Assistive technology has done a world of good for a lot of people, and folks with learning disabilities are some of the biggest beneficiaries I’ve seen in my years doing this work.

What I want to do here is walk you through a variety of tools, and I’ve sorted them into four groups based on what they’re actually built to do: reading, writing, speech recognition, and AI-assisted support. Just know going in that everybody’s situation is a little different. The right tool for you depends on the task in front of you, the setting you’re working in, and your own background and strengths.

Reading Tools

Let’s start with reading, because that’s often where the struggle begins. These tools tackle the front end of the problem: decoding text, keeping your place on the page, and building comprehension before your working memory gets worn out and you haven’t even reached the actual content yet.

Microsoft Immersive Reader

Immersive Reader is tucked into just about every program in the Microsoft family, and I always tell people to start here. It reads text aloud and highlights each word as it goes, breaks words down into syllables, adjusts spacing and line focus, and can even translate text or pull up a picture dictionary when you hit a word you don’t recognize.

Because it’s already built in rather than something you have to bolt on, I consider it a must try. It’s free, you can learn the basics in a few minutes, and it covers a good chunk of day to day reading needs without asking you to manage yet another piece of software.

Read&Write by Texthelp

Read&Write is a literacy toolbar that adds reading support across your browser, your documents, and your PDFs. Its text to speech engine reads aloud at whatever pace you set and in the voice you like, and it backs that up with picture and text dictionaries, a translator that covers more than 90 languages, and a screen masking feature that cuts down on visual clutter for anyone who tends to lose their place.

Where Read&Write really earns its keep alongside something built in like Immersive Reader is breadth. It works consistently across more platforms and file types, and it adds study features too, like pulling your highlighted text into an organized study guide. That takes it well beyond a basic read aloud tool.

Writing Tools

Writing brings its own set of hurdles: spelling that doesn’t match how a word sounds, trouble finding the right word, and grammar and mechanics that can get in the way of a writer’s actual ideas.

Ghotit Real Writer & Reader

Ghotit was designed from the ground up for dyslexia and dysgraphia (a related learning disability that affects handwriting and written expression), not adapted from some general proofreading tool, and you can tell the moment you use the correction engine. Instead of just flagging a misspelled word, Ghotit’s engine pays attention to how a word sounds and to the context around it, so it can make sense of badly garbled spelling, homophones that get mixed up (words like “there” and “their” that sound the same but are spelled differently), and those word finding substitutions that a standard spell checker would sail right past.

It also offers word prediction, meaning it suggests the word you’re likely trying to type based on how you’ve spelled it out, dual color text to speech playback, which highlights the text in two alternating colors as it reads aloud so you can follow along and proofread by ear, and a screenshot reader that will read text aloud straight from images or other documents that would otherwise be inaccessible. It works with most major applications and document types, and there’s a fully offline mode as well.

Grammarly

Most folks I talk to have already come across Grammarly, and honestly, that familiarity is part of what makes it valuable. People already know how to use it. Its grammar and spell checking hold up well for general writing, and the browser extension means you can use it just about anywhere.

So where does Grammarly fit next to something like Ghotit? Grammarly works best for writers whose spelling needs less correction. When spelling drifts further from how the word actually sounds, a dyslexia specific engine will usually catch more and offer better suggestions.

Speech Recognition Tools

Speech recognition tools take typing and spelling out of the equation entirely. You get your ideas down by voice and worry about editing later.

Microsoft Dictate and Windows Voice Access

Dictate is built into most Microsoft programs and converts speech to text in real time, with basic voice commands for punctuation and formatting. Windows Voice Access takes that further still, letting you control an entire Windows PC by voice, opening programs, navigating menus, and dictating text anywhere on the system, not just inside Office.

Like Immersive Reader, my advice is to start here first. These tools are already built in at no extra cost, and for moderate support needs, that’s often all a person requires. Think of it as a reasonable first step before you look into a dedicated third party speech tool for needs that go beyond what the built in versions can handle.

Microsoft Word Transcription

Word’s transcription feature will record a lecture or conversation right then and there and turn it into a searchable transcript with speakers labeled. For a student who can’t write fast enough to keep up with a lecture, this changes the whole task. Instead of scrambling to take notes in real time, they can review afterward, which means they get to stay present and actually listen in class instead of splitting their attention between hearing and writing.

AI Tools

This newest category doesn’t just transcribe or correct. It organizes and summarizes, which cuts down on the sheer volume of raw material a person has to work through.

Glean

Glean, which used to be called Sonocent Audio Notetaker, records lectures and lays the audio out as a timeline that a student can tag as they listen, marking sections as important, as a task, or as something to review later. After class, instead of replaying an entire hour of audio, the student jumps straight to the moments they tagged, which line up with a synced text transcript.

This matters for the same reason Word Transcription does. It separates listening from writing in the moment, but Glean takes it a step further by giving the student a layer of organization on top of the raw recording, so review time goes toward what they flagged as important instead of re-listening to everything.

Microsoft Copilot

Copilot is woven throughout the Microsoft operating system, and for dyslexic students and employees, its most useful job is summarizing and simplifying. It can condense a long document down to the key points, draft a first pass at an email or assignment for you to edit, or rephrase dense text into plainer language. It can also help outline a piece of writing before you even start drafting, which takes some of the organizational load off, and that load often compounds the mechanical difficulty of writing with dyslexia.

Copilot isn’t meant to replace the reading, writing, or speech tools I’ve already covered. What it does is cut down the total amount of reading and writing a person has to do by hand, which in turn makes the other tools on this list easier to keep using consistently.

Building a Toolkit, Not Picking a Winner

Here’s a mistake I see often: treating this like a search for the one best product. In my experience, most people with dyslexia end up combining tools from more than one category. Immersive Reader for everyday reading, Ghotit or Grammarly for writing, and Glean or Word Transcription for lectures and meetings. I always suggest trying the built in Microsoft tools first, simply because they’re already available at no added cost and often cover moderate needs all on their own. Dedicated tools like Ghotit, Read&Write, and Glean become worth the investment once a person’s needs go beyond what those built in options can address.

At the end of the day, the goal of every tool on this list is the same: close the gap between what someone knows and what they’re able to read, write, or say, so dyslexia stops being the thing standing between them and the work they’re there to do.

About the Author

I’m Doug Lear, an Assistive Technology Specialist at Northwest Ergonomics and Assistive Technology, with offices throughout Oregon, Washington, and the broader Pacific Northwest. I’ve spent 30 years in vocational rehabilitation, the field that helps people with injuries or disabilities get back to work, but assistive technology is where my real passion lies. I enjoy working with the technology itself, but more than anything, I enjoy helping people.