simply provides an alternative way to enjoy reading.
Features:
- Works with Word documents, PDF files, webpages, eBooks, and many other formats.
- Provides over 30 natural sounding voices in 5 languages
- Loads Dropbox files, email attachments, computers
- Input text via keypad, copy/paste, or from the application’s built-in browser
- Simply tap a sentence, and Natural Reader begins reading aloud from that point.
- Increase or decrease the speed of the voice reader
- Follow along with written text that automatically scrolls up the screen as it is being read
Connection to UDL Guidelines: Natural Reader strategy is in keeping with the UDL principles of providing options for perception, vocabulary, comprehension, persistence and self-regulation.
Reasoning: Natural Reader allows students who have reading difficulties like dyslexia, difficulty seeing, troubles reading for long periods of time, eyestrain and attention issues an alternative as text can be read to them. The speed with which the text is read, the voice and language can all be personalized and modified as needed. The ability to listen to text and reduce reading demands on students with learning disabilities can lesson frustration and grow self-confidence. Natural Reader is a great editing to by allowing students to hear punctuation and spelling errors as passages are read back to them. Natural Reader can also free up a lot of time for struggling readers and allow them to listen while doing other tasks. Natural Reader is readily accessible on a number of different platforms (computer, iPhone, iPad) for convenience.
Free and pay versions available (range from personal, profession and educational use). School packages are advertised for 50% off on the Natural Reader website. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. Online Website. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.
Summary: Natural Reader is a text-to-speech (TTS) application that converts PDF files, MS Word documents, and e-books into spoken words. Natural Reader is a great help to students with dyslexia or other learning difficulties. Students are better able to comprehend reading materials or detect spelling errors in their own work by listening to text. Natural Reader provides an alternative to struggling to read small text on your iPhone or other devises. It is an efficient proofreading tool; it not only picks out mistakes in your work, but gives you a good sense of the natural flow of what you have written. Natural Reader is also a tool with which to learn a foreign language. You can practice your comprehension and pronunciation skills by listening to any written words being spoken at your preferred speed. Natural Reader also simply provides an alternative way to enjoy reading.
Features:
- Works with Word documents, PDF files, webpages, eBooks, and many other formats.
- Provides over 30 natural sounding voices in 5 languages
- Loads Dropbox files, email attachments, computers
- Input text via keypad, copy/paste, or from the application’s built-in browser
- Simply tap a sentence, and Natural Reader begins reading aloud from that point.
- Increase or decrease the speed of the voice reader
- Follow along with written text that automatically scrolls up the screen as it is being read
Connection to UDL Guidelines: Natural Reader strategy is in keeping with the UDL principles of providing options for perception, vocabulary, comprehension, persistence and self-regulation.
Reasoning: Natural Reader allows students who have reading difficulties like dyslexia, difficulty seeing, troubles reading for long periods of time, eyestrain and attention issues an alternative as text can be read to them. The speed with which the text is read, the voice and language can all be personalized and modified as needed. The ability to listen to text and reduce reading demands on students with learning disabilities can lesson frustration and grow self-confidence. Natural Reader is a great editing to by allowing students to hear punctuation and spelling errors as passages are read back to them. Natural Reader can also free up a lot of time for struggling readers and allow them to listen while doing other tasks. Natural Reader is readily accessible on a number of different platforms (computer, iPhone, iPad) for convenience.
Critique of the Tool:
Affordances:
Natural Reader could be a very good support for students that need scaffolding with writing. The educational version provides:
- Typing Echo that allows the text to be read as it is typed (either by letter, word or sentence depending on the users preference).
- Word Prediction that converts a large number of text files into mp3 directly (saving time).
- a 250 000-word spelling checker.
The conversion of text-to-speech would be invaluable to students with dyslexia and seeing impairments. Being able to keep up with class readings would reduce stress levels, allow barriers to be overcome and individual strengths of students to become more apparent.
Constraints:
Students with seeing and attention issues may require support to use Natural Reader as it requires several steps of locating and selecting of original text.
Natural Reader’s free software sounds robotic. Users grow accustomed to the robotic nature with time and paid software is less robotic sounding.
Affordances:
Natural Reader could be a very good support for students that need scaffolding with writing. The educational version provides:
- Typing Echo that allows the text to be read as it is typed (either by letter, word or sentence depending on the users preference).
- Word Prediction that converts a large number of text files into mp3 directly (saving time).
- a 250 000-word spelling checker.
The conversion of text-to-speech would be invaluable to students with dyslexia and seeing impairments. Being able to keep up with class readings would reduce stress levels, allow barriers to be overcome and individual strengths of students to become more apparent.
Constraints:
Students with seeing and attention issues may require support to use Natural Reader as it requires several steps of locating and selecting of original text.
Natural Reader’s free software sounds robotic. Users grow accustomed to the robotic nature with time and paid software is less robotic sounding.