Immersive Reader was a tool created by Microsoft to assist students with reading. According to our textbook, Sail the 7 Cs with Microsoft Education, “Any user can turn it (Immersive Reader) on at any time and benefit from whichever of the following capabilities they may need to adjust or enable: text size, spacing, or font; background/text color; syllabication of words; highlighting of various parts of speech; a line focus reader; a picture dictionary; and a translation tool that will turn any word or an entire document into any of over sixty languages,” (Keene & Kersznowski, 2020). Immersive Reader has the capability to help students with reading disabilities, language barriers, and more, but it can also help students without accommodations as well. It can be used everywhere by every student.
Immersive Reader can be used in classrooms in many different ways. There are many, many tech applications that have Immersive Reader embedded in them. Below are three examples of how to use Immersive Reader in tools such as Wakelet, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Teams, all of which can be applied in the classroom. Schools can also install and download Immersive Reader to student computers. This means that students reading anything on the computer have access to Immersive Reader. It can be used to help students read digital textbooks, online articles, blogs, and so much more.
Immersive Reader can be used with students of all ages. Watch the video below to hear second-grader Karrick’s story. Below that, click the link to read the article about university student Elle’s experience.
As you can see, Immersive Reader is a very valuable tool in classrooms all over the world. Immersive Reader has improved the reading experience for hundreds of thousands of students and will continue to do so. I look forward to using Immersive Reader in my future classroom.
Sources: Keene, B., & Kersznowski, K. (2020). Sail the 7 cs with Microsoft Education. Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.