Let Your Overpriced Computer Do Your Reading for You
September 10, 2007
Why read when you can be read to? You’ll think Stephen Hawking is your personal assistant when you download ReadPlease, a free program that reads text on your computer to you in a (somewhat) realistic human voice.
A text-to-speech reader can be invaluable to you and your students. Struggling readers can follow along as ReadPlease highlights words as it speaks. Use ReadPlease as a proofreading tool–writing mistakes are never so glaring as when you hear them out loud. Have your English as a Second Language students use ReadPlease to help them comprehend a lesson, or download a Spanish voice to help you finally get through Don Quixote in the original Spanish. You can even multitask by having ReadPlease read your favorite blog (say, this one) to you while you spruce up your classroom.
ReadPlease has an adjustable speaking rate, and is fully compatible with all Microsoft voices. You can pay more for more voices, customizable pronunciations, and the ability to save text to an .mp3 file, but the free version should be useful enough for most users.
Unfortunately, ReadPlease won’t work with coveted voice fonts for Bobcat Goldthwait, Gilbert Gottfried and Fran Drescher. –BILL FERRIS
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