I can give some general information re: text-to-speech software.
For PC I like 'Natural Reader' text to speech. They have a free version that's quite good and will read and highlight text that is copied and pasted. It also will read from other sources such as the internet. The voice that comes with it isn't great, but many computers already have better voices. If not, you can purchase the paid version of Natural Reader for 50 dollars and it comes with more options and two very good voices. (
www.naturalreaders.com)
For Mac, 'Ghost Reader' is very good and I think it costs around 50 dollars with good voices and lots of flexibility.
Ghost Reader and the paid version of Natural Reader also allow you to convert text/books to an MP3 file for use on an ipod or other player. For most students, especially where reading, spelling, and/or comprehension are issues, I prefer the option to see the print highlighted while hearing it spoken. There's also the 'ClassMate' hand held text reader ($479. available from
www.donjohnston.com) that highlights as it reads but I think needs a better voice!
Though I personally think text to speech should be available on all school computers (think Universal Design for Learning), we're starting with a few students where the need is identified in their IEP. For those who aren't aware of this, Bookshare is now free to qualifying students (
www.bookshare.org). There's a whole process you need to go through but it is clearly outlined on their website, including the criteria by which students qualify, and who can do the qualifying. This is the criteria we use at the district where I work. Bookshare has some of the newer textbooks but a lot of the older ones (pre 2006?) are still only available in tape form (can check with School for the Blind). It is now a federal mandate that textbooks are available in digital format, so you should be able to get digital copies of new textbooks when they're ordered. If there's a book you need that is not listed in Bookshare, they do take requests for books to scan.
Wynn and Kurzweil both have good OCR built into them but are expensive for the scanning versions. There's a site (
www.scanstore.com) that compares some. They liked ReadIRIS and ABBYYFineReader but I've only used OmniPage. It probably depends on your use. If you're only scanning text from books (not more complex forms and formats), most OCR is pretty good for accuracy.
Regarding effectiveness of text to speech for struggling students? I think hearing and seeing what you're reading (or writing for that matter) at the same time is helpful for a lot of students. Sometimes you just have to give it a trial to know. As far as listening only, I had one student who started listening to books on his iPod and his test results for comprehension (AR tests) plummeted. When it comes to assistive technology, I'm a firm believer in considering anything a trial until it's proven to help. AT can be written into the IEP that way (as a trial to determine it's usefulness) if you don't want to commit to something that you're not yet sure of.
For students whose listening comprehension is significantly greater than their reading ability, I think it's mean NOT to let them listen to books at their comprehension level, especially when getting the content is the point (e.g.reading Social Studies textbook).
Feel free to request more specific information if I didn't address all your questions. Jerry can probably add to this as well.
