In the interest of the goal of separating content from presentation, and 
the difference between the goal of reading and learning, I wonder how 
many folks know that the latest versions of MicroSoft Word have the 
ability, without any add-ins, to read a document aloud?

In Word XP (also known as Word 2003), if you activate the "Speech" entry 
from the Tools menu, you will be offered speech recognition in the 
Language Bar.  (Yup, speech recognition is there too.  It's not great, 
but is a good way to find out, without spending more money, if speech 
recognition is for you.)  At the right end of the language bar (a 
floating menu bar with a Microphone on the left), you'll find a small 
down-arrow, which opens a menu of additional services.  Here you will 
find a "Speak Text" option.  Clicking this will add a button to the 
language bar to have a document, or the highlighted portion of a 
document, read to you out loud.  You can adjust the speed and voice 
used, as well.

The pairing of visual and auditory language is considered to help learn 
to read, though this feature doesn't highlight words as it reads, so has 
limited capacity in that regard, but translating printed text to speech 
can make learning possible for those with severe print difficulties.

Also of note, if you have a scanner, the "Microsoft Office Tools" folder 
that was installed along with office, includes Microsoft Office Document 
Scanning.  This is a very good optical character recognition program 
that will take the text of a printed document and convert it to a Word 
document.  It doesn't preserve formatting like the $500 or more OCR 
packages, but you already own it, and adding even a $100 scanner will 
give you the ability to convert books to electronic documents.

-- 
Denis Anson, MS, OTR
Director of Research and Development
Assistive Technology Research Institute
College Misericordia
301 Lake St.
Dallas, PA 18612
Phone: 570-674-6413
Fax: 570-674-8054