Microsoft Immersive Reader in Canvas LMS

This guide explains how to use the immersive reader functionality in Canvas.

Microsoft’s Immersive Reader provides multiple features that support students with various learning and sensory needs.

Microsoft Immersive reader can be useful for any student, whether they have special needs or not.

Benefits of Immersive Reader

1. Reading Support

• Text-to-Speech: Reads text aloud, allowing students with visual impairments, dyslexia, or other reading challenges to follow along.

• Adjustable Speed and Voice: Lets users change reading speed and select different voices to create a comfortable listening experience.

2. Text Customization

• Font Size, Style, and Spacing Adjustments: Users can modify text size, font, and spacing to reduce visual clutter, which can be particularly beneficial for students with dyslexia or low vision.

• Background Colors: Students can choose from various background colors, which can ease eye strain and assist with color contrast needs.

3. Grammar and Language Tools

• Syllable Splitting: Breaks words into syllables, aiding language learners and students with reading difficulties to process words more effectively.

• Parts of Speech Highlighting: Highlights nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in different colors, helping students with language processing challenges understand sentence structure.

4. Focus Tools

• Line Focus: Allows users to display one, three, or five lines of text at a time, reducing visual distractions and supporting students with attention disorders.

• Picture Dictionary: Provides visual representations of certain words, making it easier for students with vocabulary or language comprehension challenges to understand text content.

5. Translation Features

• Language Translation: Offers on-the-fly translation for selected text or the entire document, supporting non-native speakers and those who may need content in their preferred language.

How to use Immersive Reader in Canvas

You can use the Microsoft Immersive Reader when viewing content that was built in Canvas, including the Course Home Page, Syllabus, assignments, or content pages. The Immersive Reader will not appear when viewing pdfs or other files in Canvas or when viewing content embedded in Canvas from other websites.

If you need assistance while reading pdfs or other files, use the guide to immersive reader for documents (coming soon).

Opening Immersive reader

If the content you are viewing in Canvas supports immersive reader, there will be an immersive reader button you can activate to open the immersive reader.

Open

Immersive reader will reformat the text on the page to make it easier to read, resize, or change the font to one better-suited for users with dyslexia.

Text to speech support

In immersive reader, there is a play button you can activate to listen to the text read to you.

Open

Activating the speech settings allows you to change the voice speed or whether you listen to a male or female voice.

Immersive Reader Menu

At the top of the screen is a menu that allows the user to:

• a. change the text size, font, or background colors to make reading easier.

• b. choose to break words apart by syllables or highlight parts of speech

• c. reformat the text to focus on a limited number of lines, define words, or translate a document into other languages

• d. View immersive reader full-screen

Text preferences

Activating the text preferences button will allow the user to

• change the font size

• increase line spacing

• change the font

• choose different background colors.

The Comic Sans font is helpful for people with dyslexia.

Increasing the background color can help users with certain sensitivities or can increase contrast to help users with visual disabilities better read the text.

Grammar Options

The grammar options menu allows the user to break words apart into their syllables or highlight specific parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The user can also display labels for each part of speech for easier identification, or in the case where they may be color blind.

These features can help with word recognition and pronunciation, and can be very helpful for students learning English.

Reading Preferences

The reading preferences menu allows the user to:

• turn on line focus to make reading easier

• enable a picture dictionary

• translate words or the entire document

Each of these features is described in more detail below.

Line Focus

Line focus allows the user to black out the screen except for 1, 3, or 5 lines of text, which can help users who may struggle with tracking text across a full page. Line focus presents information on the page in a controlled, less visually complex format.

This feature can benefit:

• Readers with Dyslexia or Visual Impairments: It minimizes visual clutter by displaying only one, three, or five lines of text at a time, helping users focus on smaller sections without overwhelming their vision.

• Individuals with Attention Difficulties: The reduced number of visible lines helps maintain concentration by limiting distractions, making it easier for those with ADHD or other focus-related challenges.

• Language Learners: Line Focus can assist people learning a new language by allowing them to focus on smaller text portions, making it easier to decode and understand each line without skipping ahead.

• Beginning and Struggling Readers: For younger or developing readers, Line Focus provides a more guided reading experience, helping them stay on track and reducing the likelihood of skipping lines.

Picture Dictionary

When picture dictionary is enabled, clicking a word will display an image representing the word, giving a visual reference that helps with understanding.

The Picture Dictionary feature in Microsoft Immersive Reader is primarily intended for:

1. Language Learners: It provides visual support for vocabulary, which is especially useful for students learning English or other languages, helping them connect words to images for better retention.

2. Beginning Readers: By offering images alongside words, the Picture Dictionary can help beginning readers by reinforcing vocabulary with visual cues.

3. Students with Reading Challenges: Those with dyslexia, limited vocabulary, or learning disabilities may find the Picture Dictionary useful for understanding words quickly without the need for external reference materials.

4. Visual Learners: Students who learn best with images benefit from having visuals associated with specific words, which can enhance comprehension and memory.

The Picture Dictionary is meant to make reading more accessible and engaging by providing instant visual support, which can be particularly beneficial for diverse learning needs and age groups.

Translate

The translate feature allows the user to select a language to translate into. The user can choose to translate individual words or the entire document.

Translating By word

When individual words are being translated, any word that is selected will show the English spelling along with an audio pronunciation of the English word, followed by the translation with its audio pronunciation. Clicking on the audio pronunciation can be very helpful when learning other languages.

Translating by word can be very helpful for students learning other languages who may only need occasional assistance or reminders of words.

Translating by document

When the document translation feature is toggled on, immersive reader will display the entire text of the document in the translated language.

The user can then read the entire document in the translated language, or use the text-to-speech functionality to listen to the document read to them in the translated language.