Text to Speech: Transforming Education for the Better

Key Takeaways

• Text-to-speech technology helps students with learning disabilities access course material more easily and stay engaged. Flexible audio-based learning supports diverse preferences and allows students to study anytime, anywhere.
• Similarly, educators can convert written lessons into rich audio resources, streamlining content creation and diversifying instruction. Multilingual TTS features help teachers deliver inclusive learning materials for culturally diverse classrooms.
• Leading TTS tools—such as Murf, Speechify, NaturalReader, LOVO, and others — offer unique features tailored for both educators and students.
• Murf stands out with its lifelike Gen 2 voices, customizable audio options, multilingual support, voice cloning, and industry-leading low-latency TTS API.

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Did you know that nearly 15% of students face learning disabilities that impact their reading ability? Whether it’s dyslexia, visual impairments, or attention difficulties, many students find themselves falling behind.

They struggle to absorb the course content quickly and effectively, which can decline their interest in the classroom and affect their grades.

To navigate this challenge, teachers and educators can leverage text-to-speech (TTS) technology to help students with special needs.

A TTS tool can convert text into an engaging audio file, making it easier for students with learning disabilities to learn the course material well. This can reignite their interest in the classroom and improve their academic performance.

In this article, let's look at how converting text into human-like speech with text-to-speech software for students is beneficial and some of the best platforms that help do this.

Benefits of Text to Speech Reader for Students

Flexible Content Consumption

Whether they’re on the go, multitasking, or simply prefer listening over reading, online text-to-speech empowers students to consume their course materials in a way that suits their individual learning preferences. It makes learning more accessible and adaptable to their schedules. 

Furthermore, with TTS, students can customize how their lessons sound, ensuring a truly personalized learning journey. They can choose from a variety of voices — male or female, different accents, or even adjust the pitch, speed, and tone to match their preferences.

Pronunciation Aid

For students, particularly those learning new languages or grappling with unfamiliar vocabulary, TTS tool serves as an invaluable pronunciation aid. By listening to words pronounced correctly by TTS readers, students can develop a clear understanding of phonetics, intonation, and stress patterns. This auditory reinforcement helps simplify complex terms and phrases, enhancing their language acquisition skills as well as reading fluency.

Reduced Eye Strain

In an era where screens dominate every aspect of our lives, text to voice software provides a refreshing alternative by allowing students to consume written content through audio rather than reading it off a screen, reducing eye strain, headaches, and fatigue. It also allows for screen-free learning, which is especially helpful for students with sensory sensitivities. Whether revising for exams or completing assignments, TTS allows students to engage with their coursework comfortably and with greater focus without being glued to a screen.

Improved Accessibility

Students with disabilities, such as visual impairments, can greatly benefit from a text reader. The tool can convert text-based course material into crisp, emotionally rich audio, elevating their learning experience to boost knowledge retention.

Benefits of Text to Speech Reader Software for Educators

Audio Teaching Resources

Educators can easily convert written materials, such as lesson plans, study guides, and textbooks, into audio resources using text to speech software. This enables them to diversify their teaching approach by offering auditory learning options, making content more accessible to students who learn better by listening. Educators can also use it to create podcast-style lessons or supplementary audio content, giving students more flexible ways to engage with their studies outside the classroom.

Multilingual Content

TTS bridges the language barrier gap in today’s diverse classrooms by enabling educators to provide course materials in multiple languages. It ensures that all students, regardless of their native language, have equal access to learning resources.

Integration with Learning Tools

TTS tools integrate seamlessly with a variety of educational platforms and LMS software, eBooks, and interactive whiteboards. This allows educators to embed audio content directly into their teaching materials, creating a more dynamic and engaging classroom experience. The ability to combine text, visuals, and audio enhances comprehension and accommodates different learning styles, ensuring that students can interact with educational materials in a way that suits their needs.

Top 10 Text to Speech Readers

Murf AI

Educators can use Murf to create engaging voiceovers for various educational modules, including — but not limited to — presentations, e-learning materials, and instructional videos. By automating the voiceover process, Murf saves time and effort.

With 120+ voice options across different languages and accents, educators can tailor audio materials to fit diverse classrooms. This flexibility helps in engaging students from various linguistic backgrounds, making lessons more relatable and inclusive. 

Students benefit from the added emotional range in Murf’s Speech Gen 2 voices, which helps convey the tone and context of educational materials much more effectively.

Whether it’s a history lesson requiring a solemn tone or a motivational piece needing enthusiasm, students can choose their preferred voice style on Murf, which is why the text reader ranks at the apex position in our list.

Speechify

Speechify provides a seamless way to convert text, whether from textbooks, documents, or web pages, into realistic spoken words. The platform’s real-time transcription capabilities allow students to capture notes accurately and focus more on understanding the material rather than scrambling to write everything down during a lecture.

It also aids in reviewing content after classes; students can revisit the transcriptions to clarify points they might have missed in real-time.

WellSaid Labs

With WellSaid Labs, educators can collaborate in real-time on projects, making it easier to develop voiceovers for lessons or multimedia content together. Multiple teachers can work simultaneously on the same project and share real-time edits and feedback, boosting efficiency. This collective effort also leads to richer, more diverse input, enhancing the overall quality of the content produced.

NaturalReader

Natural Readers provides a specialized TTS solution, NaturalReader EDU, designed to support students with learning differences and enhance academic success. Available as a web application, mobile app, and Chrome extension, this tool includes several key features that improve accessibility. For example, it supports a dyslexia font that enhances reading ease for individuals with dyslexia. NaturalReader EDU’s ‘Closed Captions’ feature enables students to read along as text is highlighted word by word, improving comprehension.

TTSReader

A completely free text to voice tool, TTSReader empowers educators to create personalized learning experiences by allowing them to customize voice styles and reading speeds to match each student’s needs. This not only enhances comprehension but also improves learning retention.

LOVO AI

LOVO AI’s flagship product, Genny, serves as an all-in-one platform that combines text to speech with script writing, video editing, and subtitle generation, allowing educators to create fully immersive multimedia lessons without the need for separate tools.

For students, on the other hand, LOVO’s 500+ male and female voices in 100+ languages make it ideal for diverse classrooms. Students can listen to elearning materials in their native language, enhancing comprehension and making learning more inclusive.

Google Text to Speech

Google’s Custom Voice feature allows educators to create highly personalized and branded learning experiences. By training a custom voice model with studio-quality audio recordings, educational institutions can generate voices that reflect their unique identity, ensuring all audio content from announcements to lectures is consistent and familiar to students.

Furthermore, Google TTS integrates seamlessly with Google’s Education Suite, enabling teachers and students to collaborate on projects and receive instant feedback through audio versions of written content.

Amazon Polly

Amazon Polly text to speech allows educators to fine-tune the audio output, including modifying pitch, speed, and emphasis. This ensures that the course material is not only accurate but engaging, allowing teachers to adapt content delivery to suit different learning styles and subject matter.

Moreover, its API allows for seamless incorporation into various educational platforms and applications, enabling features like real-time text to speech conversion in e-learning tools.

IBM Watson Text to Speech

By integrating Watson TTS with the broader IBM Watson Education platform, educators can create a cohesive learning environment where TTS complements digital lesson plans and assessments, promoting seamless accessibility for students with different needs.

Using IBM Watson TTS alongside Watson Language Translator allows educators to provide learning content in multiple languages, making it perfect for multilingual classrooms or foreign language learners.

Read Aloud

Unlike many TTS tools, Read Aloud is available across a wide range of platforms, including browsers, mobile apps, and desktops. This seamless integration ensures that students and educators can switch between devices without losing access to their content.

How to Choose the Right TTS for Education

The ideal platform should enhance learning outcomes while remaining simple enough for daily classroom use. Professionals and students should consider the following factors when weighing a potential fit:

• Voice quality and naturalness: Choose a tool that produces clear, human-like audio to keep learners engaged.
• Language and accent support: Ensure the platform offers diverse languages and accents for multilingual classrooms.
• Customization controls: Look for adjustable pitch, speed, tone, and style to match varied learning preferences.
• Integration capabilities: Confirm compatibility with LMS platforms, eBooks, and other digital tools.
• Accessibility features: Prioritize solutions that support dyslexia fonts, closed captions, or screen-free learning.
• Scalability and performance: Assess latency, API readiness, and the tool’s ability to handle growing content needs.
• Pricing and licensing: Evaluate cost, usage limits, and commercial rights, especially for educators producing shareable content.

Murf: The Best AI Voice Generator for Learning

Murf empowers learners to consume educational content as audio files created with human-like AI voices. The platform's Gen 2 TTS engine can generate a realistic audio file in a variety of AI voices, which can be customized on a granular level.

Users can generate audio in 30+ languages in 10+ accents and 300+ voices. The learners need to upload their course material in common formats, like PDF, or simply paste the content in a designated text box and hit 'Generate.'

Additionally, educators can create an AI voice clone to produce immersive and engaging content, such as YouTube videos and podcasts, with this text reader. Murf's policies ensure that they will own the synthesized speech for commercial use without any restrictions.

Recently, Murf released an industry-leading TTS API called Falcon, which has the lowest latency among the top voice generation solutions. This makes it suitable for real-time text-to-speech apps for students where they can interact with their course material in a conversational manner, improving accessibility.

Ready to implement this game-changer TTS in your educational workflows?

Sign up for Murf today and get free ten voice generation minutes.