looking for a reading program

Kurzwell 3000 (Kurzwell Educational Systems)

http://www.kurzweiledu.com/

WYNN (Freedom Scientific)

http://www.hj.com/LSG/products/wynn.asp

Hello Anna Belle:

The easiest and most costly, but easy to use products are the Kurzweil 3000 and WYNN. (Both over $1000)

However, I describe at my web site how you can also builds such a system for less money. The combined to products FineReader Pro OCR software and TextAloud MP3 text-to-speech software. ($200)
www.geocities.com/jnuttallphd

Less expensive alternatives can be found at Premier Assistive Technology — Scan and Read Pro© V6.0. This software does not preserve the page image. However, for $149 it’s worth looking at. You can download a demo for a tryout.
wwwreadingmadeeasy.com/

No matter what system you get be sure to get AT&T Natural Voices as your text-to-speech engine. These voices sound really great.

You can also read some of my discussion on TextAloud MP3 and ReadPlease on this forum under the topic ” ReadPlease”.

Jim — Michigan

Try a program called readplease… www.readplease.com

Hello,

My son has difficulty with reading and he uses the texthelp read and write program. We have found this program to be very useful, he uses it for his homework etc.

We looked at the kurzweil system but decided it was too expensive, the website is:

www.texthelp.com

you can get them to give you a call from their site.

Let me tell you of an exciting software firm called Premier Software at the following web site:
www.readingmadeeasy.com

They are working on a program that has the total functionality of Kurzweil 3000 or WYNN but only costs $150 for parents to buy. This software should be available within the next month. Their current software Scan and Read Pro will scan and read but without the graphics being saved. In the next month they will have our version which they call see what you scan which will save the graphics.

This is an exceptional opportunity for both parents and schools to acquire adaptive assistive software at a reasonable price!!

Jim — Michigan

Hello Jim,

I see that you seem to be well rehearsed on many AT products, but I have not heard you mention the software my son uses. I would be interested to hear if you are aware of Read&Write by Texthelp and also what your opinions of this package are.

As I understand it, Read and Write is less costly than Kurzweil and Wynn and is heavily used in the U.K.

Do you have any comments on this platform?

Hello Duncan:

I have not used the Read & Write program which you have referred to. I have taken a look at Read & Write Gold. It would appear to me to be an exceptional program! Please, fill us in on your sons success in using this program. I personally use a variety of other programs to accomplish what Read & Write Gold accomplishs. Since I own Kurzweil 3000 I did not pursue the purchase of Read & Write.

For example, I actually scanned documents and materials using the FineReader Pro OCR 7.0 software ($150), which is the best OCR scanning software on the market. I read ALL documents on my computer with TextAloud MP3 ($30+ AT&T natural voices $25). I am also fortunate enough to have Dragon NaturallySpeaking Pro voice recognition software.

Do you use the version of Read & Write which has voice recognition/dictation as an input option? I would be most extremely interested in how your son utilizes the software. Does your son used the software both at home and in-school? what progress to you feel your son is making because of the software?

I recently was promoting the Premier Software, since they make their software available at a very very low cost to parents. They also have a grant program for schools which greatly reduces the cost of software. In fact, schools can qualify for free software, which should overcome many of the objections raised by the school for adaptive software.

Fill me in on your successes,
Jim — Michigan

Do any of these work with a website? I am looking for something to read text to students from the web.

I can recommend several different products for reading on the Internet.

1) TextAloud MP3 www.nextup.com ($50) there knew a great product will allow you to read anything in text on your computer and will come with a Web browser plug-in reader. You great product should be out soon. This is Software I use on a daily basis.

2) Premier Software www.readingmadeeasy.com ($29) Universal Reader will read any text on a computer. They also have a Web browser specifically designed for education which can read what pages. It is called “Off Limits”. This latter product also allows you to restrict what web sites a student can go to an also automatically deletes advertising from a web page. As the school you can ask for grant to receive their Software for little or no charge. And also use the Universal Reader.

3) ReadPlease also has a browser plug-in which works really great for reading web pages ($70).

Jim — Michigan