Supporting The Literacy of ALL Learners With Learning Tools

One of the most popular features of OneNote Class Notebooks was the "Learning Tools" which have enabled students of all abilities to process content more easily:

The Learning Tools for OneNote help everyone improve their reading and writing skills, including gifted learners, students with learning differences or a combination of any of the broad range of unique student abilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ztr44aKmQ8

As an organisation, Microsoft has a huge focus on accessibility when it comes to enabling everyone to use technology and in line with this vision, some of the best features of the OneNote Learning Tools are coming to new platforms in the Office Suite.

Read the full announcement here from the official Office Blog

Announced in late February, the same features of the Learning Tools will now be built directly into Word 2016 (in the ProPlus "click to run" version), Word Online and OneNote Online. You will be able to access these under the "View" menu and it will be called "Immersive Reader." As per the blog, the following features are available:

Learning Tools includes a modified reader view that utilizes techniques proven to help people read more effectively, such as:

• Read Aloud—Reads text aloud with simultaneous highlighting that improves decoding, fluency and comprehension while sustaining the reader’s focus and attention.
• Spacing—Optimizes font spacing in a narrow column view to improve reading fluency for users who suffer from visual crowding issues.
• Syllables—Shows the breaks between syllables to enhance word recognition and decoding.
• Parts of Speech* —Supports writing instruction and grammar comprehension by identifying verbs, nouns and adjectives.

In practice, this looks like the following:

These tools are available in numerous languages as well.

Educators should definitely check these out for all students so they can be supported in their literacy.