This Blog was originally produced for the Learning Futures Project and has been reposted from their website.
Orato is a fantastic simple to use text to speech tool. I’ve been using it for several years with students in my college’s Study Support department.
Last year, in light of the changes to JCQ regulations, we used Orato as an accessibility tool for exams with more than half a dozen GCSE English students.
Orato can be run from a USB memory stick, so students can take it away to use at home, it could even be used as a simple accessibility tool in the workplace.
I’ve embedded a short introduction video below. Note that in this video the software is being used as part of an accessibility suite called My Study Bar. However, Orato can be downloaded and used as a stand-alone piece of software.
It’s well worth a look if you want to start using text to speech tools as reading aids for students with literacy difficulties.
Orato is free open source software, the most recent version can be downloaded from www.fx-software.co.uk
If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment.
Talking Technology 
One thought on “Simple Free Text to Speech Tool – Learning Futures”