Reaching the Auditory Learner: Text-to-Speech Software and Voice Comments

It's undeniable that students learn best in different ways. So much time is spent classifying learners as auditory, visual, or kinesthetic yet often I find students are a combination of various learning styles - I know this is true for myself. 
Source: OnlineCollege.org

Sometimes it's not enough to have the voice in your head reading along with you; sometimes it's just easier to have accompanying audio to text you are reading. Text-to-speech software is a great teaching tools for ELL students, struggling readers, students with learning disabilities like dyslexia or auditory learners. The following are my top text-to-speech tools:


 Some of my students this past year requested I leave them audio comments on their work instead of written text. Perhaps this was due to the high ESL population at my school who find speaking and listening to the English language much easier to understand than reading and writing. Or perhaps these students truly did identify with being auditory learners.
Sometimes students just prefer to receive feedback in a certain way. As an educator who is a strong believer in differentiating my instruction, I am open to leaving comments in a form most useful for my students. 

Technology can be utilized to support various feedback mediums. Here are various ways to give audio feedback on your students' work:


See link to the slides here.

How do you reach your auditory learners?

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3 comments:

  1. ZoeJuly 29, 2014 at 6:59 AM

    This is a great resource Cris. I'm certain that the staff that you work with would appreciate these suggestions, links and ideas that you provide here. What a leader!
    I use speech to text for most of my comments in this class and the other Brock class that I teach. It is more efficient. However, when I can record my voice and let others hear feedback in that way, it comes through more clear, without misunderstanding. Hearing a voice behind that feedback can make such a difference in how we respond to it, don't you think?

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  2. UnknownJuly 31, 2014 at 7:18 AM

    I have my students use Read and Write for Google as a text-to-speech tool. I like that it offers dual highlighting for the text it's reading. I see that the Natural Reader does this as well. I didn't see Adobe doing that. Do you know if it's possible?
    I really like that you can select the voice based on country for Natural Reader. That is such a great feature for students learning other languages.
    I use Google Docs a lot, but did not know about Kaizena. I will have to learn more about this. Thanks for sharing!

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  3. audio to textSeptember 24, 2014 at 11:02 AM

    Well, it's really nice information and I would say that sometimes it's not enough to have the voice in your head reading along with you; sometimes it's just easier to have accompanying audio to text you are reading. Text-to-speech software is a really great and it works good.

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