Educator's Review: Text, Books, and Kurzweil 3000
People who are poor readers because of dyslexia or other learning disabilities
find that their reading is slow, inaccurate and tiring. At the college level
this poses a significant challenge. Students who are expected to extract meaning
from text find they have to proceed slowly, re-read passages frequently, struggle
to decode unfamiliar words, and interrupt their reading frequently to recover
from fatigue and stress. Tight semester schedules and course loads put additional
pressure on academic success, especially in the absence of the usual family
support.
Kurzweil 3000, a text-to-speech program that combines the "reading" of text
with an array of language and study tools, provides such students with a powerful
tool. A product designed for struggling readers and writers, it uses a multisensory
approach by presenting printed or electronic text on the computer screen with
added visual and audible accessibility. New features in version 6.0 offer students
flexibility in accessing and comprehending print and Web-based information.
A notable change is the ability to selectively extract highlighting by color.
Also, when scanning text, page numbers can now be set to match the actual page
numbers in the book. Students and faculty are also finding the ability to open
and save documents in a Word document format has expanded their ability to integrate
Kurzweil in an academic curriculum.
Self-Efficacy Boost
A notable benefit of the product is an increase in students' productivity and
timely work completion. Being able to work independently at times and in places
that suit their needs is important to students. For many of my students, late
night hours are their best time to focus, but accessing support at 9:00 p.m.
or 10:00 p.m. is challenging, at best. As students' sense of self-sufficiency
increases, so d'es their sense of self-efficacy. For many, the Kurzweil 3000
provides a way for achieving success in a collegiate environment. Students can
select the features appropriate to their learning profile and objectives. For
example, students with short-term memory issues can use the voice notes feature
to document relevant thoughts for later review. With training and some patience
in learning to use the study tools, students with learning disabilities and
attentional issues have a greater opportunity to work with complex readings
at a rapid pace.
For the student who finds reading challenging due to decoding and fluency issues,
the text-to-speech feature of Kurzweil 3000 is an invaluable resource. In addition
to having the text read to them, they have the opportunity to read with the
program. This is an improvement over books-on-tape support many students used
previously. They can also import their own writing into Kurzweil to ease the
challenge of the editing process. Hearing their work read to them increases
their ability to pick up on contextual and technical errors. In addition, the
language tools—recursive dictionary, syllabication feature, and thesaurus—facilitate
students' efforts to work with sophisticated and specialized vocabulary. Finally,
the RealSpeak "voice" of Kurzweil's latest version is a more lifelike rendition
of speech, which addresses an early concern expressed by new users regarding
the cognitive dissonance caused by electronic voices.
Access to E-Knowledge
Another benefit of Kurzweil 3000 is the increased accessibility it provides
to sources of knowledge, such as Web pages, eBooks, and PDF files. The ability
to "read" the Internet is an essential one, especially as it becomes more necessary
for success in higher education. Using the "Read the Web" feature allows students
to go directly to the Internet for research. By being able to read professional
journals online, students are able to easily access a huge amount of information.
While this feature can be inconsistent in its reading of the text of pages with
extensive graphics, students can transfer the page into Kurzweil using the "Virtual
Printer" feature in order to overcome problems with misinterpretation. As the
world of electronic texts continues to mushroom, the ability to use Kurzweil
3000 for diverse formats will be vital.
The value of this comprehensive text-to-speech program can be considerable
for students with attentional issues—especially in the context of electronic
information. Students report experiencing less distraction, stress, and fatigue
when using Kurzweil, and as a result, they're able to spend more time on a task.
The ability to see, as well as hear the information, provides students with
the opportunity to access new information through both auditory and visual senses.
This multimodal presentation of information supports focusing and memory retention.
Valuable Study Tools
As a former reading and study skills instructor, I find the study tools incorporated
into the program one of its most innovative features. They enable the development
of study systems for highlighting text, learning vocabulary, and note taking.
Used as a unit, these tools allow students to strategically select information
for further work. The ability to create vocabulary lists, idea previews, and
questions eases the pre-reading process. In my experience, students are more
willing to undertake challenging reading after having built this foundation
for grasping information and improving comprehension.
For a student with significant abstract comprehension issues, the highlighting
feature can be a valuable tool. The highlighting feature enables students to
select headings for creating guide questions. This ability to organize information
before undertaking the task of reading complex information provides students
with a structure for understanding. We formatted a process where he would interactively
read the material by highlighting and annotating the text as he went along.
Using the extraction features, he was then able to organize information from
various sources to support him in analyzing and synthesizing the information.
With the resulting outline, he could write a summary. By being able to extract
information by color, he was also able to create a list of vocabulary terms
and study questions. Through the active manipulation of information, his comprehension
improved. For students who have difficulty seeing connections between disparate
or similar pieces of information, the ability to synthesize content at the point
of intake is imperative.
Using the notes and sticky notes tools, readings can be annotated. However,
to be able to access the "Sticky Notes" feature required us to scan and save
the text in the .kesi extension—the Kurzweil file format. Although the documentation
provided with the program is clear and comprehensive, the limitation regarding
sticky notes is not apparent and can be a slight setback. Once comfortable with
the use of sticky notes, students can easily margin-note as they go along.
The ease of scanning into Kurzweil 3000 makes a somewhat tedious process less
time consuming. The ExperVision OCR, incorporated into the program, contains
a number of valuable features, including two-page scanning, repeat scanning,
and auto-rotation of pages. A helpful new feature of version 6.0 is the ability
to re-number pages according to the original page numbers. At the collegiate
level, where students are typically reading at a relatively fast pace, the ease
of scanning is a benefit.
Memory Lapse
While I believe Kurzweil 3000 can be an important learning tool, the program's
computer memory should be considered: If used in conjunction with Windows XP
and voice-recognition software, 256K of RAM is best. Otherwise, the program
can be slow to open and the highlighting may lag behind the "reading" of text.
On occasion, I have found it necessary to enter the program through a reading
saved in the .kesi format due to the demand on memory.
Overall, Kurzweil 3000 6.0 is one of the most powerful learning tools I've
worked with. This article was written and edited using the program. Its features,
as well as its compatibility with voice-recognition software, made this possible.
For students, the product can be used to flexibly increase control over their
learning. In addition to working with information visually and auditorily, students
can actively navigate content and use the available study tools to optimize
their learning experience. This comprehensive learning tool has something to
offer most students with learning disabilities working at the post-secondary
level. Its impact on a student's reading speed, comprehension, and attention
span is significant.
