Free Resources from the Net for EVERY Learner

I’ve known of Natural Reader for a long time, but I’ve never written about it here. When I took a serious look at this text-to-speech software recently, I concluded that it almost certainly would be an essential tool for countless learners if it were available to them. Natural Reader is an impressive option that should be available to all learners who work in a Windows environment. Since there is an excellent free version available, there is no valid justification for not making Natural Reader available in schools everywhere.

Natural Reader 7.0 – Free Version offers a text-to-speech toolbar that will run on top of almost any program. This makes it an excellent option for learners who are still required to use Internet Explorer as their web browser. Natural Reader can be used to read e-mail, whether in Outlook, Thunderbird, GMail, or HotMail. Natural Reader works with word processors, and it works in web browsers. In short, the toolbar shown below works effectively with digital text almost everywhere.

In addition to the toolbar option, Natural Reader offers a window where copied text can be pasted. Whether using this window or the toolbar, it is easy to change the reading rate and the pitch of the voice. Program functions can be accessed with user-defined keyboard commands.

Natural Reader will work with the voices built into the Windows operating system. It is noteworthy that if additional voices are installed on the computer, these voices are available for use with Natural Reader Free. A selection of high quality voices can be purchased from Nextup for US$35.

Additional features, including high quality voices, are available in two commercial versions of Natural Reader. Judging by the quality of the free version, anyone thinking of purchasing text-to-speech software would do well to consider the Natural Reader options.