Instructure Announces Immersive Reader Available Free to Canvas Users

Collaboration Will Help More Students Improve Reading Comprehension

Today at the 15th Global Education Partner Summit (GEPS), Instructure announced that Immersive Reader, a Microsoft Learning Tool, is now generally available within the Canvas Learning Management System. The feature is free to all Canvas customers on any Canvas Pages content, making reading more accessible to all learners.

“Last year Instructure became the first learning management system provider to offer Immersive Reader for students,” said Mitch Benson, Chief Product Officer at Instructure. “Our beta users love this tool because it demonstrably increases reading and writing comprehension, and is seamlessly woven inside the Canvas experience at no additional cost to schools. This is just one piece of the broader collaboration between Microsoft and Instructure that we’re excited to move forward in 2021.”

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Immersive Reader uses proven techniques to improve reading for people regardless of their age or ability. Key features include read text out loud, break it into syllables, and increase spacing between lines and letters. It offers text decoding solutions for students with learning differences, such as dyslexia. The learning tool encourages independent reading and provides a teaching aid that helps teachers support students’ unique learning needs.

Over the past year, Instructure has expanded its longtime collaboration with Microsoft, with new integrated solutions including offering Microsoft Teams meetings as one of the default conferencing tools in Canvas. The companies are working to enrich the remote and hybrid learning experience to meet current challenges of the pandemic and build an infrastructure for a post-pandemic educational landscape.

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“Microsoft and Instructure share a commitment to educational equity for students everywhere by providing digital tools that improve accessibility,” said Eran Megiddo, Corporate Vice President of Modern Life and Learning, Microsoft. “This integration provides Microsoft the opportunity to support one of the largest education communities in the world, with 30 million students on the Canvas platform. Canvas users will be empowered by Immersive Reader, which unlocks the potential of all learners.”

Canvas is a web-based learning management system, used by learning institutions, educators, and students to access and manage online course learning materials, and communicate about skill development and learning achievement. Canvas Pages store educational resources that are part of a course or group and can include text, video, links to files, and other content. Now with the integration of Immersive Reader, learners get another powerful level of support to ensure they can consume and comprehend those resources regardless of their reading ability, with features like Line Focus and Picture Dictionary that meet their individual literacy needs.

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