By Diane Brauner on August 16, 2021
What is Immersive Reader?
Immersive Reader is a free tool that implements proven technique to improve reading and writing for people, regardless of their age or ability. Immersive Reader embeds accessibility features for students - including read aloud, font type, size, color, high contrast, spacing, and so much more! These features are wonderful for students with low vision who would benefit from accessibility features - including read aloud - who are not using a screen reader. Immersive Reader is embedded into Word, OneNote, Outlook, Office Lens, Microsoft Teams, Forms, Flipgrid, Minecraft Education edition, and the Edge browser.
Immersive Reader features
- Read Aloud
- Spacing and Font Size
- High contrast/colors
- Line Focus
- Picture Dictionary
- Identifies Parts of Speech
- Breaks Words into Syllables
- Dictate
- Translation to Other Languages
- Math Equation Support
Here is quick overview video about Immersive Reader, Student and Teacher Guide, College and School Guide video by TeachBlend:
What Is New with Immersive Reader?
Immersive Reader has rolled out to four additional Microsoft apps and services: Outlook Desktop (email), Teams Mobile (iOS and Android) for posts and chats, SharePoint pages (web-based collaborate platform) and OneDrive for documents and text files (Microsoft cloud storage).
Resources
Immersive Reader has a terrific interactive guide that walks you through the various features. The Interactive Guide for the Inclusive Classroom: Help Students Read More Effectively is available here. (Note: Scroll down to the interactive guide.)
Veroniiiica, a successful college student with low vision, shares her experiences with Immersive Reader in this post: Microsoft Immersive Reader Review
Comments
Posted by Diane BraunerDec 14, 2021
Immersive Reader now supports 16 new languages! Other Microsoft applications will be adding these new languages too. Learn more about Microsoft's added language support here.