C Pen Text to Speech Reader Pen 2 - OCR Scanning Device for Reading, Literacy & Learning | Assistive Tool for Dyslexia & Learning Differences | Tests, Meetings, Study | Windows & Mac

I bought this for my children who love to read. It helps so much with books that has more challenging vocabulary that they don't have to ask me, or type it up to look up the definition. It's super easy to use and very accurate. You can choose a few different types of dictionaries. If there is a word in the definition that they don't understand, they can highlight that word to see its definition too. Their ages when I got it for them were 6 and 8 years old. It's great for even younger kids to even adults.The only requirement is that the font size of the words have to fit in the width of the C pen. So any text-heavy kids book or novel would be okay. Very highly recommended product!

This pen is a game changer for my dyslexic child. It isn't a substitute for reading remediation. It doesn't replace audiobooks. It does increase user's independence, and it has opened a whole new world for my son. When reading, he will replace unknown words with familiar words like action for auction. He realizes he may not be using the correct word, but he doesn't like to ask for help. With the C-Pen he can read books independently and with confidence. He checks the words he isn't sure he is reading correctly. He uses the dictionary function to look up words he cannot define. It means he can do the word problems in his math homework and tests without depending on someone to read it to him. It means he doesn't have to go through the added step of converting text on paper to digital copy to have it read. We know it doesn't work on all fonts, but we cannot wait to try it in public like on a restaurant menu! The headphone option just adds to the amazing functionality of this assistive technology.

I used the product to try and have it read the word back to me. However, it could only handle one sentence at best maybe two and I found that frustrating. It would be excellent for a young child who is just beginning to read! The cost is not that bad either for such a tool. If they ever start making an upgrade that could read the whole page back to you, I would love to be a tester! But for now, this tool is only good for a child just starting to read or a grade school child who just seems that little bit of help.

I bought this to help my Mom, who has low vision, thinking that the text to speech would help her read mail, the newspaper or books. It was totally useless. I tried it myself before offering it to her, and the word recognition was horrible. I had to scan a line multiple times to figure out what it was trying to say because each time it would be something different. It had trouble with fonts (even arial, which I am surprised at) and would consistently spout garbage that made no sense. It couldn't understand end-of-line hyphenations. I knew this would completely frustrate my Mom, who is already frustrated because of low vision, so I just packed it up and returned it the next day. For over $200 I expected better!

Bought for my son who had reading issues because the school district didn't deem it necessary. Glad i did.. Before buying, I was on the phone talking to a customer service rep who then transferred me to a designer. We talked about what the Pen can and cannot do. I then got a call back from another company official who told me they themself had used the pen because of a learning disability. I bought a certified reconditioned C-Pen really to save a few dollars. The company itself did the re-certifying and considering the business they're in, I knew they did it RIGHT.. Well they DID. I amazed 2 years later when looking to see if there were any firmware or library updates to find that the C-Pen they certified was fitted with a newer better board and that I was able to update the pen to what was only possible with a current released version. If you need a C-Pen, this IS the company to go to. They were great and so is their product. Battery charge could be faster :)

Product arrived promptly, and worked out of the box. I returned it, however, because it didn't suit my purpose. I figured that a review of what it did well, and what was less good in my context might help.Essentially, I noted two potential problems, only one of which was a problem for me. First, this would have been for my college-age, mildly dyslexic daughter. She can read well enough to enjoy fiction, but it's definitely a mental effort for her, and as such, the process of reading a textbook is less effective than it should be, since a chunk of her brain power is taken up with reading, and therefore less brain is available for comprehension of the material. So, we tried this. It worked, recognizing the letters and words of a book with high accuracy. However, the reading voice is stilted. It's better than Steven Hawking's famous synthesized speech, but it definitely lacks the natural inflection that makes normal speech readily comprehensible. On balance, my daughter found that it was more cognitive effort to understand the device's speech (while simultaneously controlling the sweeping of individual lines of text accurately) than it was to make the effort to keep track of the words and "take charge" of her dyslexia. If you're in a similar situation, I suspect that the only way this evaluation can be made is by trying it out; each person's struggle with dyslexia will, of course, be a very personal, very individual, level of effort, and as the balance changes, so would the value for that individual.The other potential problem for some users would be that the device requires a decent degree of manual dexterity (which in turn requires mental focus) to track the line of words. My daughter has absolutely no problem in this respect, but when I tried it out myself (my brain function, dexterity, and reading skills, are definitely unimpaired) even I noticed that some focus on line-tracking was necessarily part of the act of using it. It can be likened to trying to draw a reasonably accurate pencil line along one line of text, never straying outside the boundary of that line (or it will start reading the wrong words from the line above or below). For some folks, that level of dexterity will be unreasonably draining (or outright un-achievable, I suppose). My guess is that if you have the intended user draw pencil lines on the lines of words in a book, you'll get some idea of whether this is a problem, non-issue, or flat out non-starter.The stilted reading style is exacerbated more than a little by having it read the lines as it scans them. The result is usually that it reads one line, then pauses while you're lining up to read the next line (and the user must be capable of determining which line to scan next, of course!) This pause could be avoided if you simply scan an entire chunk of text into memory (which it appears it can do), and have the device read it afterwards. On this topic, however, I suspect that it would be more efficient to use a flatbed scanner, OCR software in a computer, and then let the text to speech feature of your computer read the document.I should add that there was no issue whatever with my return, shipping in both directions being taken care of by Amazon, or the seller. I'm a Prime member, which might have influenced that, but the general policy was such that returning it was not a problem.