What is Immersive Reader?
Ed tech in the classroom can significantly enhance the learning experience, especially for students with varying literacy skills. Recently, I had the opportunity to integrate Microsoft’s Immersive Reader into part of a Year 10 History lesson, and the results were very encouraging.
Immersive Reader in Microsoft Teams helps students read and understand their assignments better. It offers features like text-to-speech, translation, and adjustable text spacing. This free tool is great for all students, especially those with learning difficulties, as it provides a personalised reading experience. With Immersive Reader, teachers can easily create a more inclusive classroom.
The Lesson Plan
The lesson focuses on the Holocaust, aiming to educate students about the anti-Jewish laws enacted by the Nazi Government in the 1930s. Students will log into their class Microsoft Team and access an assignment featuring an information worksheet created in Word. Anticipating that the text might be challenging for this class, I needed a strategy/tool to make the content more accessible and engaging. For a quick assessment, students would then answer questions about the information using an online quiz. Given that most students in the class had below-average literacy skills and lacked confidence in independent reading, this approach would be essential to ensure effective learning.
Pre-Learning and Preparation
In a previous lesson, I introduced the students to Immersive Reader, showing them how to access and use this powerful tool. Immersive Reader, which is built into Microsoft Teams (and other Microsoft products), is an excellent resource for students who struggle with reading. I felt it was also important to try and achieve student ‘buy in’ by asking their thoughts on using the software – virtually all were willing to give it go.
Computers and headphones
For the main lesson, I reserved a computer suite and made sure that class teaching assistants could borrow headsets for each student. The task details were posted on Teams, and students were instructed to log in and use Immersive Reader to access both the assignment instructions and the worksheet in the attached Word document. The biggest challenges for some pupils were accessing Teams, finding the assignment, and then locating the Immersive Reader icon. However, these obstacles were easily overcome, and once the students were set up, they were able to engage with the task with minimal additional support.
The Impact
The use of Immersive Reader allowed students to access materials that I or the teaching assistants would have otherwise had to read aloud (probably several times). This not only saved time but also empowered the students to take control of their own learning. The mainly text-based worksheet covered key facts about laws passed against the German Jewish population and many of the pupils would have struggled to access the material independently.
At the end of the lesson, I used an individual Quizizz to gauge the students’ learning. The results, while acknowledging that the Quizizz assessment was rudimentary and not standardised, were very encouraging. The students achieved an overall class accuracy of 82%.
To gather more information on how pupils viewed the experience, I asked for feedback from the students via a Microsoft Form.
Most students rated the Immersive Reader highly for helping them understand assignments and read fact sheets, with a mean rating of 4.42 out of 5. Additionally, students believed that using the Immersive Reader helped them perform better in the assessment, with a mean rating of 4.25 out of 5.
From my observations, the pupils seemed to genuinely enjoy using the headphones with the software. All the equipment worked perfectly, and every pupil was engaged in the lesson. The classroom was silent, indicating focused attention. There was evidence that this was a really good and enjoyable learning environment.
Pupils also mentioned in oral feedback that they found the experience helpful. While Quizizz and Microsoft Forms provided valuable insights, incorporating a variety of assessment methods, such as group discussions or written reflections, might offer a more comprehensive understanding of student learning.
Conclusion
Integrating Immersive Reader into the lesson was really worth the effort. It broke down barriers to learning and provided students with the tools they needed to succeed. While this is a really engaging tool, access to the software is dependent on access to hardware (laptops/desktops and headphones), which means that it more than likely would be difficult to use all of the time in mainstream class settings. Nevertheless, the lesson was a resounding success, and I look forward to incorporating more technology-driven strategies in future lessons.
Further Features of Immersive Reader
By embracing tools like Immersive Reader, we can create more inclusive and effective learning environments for all students. If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend giving it a go in one of your next lessons!
Feel free to share your experiences or ask any questions in the comments below.
Use Immersive Reader in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Support
22. Boosting Student Engagement: How to Set Up Microsoft Teams Classwork – EdTech4Everyone