Immersive Reader is an online alternative format that enhances the readability of course content and promotes comprehension. This interactive feature is located in the alternative formats option provided by Ally in bCourses. For an overview of accessing the Ally alternative formats options, watch the video entitled "Ally Tutorial for Students at UC Berkeley.”
To get started, open the Ally Alternative Formats option and select "Immersive Reader."
Once Immersive Reader is selected from the Download alternative formats window, the content of the file displays in a new window with control buttons.
Figure Caption: 1.The Play/Pause button starts and stops the text-to-speech feature. 2. Use the Voice settings button to adjust the Voice Speed and change the Voice Selection between male and female. 3. Opening the Text Preferences button provides an interface to alter text size, spacing, font type, and background color. 4. The Grammar option can divide words into syllables and provide an interface highlighting nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. 5. The Reading Preferences button provides an interface enabling Line Focus, which simultaneously resizes focus to a single line, three, or five lines.
Users can activate the Voice settings button to adjust the Voice Speed and change the Voice Selection between male and female.
Opening the Text Preferences button provides an interface to alter text size, spacing, font type, and background color.
Figure Caption: The Text Formattings Settings Panel. At the top are icons for text formatting options, and a close button is on the right. Below the icons is a slider for Text Size with a scale from small to large, and the slider is currently set to just under 42. Under the text size, a toggle switch labeled Increase Spacing is turned on and indicated by a green color. Next, there are options for Font with three choices: Calibri (selected), Sitka, and Comic Sans. Lastly, there is a section titled Themes with six color options for text background: Black with white text (selected), White with black text, Dark grey with white text, Blue with white text, Green with white text, and Yellow with black text. There is also a dropdown option for More Colors.
The Grammar option can divide words into syllables and provides an interface to highlight nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
Figure Caption: The Reading Preferences menu. At the top are two icons, one resembling a pair of 'A's and the other a book, with a close button 'X' on the right. Below is a toggle switch labeled "Syllables Off," indicating that the syllable breakdown feature is currently disabled. Underneath, there's a section titled "Parts of Speech" with four options, each with a colored square and a checkbox: Purple square with a checkmark next to "nouns," Red square with a checkmark next to "verbs," Green square with a checkmark next to "adjectives," Yellow square with a checkmark next to "adverbs." Each option has a corresponding toggle switch to the right, and all are turned off except for "adverbs," which is enabled. At the bottom, there's an option "Show labels" with its toggle switch turned off.
The Reading Preferences button provides an interface enabling Line Focus, which resizes focus to a single line, three or five lines simultaneously. A Picture Dictionary option also visually represents the most common words in the displayed text. And finally, the translation feature offers over 100 languages.
Figure Caption: Line Focus settings show the following options: At the top are three icons; the first looks like two capital A's (one larger than the other), the second resembles four horizontal lines with a wand, and the third is an open book with the label "Line Focus Off". Below the icons is a section titled "Line Focus" with a minus sign on the left and a toggle switch on the right, currently set to off. A "Picture Dictionary" section with a green toggle switch turned on is underneath that. The last section is titled "Translate" with a dropdown menu that says "Choose a language" and two options below it: "By word" and "Document," each with a toggle switch that is currently off.
Immersive Reader is a unique reading engagement tool available through Ally in bCourses. For more information, contact Allyhelp@berkeley.edu