Read Aloud

If magnification will not meet the student's needs, another option is to convert printed text to spoken text, through a process known as "text-to-speech."  In its infancy, this process was expensive and required bulky equipment.  Today, adequate processing power is available on handheld devices, and the cost has dropped.  Various devices that will read printed documents aloud can be categorized by the methods used to capture an image of the document.

• Tabletop scanners can create digital images of anything placed on the glass scanning surface, including documents to be read.
• When the document is fragile, or cannot be flattened enough for a scanner, a document camera can take images for further processing.  In some cases, this might be done with the camera built-in to a cell phone.
• Specialty hand-held devices can be carried with the user, and read text from printed pages, product packaging, or even street signs.

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