This week Microsoft unveiled a slew of new accessibility options for the services that teachers and students use most. One of those features is the inclusion of Immersive Reader in Flipgrid.

Immersive Reader is a free service that students can use to have text read aloud to them. Immersive Reader not only reads aloud it will also highlight parts of speech and individual syllables within every word on a page. What this means in the context of Flipgrid is that students who need assistance accessing directions or discussion prompts can now use Immersive Reader to hear those directions and prompts read aloud.

Office Lens is another Microsoft product that now includes Immersive Reader. This free app (available for Android and iOS) will now let you take a picture of text and have that text read aloud through the use of Immersive Reader.

More implementations of Immersive Reader as scheduled for later this fall. Those implementations include real-time translation and the math pane in OneNote. Read more about those features in Microsoft’s announcement of the expansion of Immersive Reader implementation.