ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

READTRIX 
A SOFTWARE THAT CAN CONVERT IMAGES INTO SPEECH IN JUST

ONE SCAN.

An Investigatory Project Presented to the Faculty and Staff of

ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Subject

RESEARCH I

DE GUZMAN, PRINCESS JULIANNE C.

NATIVIDAD, KRISHA MAE P.

RILLON, KRISTEIN RICH D.

CLERILYN P. BADUA
Research Teacher II

Research Adviser
S.Y. 2022-2023
 ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

INTRODUCTION

Reading comprehension is a demanding task that requires multiple cognitive and linguistic

processes (Nation, 2019). According to a World Bank (WB) report, 91% of ten-year-old Filipino

children still have difficulty reading simple texts, indicating that the country's educational quality

is deteriorating (Ph, 2023). Huang et al. (2019) said that reading comprehension is an essential

part of how people read and interpret the text; however, it has received less attention in the

earlier literature on machine reading. In the words of Hussain and Omar (2020), developers

nowadays do not prioritize people with special needs who are visually impaired as much as they

do people who can see. The following paper seeks to close this knowledge gap. Children who

have dyslexia also have difficulty writing compared to their peers with similar reading skills.

(APA PsycNet, n.d.) Consequently, the significance of these two skills in literacy instruction

needs to be emphasized. Thus, they would benefit from a device that can scan all types of textual

elements and convert them into speech.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS

•Is there a discernible difference in comprehension between the proposed software and Braille

materials?

•Is there a difference in speed between the proposed Software and Braille materials?

 
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San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

•Is there a significant difference in comprehension between people with dyslexia who will use

the software and those who will read without the software?

•Is there a significant difference in the attention span of people with dyslexia who use text-to-

speech software versus those who do not?

HYPOTHESIS

•There is no significant difference between the software for Visually Impaired People and Braille

materials in terms of comprehension

•There is no difference between the said software and Braille materials in terms of speed in

reading

•There is no significant difference in comprehension between people with dyslexia who will use

the software and those who will read without the software.

•There is no significant difference in the attention span of people with dyslexia who use text-to-

speech software versus those who do not.

 ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The findings of this study will redound to the benefit of society, considering that a lack of

reading comprehension is such a prominent problem in the country. The limitations and lack of

assistance for those with vision impairments are also one of the primary reasons for the

importance of this study. Accessibility features enable people with low vision to be more

independent. The application aids in the extraction and conversion of textual information

embedded in images into speech. It can be used to extract text from PDF files and convert it to

speech. This app, among other things, improves the accessibility of online digital content and

makes it easier for people with visual impairments. It will benefit not only people with eye

conditions but also children with dyslexia. Not only will the software fill the gap, but it will also

boost confidence and empower people of all ages.

SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

The participants in this study will be polled about their experiences with the software and Braille

materials. It will also include a survey of children and adults who have dyslexia. The software will not

function if a word's spelling is incorrect. If the photograph is unclear, it will be unable to read it. The

study restricts its coverage to visually impaired people and people suffering from dyslexia because its

primary goal is to benefit those with visual impairments and dyslexic patients' comprehension. This will

concentrate on the integration of the proposed assistive software and Braille materials.
 ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Software - The application that the researchers will program.

Braille - a system of touch reading and writing for blind persons in which raised dots represent

the letters of the alphabet.

OpenCV - a library of programming functions mainly for real-time computer vision.

Canny edge detection - a technique to extract useful structural information from different vision

objects.

OCR - Optical character recognition is the mechanical conversion of images of typed,

handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text.

Bilateral Filter -  a non-linear, edge-preserving, and noise-reducing smoothing filter for images.

Festival TTS - The Festival Speech Synthesis System is a general multi-lingual speech synthesis

system
ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

METHODOLOGY

Figure 1: Research Paradigm of Image to Speech

Materials
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San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

To program the software, the researchers will need a computer with a large storage capacity that

can accept all of the codes. To use that application, you must have a phone with a built-in

camera. A bilateral filter is required, which the researchers can obtain via Phyton. A Canny Edge

detector, which can be found on Phyton, is also required. To convert an image to text, OCR, or

optical character recognition, will be used. Tesseract, a software system, will also be used, as

well as Festival TTS, a speech synthesizer.

 ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

Methods

Figure 1. Schematic Diagram of Image to Speech

Image capture: the built-in camera captures photos of the text. The quality of the captured image

is determined by the camera used. Color-to-grayscale conversion, edge recognition, noise

removal, warping and cropping, and thresholding are all part of the image pre-processing
 ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

procedure. Since many OpenCV functions require a grayscale image as an input parameter, the

image will be transformed into a grayscale. A bilateral filter is used to remove noise. Canny edge

detection will be conducted on the grayscale image to improve contour detection. The image will

be warped and cropped to follow the contours. This allows us to recognize and extract only the

text-containing zone while removing the unnecessary backdrop. Finally, thresholding is used so

that the image resembles a scanned document. This is done so that the OCR can transform the

image into text as quickly as possible.Image-to-text conversion: The flow of text-to-speech is

depicted in the diagram above (Fig. 3). The picture pre-processing modules and OCR are the first

blocks. It transforms the previously processed.png image into an a.txt file. Tesseract OCR is

being used.Text-to-speech conversion: The voice processing module is the second block. It turns

the text file into an audio file. The text is transformed into speech using Festival TTS, a speech

synthesizer.
 ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

Experimental Research Design

Table 1: Research Design for Communicative Pad for Visually Impaired People and Braille Text

in terms of Comprehension and Time Spent Reading (Text Subject experience)

Device Replication 1 Replication 2 Replication 3

Device  Obstacle 1 Obstacle 1 Obstacle 1

Readtrix (comprehension, (one (1) (comprehension (one (1) (comprehension)

page of printing material) page of printing Obstacle 2

Obstacle 2 material)) (speed or time spent

(speed or time spent Obstacle 2 reading (one (1) page of

reading (one (1) page of (speed or time spent printed material))

printed material))  reading (one (1) page of

printed material))

Device 2 Obstacle 1 Obstacle 1 Obstacle 1

Using (comprehension (one (1) (comprehension (one (1) (comprehension (one (1)

Braille page of printed material)) page of printed material)) page of printed material))

Text Obstacle 2 Obstacle 2 Obstacle 2

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(speed or time spent (speed or time spent (speed or time spent

reading (one (1) page of reading (one (1) page of reading (one (1) page of

printed material)) printed material)) printed material))

Table 1

Table 1 above shows the experimental of the Readtrix and Braille Text in terms of Time Spent

Reading and Comprehension of the Reader (Text Subject experience).

The table shows the first Device used as Readtrix, meanwhile the second Device used the Braille

Text.

The Readtrix and Braille Text will be used in a controlled environment with the test subjects

reading one (1) page of printed material. Each device will be observed three (3) times.

Table 2: Research Design for Readtrix and Traditional Way of Reading of People with

Dyslexiain terms of Comprehension and Time Spent Reading (Text Subject experience)

Device Replication 1 Replication 2 Replication 3

Device  Obstacle 1 Obstacle 1 Obstacle 1

Readtrix (comprehension, (one (comprehension (one (1) (comprehension)

(1) page of printing page of printing Obstacle 2

material) material)) (speed or time spent

Obstacle 2 Obstacle 2 reading (one (1) page of

 ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

(speed or time spent (speed or time spent printed material))

reading (one (1) page of reading (one (1) page of

printed material))  printed material))

Device 2 Obstacle 1 Obstacle 1 Obstacle 1

Using (comprehension  (one (comprehension  (one (comprehension  (one

Traditional (1) page of printed (1) page of printed (1) page of printed

Way of material)) material)) material))

Reading Obstacle 2 Obstacle 2 Obstacle 2

(Dyslexia (speed or time spent (speed or time spent (speed or time spent

Patients) reading (one (1) page of reading (one (1) page of reading (one (1) page of

printed material)) printed material)) printed material))

Table 2

Table 1 above shows the experimental of the Readtrix and Traditional Way of Reading of People

with Dyslexia in terms of Time Spent Reading and Comprehension of the Reader (Text Subject

experience).

The table shows the first Device used as Readtrix, meanwhile the second Device used the

Traditional Way of Reading of People with Dyslexia.

The Readtrix and will be used in a controlled environment with the test subjects reading one (1)

page of printed material. Each device will be observed three (3) times.
 ZARAGOZA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

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San Rafael, Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija

Martinelli, K., & Cruger, M., PhD. (2022). Understanding Dyslexia. Child Mind Institute.
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