Hello. My name is Danielle and I am a student in the Centre for Lifelong Learning and also volunteer as a Digital Ambassador.
This year I passed Entry Level 3 in English so in September, I will be starting Level 1 so I decided to research a couple of proofreading and reading apps to help me with my studies. These are my findings.
ReadOut! (TTS)
This is a text to speech app and a personal reading assistant.
Why I like it
- When I type, I can play it back
- It pauses after each sentence
- I can edit my documents
- It will help me with reading and writing for Level 1 English
There are more features if you pay for the premium version which is only £2.79:
- Login via Google/Facebook
- No ads
- Unlimited number of saved texts
- Get Premium Support
What I don’t like
- It is only available on Android
How to access it
- On android phones, go to the Play Store and search for ReadOut!
Natural Reader
This is a free text to speech app that can be used to listen back to Word documents, PDF files and web pages using a synthetic voice.
Why I like it
- Easy to select text with my finger to read back
- It pauses after full stops
- It can import files to read – e.g. Word, PDFs
- I can also enlarge the text on my phone
- I can listen to it out loud or with headphones
- I can reduce the speed if it is too fast
What I don’t like
- In the free version, it does not let me edit it on my phone
- The text is too small when I type
- If I want to enlarge the text, you have to do it on Word first
- The premium version is expensive ($4.99/month)
How to access it
- On android phones, go to the Play Store and search for NaturalReader Text to Speech and install
- On iOS, go the App Store
