Reading tools and accessibility features: what is built in and what the research says

Most phones, computers and browsers already include text-to-speech, reader views, dictation and text spacing controls, usually free and a few taps away. Research gives modest support to listening while reading, while special fonts and colored overlays have not been shown to improve reading, though comfort is still a fair reason to use them.

Android and Chrome

Select to Speak is turned on under Settings > Accessibility > Select to Speak. After that, you tap an item or drag a finger across the screen to hear it, or tap Play to hear everything. Google notes that you can also select text and choose Read aloud from the More menu without turning Select to Speak on.^[9]

Android's Reading mode is a separate free app from the Play Store. Google says it needs Android 9 or later, runs only on phones, and lets you change color theme, font size, font type, bold text, line spacing, reading voice and speed. It does not currently work with PDFs, emails, chat messages or social media feeds.^[10]

On a computer, Chrome reading mode opens by right-clicking a page and choosing Open in reading mode, or from More > More tools > Reading mode. It lets you change the typeface, font size, color theme, line height and letter spacing, and it can read text aloud with word or sentence highlighting.^[11]

Dictation and spelling help

On iPhone, dictation is turned on under Settings > General > Keyboard > Enable Dictation; you can then say punctuation, say "new line," spell a word letter by letter, or say "select" or "delete" followed by a phrase to edit.^[12] On Windows, voice typing starts with the Windows logo key + H when your cursor is in a text box, and it needs an internet connection and a microphone.^[13] In Word, Home > Dictate is available to Microsoft 365 subscribers.^[14]

Word's Editor pane, opened from the Review tab, checks spelling, grammar and some style issues and suggests fixes; you can have a suggestion read aloud before accepting it.^[15] Hearing a suggested word can help when two spellings look similar on screen.

Display settings worth trying

On iPhone, Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size has Larger Text and Bold Text, and you can add a Text Size control to Control Center to change size inside an app.^[16] Spacing controls are mostly inside reading views: Accessibility Reader, Immersive Reader, Word, Android Reading mode and Chrome reading mode all let you widen line or letter spacing.^[2][7][11]

Audiobooks and accessible library services

In the United States, the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled at the Library of Congress is a free audio and braille library. Its eligibility rules include people "certified by competent authority as having a perceptual or reading disability," and the list of people who can certify includes doctors, educators, social workers and librarians.^[17]

Bookshare, a nonprofit accessible ebook library, lists reading disabilities such as dyslexia among its qualifying conditions for adults, and requires a professional with appropriate expertise to confirm the condition.^[18] Bookshare says membership is free for U.S. students with a qualifying disability and that an IEP or 504 plan is not required.^[19]

What the research says

A 2017 systematic review limited to people aged 14 and older pooled 38 intervention studies of assistive technology for learning disabilities. Word processing with spelling and grammar checks showed the largest effect, text-to-speech showed small effects at the group level, and speech-to-text studies varied too much to combine, although most individual results were positive.^[24] The authors suggest some individuals may benefit more than the group averages show, which is a good reason to test a tool on your own reading.^[24]

Reading the evidence fairly means keeping two things apart. A setting that has not been shown to improve reading scores can still make a page more comfortable, and comfort, less eye strain or simple preference are reasonable grounds for choosing a font or background color. Microsoft's Edge page themes, for example, include options inspired by Irlen Spectral Filters,^[6] and choosing one costs nothing. What the evidence does not support is paying for colored lenses or overlays in the expectation that they will change reading skill.

If reading is uncomfortable or blurry, the British Dyslexia Association advises discussing it with an optician, whatever else you decide.^[30] For practical habits that go with these tools, see reading strategies, reading at work and reading while studying.