Having text read aloud on Windows
Hearing a paragraph while you read it is one of the most effective reading aids there is. Windows has several ways to do it, and they suit quite different purposes.
Last updated September 2026 · Applies to Windows 10 and Windows 11
Why it helps
For people who find decoding text effortful, hearing the words while seeing them takes a load off. Comprehension improves because attention goes to meaning rather than to working out each word. It also catches mistakes in your own writing that your eye skates over — a sentence with a missing word sounds wrong long before it looks wrong.
It is useful well beyond dyslexia: proofreading anything important, getting through a long document when your eyes are tired, or following a recipe while your hands are busy.
The free options
Narrator (Windows + Ctrl + Enter)
Narrator is Windows' built-in screen reader, free and always present.
Worth being clear about what it is for: Narrator is designed for people who cannot see the screen, so it reads everything — buttons, menus, window titles, the lot — and it takes over your keyboard with its own commands. As a tool for having a paragraph of text read to you while you look at it, it is heavy going. As a screen reader, it is excellent and getting better.
Read Aloud in Microsoft Edge (Ctrl + Shift + U)
If what you want to read is a web page or a PDF opened in Edge, this is the best free option by a distance. The voices are natural, it highlights each word as it goes, and you can change speed and voice.
Where it falls short: it only works on what is open in Edge. It cannot read your email client, a Word document, or a message box.
Read Aloud in Microsoft Word
Word has its own Read Aloud on the Review tab, which highlights as it reads. Good inside Word, unavailable everywhere else, and it needs Microsoft 365.
Immersive Reader
Worth knowing about even though it is not strictly read-aloud. Immersive Reader, in Edge and across Microsoft 365, strips a page back to clean text and lets you increase spacing, narrow the column, highlight parts of speech and use a line focus — plus read it aloud. For a web article it is a genuinely good reading environment and it costs nothing.
What the free options don't cover
You will notice a pattern: each free tool reads its own application and nothing else. The gap is reading text from anywhere — a chat window, a PDF viewer that isn't Edge, a form you are filling in, an error message you want to hear again — without running a full screen reader.
How WinShades does it
Select text in any application, press Read Aloud, and WinShades reads it using the Windows voices already on your PC. Nothing is selected? The Text Tools window opens so you can paste or type something instead.
It uses the same window as the rest of the reading tools, so the sequence people actually want is available in one place: pull in some text, hear it, correct the spelling, check the grammar, hear it again, copy it back. You can pick the voice and the speed, and stop it mid-sentence.
The voices are the ones Windows provides, so they are as good as your system's — which on Windows 11 is very good. You can add more in Settings under Time & language, Speech.
Which should you use?
| What you want | Use this |
|---|---|
| Read a web page or PDF in the browser | Edge Read Aloud, free |
| A calmer reading layout for an article | Immersive Reader, free |
| Read a Word document | Word's Read Aloud |
| Use the computer without seeing the screen | Narrator, free |
| Read selected text from any app at all | WinShades, or another third-party tool |
| Hear your own writing back while editing it | WinShades Text Tools |
Getting more out of it
- Slow it down at first. Most people start too fast, follow nothing, and conclude it does not work for them. Begin slower than feels natural and speed up over a few days.
- Follow along with your eyes. The benefit comes from hearing and seeing together, not from listening alone.
- Use it on your own writing. It is the cheapest proofreading trick there is: you will hear a clumsy sentence immediately.
- Pair it with a tint or a reading ruler if glare or losing your place is part of the problem. They address different difficulties and stack well.
The rest of the toolkit
Reading aloud is one of four things in the WinShades Text Tools window. The others are spell check with suggestions, grammar and word-choice proofreading, and dictation that runs entirely on your own PC. Alongside them sit the screen tinting and reading rulers the app started as.