Reading Week – Reading Supports
As we are just about to head into Reading Week for some of our programs, we thought we’d do a special post highlighting some common reading difficulties, and the features that Kurzweil 3000 and Immersive Reader have to support these experiences. …and remember, both Kurzweil 3000 and Immersive Reader are freeeeeee!
Experience: do you find that when reading, you sometimes read words from multiple lines, reading from one line, then jumping up or down lines, and continuing reading? Then at the end having read a sentence that doesn’t quite make sense?
Kurzweil Support: when choosing audio options try the reading unit of line. With this setting, Kurzweil will highlight the line of text it is reading aloud, giving you a visual cue of what is being read.
Video: Text-To-Speech Audio Options (Desktop)
Note: the line reading unit is not available in ReadTheWeb
Immersive Reader Support: try out the line focus setting in Immersive Reader (which is available in almost all applications with Immersive Reader). This setting will focus on either 1, 3, or 5 lines of text at a line, and darken the other lines of text above or below, making it more difficult for you to read from other lines.
Webpage: Use Line Focus in Immersive Reader
Experience: do you find that when reading you skip words, or guess/makeup words you don’t know? If this is you, take a moment to access the built-in dictionaries of Kurzweil and Immersive Reader!
Kurzweil Support:
Video: Dictionaries in Kurzweil 3000 (Desktop)
Video: Picture and Talking Dictionaries in Kurzweil 3000 (Desktop)
Note: only the desktop and online versions of Kurzweil have the picture dictionary (all versions have a regular and talking dictionary).
Immersive Reader Support:
Webpage: Immersive Reader Picture Dictionary
Immersive Reader also has built-in grammar tools to either split words into syllables, or highlight nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs!
Webpage: Text Preferences in Immersive Reader (Edge) (scroll halfway down the page)
Experience: do you find that when reading you can’t always tell where one word begins and ends, or which letters are a part of which words? Sometimes combining two separate words and reading it as one?
Immersive Reader Support: turn on the text spacing option under text preferences (this feature is available in virtually all Microsoft products with Immersive Reader), to increase the amount of spacing between words, potentially making it easier to read.
Webpage: Text Preferences in Immersive Reader (Edge) (scroll to just about halfway down the page)
Kurzweil Support: Kurzweil does allow for users to increase or decrease page zoom, but doesn’t have a specific setting to adjust spacing in-between words.
Experience: is reading in English difficult because you’re translating in your head from another language you are more comfortable with?
Kurzweil Support: Kurzweil has both translation and reading language features, available in all versions on Kurzweil.
Video: Language Options in Kurzweil (Desktop)
Video: Language Options in Kurzweil (Online)
Immersive Reader Support: translation is available in all online platforms of Microsoft products with Immersive Reader.
Webpage: Translation in Immersive Reader (Edge) (scroll to the bottom of the page)
Experience: do you find that reading black text on white paper (or screens) is difficult, or gives you headaches? Or are certain fonts, or font sizes easier to read for you?
Kurzweil Support: in the desktop version of Kurzweil, adjust the background color, or written text color to ones that are easier for you to read. Generally speaking, softer shades of green, blue or purple can be easier on the eyes.
Video: Change Background and Written Text Color in Kurzweil (Desktop)
In the desktop or online versions of Kurzweil, you increase the page zoom to increase font size.
Video: Zoom Settings in Kurzweil (Desktop)
Video: Zoom Settings in Kurzweil (Online)
Immersive Reader Support: in the text preferences of Immersive Reader, you can adjust font size, text spacing, text column size, and page themes (background colors).
Webpage: Text Preferences in Immersive Reader (Edge) (scroll to just about halfway down the page)
Keep in mind that Immersive Reader, and the features outlined in this blog, are available in various MS Office applications such as Word, Outlook, OneNote, Edge and Teams (just to name a few). To find out which applications have Immersive Reader, or where you can access certain features, please visit the below link.
Webpage: Immersive Reader Product & Features Guide
…And if you want to learn more about these amazingly free resources, check out our past blog posts highlighting each of them: