Does Text-to-Speech Reading Affect Everyone Equally?

During class, a peer asked a question regarding a text-to-speech technology (TTS): TumbleBooks. The question was along the lines of “If a student does not need this tool, but is using it, what should we do?” This was followed with the advice that: it’s okay for students to use TTS because it means their engaging with the content (it doesn’t matter how they do it). This conversation had me reflect on my personal beliefs on accommodations and I decided to research a little more.

Initially, this brought up the conflict of accommodation vs. “pushing through” reading challenges. Because the education system is now set up to help break down learning barriers for students, it can sometimes feel like typically developing students are not being challenged if given an accommodation they don't necessarily need. By constantly providing tools to make tasks more doable, do we instill a sense of helplessness if they are taken away? On the flip side, if we constantly tell students to “push through” challenges without needing accommodations, do we break their confidence rather than teaching persistence? 

Interestingly, Wood et al. 2019 found that for both interventional and compensational help, TTS improved reading comprehension for those with reading disabilities. This proves TTS a valuable tool for students struggling to decode large texts and allows them to still engage with the content. 

While Wood et al. 2019 is a positive study, Ching-Hsuan Chen et al. 2025 decided to look at the effect of TTS in students with ADHD, Dyslexia, and typically developing students (grade 7-9). They found that while TTS helped improve comprehension for students with ADHD and reduce the time it would take for students with dyslexia to read, it actually disrupted reading patterns of typically developing students. The TTS slowed typically developing students' reading pace down, forcing them to match the pace of the audio. Typically developing students can predict and skip words and don’t read at a linear pace (some words are read faster than others). For students that have quick and automatic decoding, they should be able to adjust audio to match their pace (1.5x or 2.0x speed) and teachers should use TTS as an optional tool for those who benefit from it. 

An overarching theme in the articles I read was: each student benefits differently from TTS. Some students with reading disabilities might prefer to read texts themselves and TTS might not improve their comprehension. Often TTS is used to reduce reading time, which can be problematic in an age where most people don’t have the patience to slow down and read large texts (myself included). While I don’t have a solution for everything, I hope to have sparked some curiosity in you while providing a few useful takeaways regarding TTS!

SamM@NUO