Using Kurzweil 3000 as a Reading Intervention for High School Struggling Readers: Results of a Research Study

Despite increased use of assistive technology by struggling readers, scientific research on the effect of using assistive technology is limited. An experimental study was conducted to examine the effects of using text-to-speech software (i.e., Kurzweil 3000) upon the reading performance of ninth grade struggling readers when not using the software (i.e., unaided). After using the software for one semester, the intervention group students had significantly greater increases in vocabulary and comprehension when compared to the control group students. These findings contribute to increasing the scientific evidence-based research on the use of text-to-speech software as a reading intervention for secondary struggling readers.