Common Sense Media Review
By Ashley Kemper
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Capture any document for stellar text-to-speech assistance.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Capti Voice Narrator
Privacy Rating Warning
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
What's It About?
Kids sign up for a free account with a valid email address before using CAPTI VOICE NARRATOR. Once signed in, kids are asked to configure some of the features, such as choosing a reading voice. The default voice is computerized, although others are available from third-party developers such as IVONA, Acapela Group, and NeoSpeech. These also take up a bit of space, the average adding an additional 132 MB to kids' devices. To add content to their playlists, kids touch the three-line menu in the top left of the home screen and choose the location of their text. They can import content from Safari, Dropbox, email, and Google Drive. Kids also can save content from a web browser on a computer, and the app will automatically upload it to their playlist. As CaptiVoice pulls in content, it creates what looks like an audio file with a title and time. Kids can tap and hold on a word or phrase to open more options within the app: copy, select all, define, share, jump here, translate, or annotate (with the premium version).
Is It Any Good?
All in all, this tool is both incredible as-is and worth a small investment. The app itself is free to download, and some users will get all they need out of the free version. The built-in voices are user-friendly, the app promotes good reading habits by providing users a copy of the text it's reading and highlighting, and the types of documents that can be saved to a user's playlist are nearly limitless. The reading rate, phrasing, and inflection don't always align with cultural norms (pronunciation of proper names may be confusing to some), but it's as solid as, if not better than, other tools available on the market today.
And for kids who are required to read a substantial amount of text before preparing a research paper or essay or who are just eager to learn more about their favorite topics, it might be worth investing in the subscription price. At a rate of $1.99 per month, kids can use the text as it's being read to capture important notes or facts along with citations to use in higher-level writing classes.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about whether the content they're listening to using Capti Voice Narrator feel like the right level for each user. Try new material and ask simple check-in questions to gauge whether the content is on the right level: What is the main idea? What is the author trying to teach me? Do I agree or disagree with what the author is saying? Why, or why not?
Ask kids to talk about new or interesting things they've heard or read that day. Help kids find their favorite current event topics (sports, entertainment, culture), and then listen along with them as they hear news. Model summarizing each news story after listening or reading.
App Details
- Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad
- Subjects : Language & Reading : reading , reading comprehension , vocabulary
- Skills : Self-Direction : academic development , time management , working efficiently
- Pricing structure : Free to try (1.99/month or $9.99/six months)
- Release date : February 1, 2017
- Genre : Productivity
- Publisher : Charmtech Labs LLC
- Version : 2.5.2
- Minimum software requirements : 9.0
- Last updated : February 14, 2019
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
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