What is immersive reading and how it makes reading fun?
Keep your students glued to reading with this easy tool you never noticed in your phone and laptop.
Do your students lose interest within a few minutes of reading?
Learners cannot focus beyond 10–15 minutes, as studies claim, and there are many reasons behind it. Different reading speeds, poor reading comprehension skills, and reading disabilities to name a few.
Ever heard of the immersive reading tool? If you are an English or Social Sciences teacher, and reading is a big part of your daily lessons, then immersive reading can keep your students focused for longer.
Whenever I had ‘story-reading’ time in my class, my students would be very excited. However, 10 minutes into reading, I could see mouths yawning, hands fidgeting and minds wandering. Had I known about immersive reader earlier, I would have used it daily in my class.
Here’s all you need to know about the immersive reading tool, its benefits, and its uses so that YOU don’t miss it.
What is immersive reading?
Immersive reading is a reading experience wherein the reader is fully involved in the process.
Completely focused and absorbed into the text.
Think of Virtual Reality or watching a 3D movie.
The learner doesn’t only read the text but also makes meaning out of it, all at his or her own pace.
Readers can choose their font style, size, and speed; can listen to the text; convert text into their first language; see word meanings, and syllables; change the background color and whatnot.
The list doesn’t end here.
And all with a free and simple tool.
But, But,
How is all this possible?
What if I say that you have been using this edtech tool all through this time in your classrooms and teaching career?
I’m talking about-
- Microsoft Word
- Edge and Chrome Web browser
- Wikipedia
- PDFs
- Google Forms
And a lot many apps in your daily life!
All these platforms have the ‘Microsoft Immersive Reader’ feature enabled.
Immersive Reader Meaning
Result of extensive research, Microsoft’s Immersive Reader is a free tool that enhances the reading experience of learners.
The immersive reading tool by Microsoft gives a personalized reading experience to your students by allowing them to:
- read text aloud;
- change reading speed;
- adjust text preferences(font, spaces between words, and lines) as per their need;
- custom color for parts of speech;
- switch between languages and convert text;
And many more excellent useful features to develop and improve reading and phonic skills.
Does Immersive Reader help?
The immersive reader has proven to make its magic for the cause it was built for- helping students succeed in school and read better.
It has helped children with special needs and disabilities and made reading inclusive in the classroom.
What programs does it work with?
- One note
- Word
- Edge
- Chrome
- Teams
And most of the digital ed-tech apps you use in the class.
Now let’s see how it works.
Immerive Reader in Word Documents
Ask your students to open the word document you want them to read.
Guide them to Select ‘View’ on top.
Can you see the ‘Immersive Reader’ tool circled in red?
That’s it, that’s your Immersive reader tool for Word documents.
See the red rectangle in the top left corner?
Those are the single-click functions of the immersive reading tool on Microsoft Word.
Zoom in on the above image to check out the incredible features(underlined in green) that help your students read effectively.
Ask your kids to change the column width, page background color, line focus, and space between text according to their needs and reading style.
Awesome, isn’t it? No learner feels left out!
Want them all to read with you?
Select Read-Aloud and save your energy(vocal).
Here are pictures for you to quickly spot the immersive reader tool on most of the platforms you use in the classroom.
Wikipedia and Microsoft Edge Browser
If you use the Edge web browser, then you can easily find the immersive reader tool inbuilt on the top-right of the search bar(in red).
Clicking this ‘open book’ immersive reader logo will take your learners to the reading world where they can soak in every word, access grammar tools, read aloud and do much more.
*** If using Chrome web browser, you have to do an additional step(not difficult) and download a chrome extension for immersive reading.
You can download one free(limited features but enough for you to begin with) immersive reader extension, Helper Bird.
As soon as you download it, the immersive reader icon will appear on top of the chrome web browser, like in Edge.
For PDFs and other formats, move the file to Microsoft OneNote and start reading!
To explore more about the immersive reader tool and how to use it, watch this detailed video by Microsoft.
Or on your mobile!
By clicking a picture of the story or text you want your students to read through Google Lens.
Don’t know how to use Google Lens?
Read it here👇
Still have doubts?
Read these excellent benefits of immersive reading for kids(any age, any reading disability).
1. Reading for different subjects
Help your students read English, Science, Social Studies, History, Geography, Hindi, and Math lessons.
Immersive Reader also helps with reading Math problems, equations, and solutions.
YES!
2. Makes classroom inclusive
Children with dyslexia, reading problems, or special needs are benefitted from it.
How?
It reads aloud, dictates, can focus on one, two, or three lines at a time, identify parts of speech, breaks words into syllables, and helps visual learners see pictures with words.
3. Improves phonic skills
The immersive reader tool tells the correct pronunciation of words and develops phonetics.
4. Improving listening skills
The read-aloud feature?
It enhances your students’ listening and comprehension skills
5. Makes reading fun
The picture dictionary brings clarity and visual depiction. Switching between their senses(audio and verbal) keeps them focused and interested.
6. Supports multiple languages
Change the language in Immersive Reader, in one click.
For instance, have Tamil students in your class?
Now that you know this simple reading tool that was hiding in your phone and laptop, why don’t you try it in tomorrow’s lesson?
Takeaway
The immersive reader tool has benefitted many learners worldwide, enhancing their reading ability, reading comprehension skills, and fluency.
Don’t let your students stay unknown to it.
Found this helpful?
Share this article with your students and teacher friends!
More teacher resources and guides:
- Classroom Management Strategies
- How to create your teaching portfolio?
- Best informative teacher podcasts to listen to.
Happy reading!
By Manika Pant
A Content Writer, EdTechxpert and Education Enthusiast! Manika Pant is a trained teacher, having done B.Ed. and M.A. Education. She has 8+ years of school teaching experience. Creator of ‘Learning with M’, a Math educational YouTube channel, Manika is a content creator in the morning, a nature lover in the evening, and a poet by night.
👉 Thanks for making my words part of your day! Leave a comment below to share your experience or write me an email if you have any questions.
