If you own one of the latest Amazon Kindle e-readers, you will be able to download a software update today for your device that brings two new tools that could prove very useful. According to Amazon, the 11th- and 12th-generation Kindles have received free updates that bring “Performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements”, but this doesn’t tell the whole story.

As spotted by Good E-Reader, the update brings a feature called Assistive Reader to your Kindle that can read e-books out loud using a synthetic voice. While you listen, the text the voice is currently reading is highlighted on your screen if you want to follow along.

This feature is designed for those who may have impaired vision, but it could also prove a great alternative to audiobooks. The audio read aloud is not an official audio recording of the title as you would get from an audiobook – instead, the software is able to generate a reading, likely by using AI, to read your book aloud.

According to a support page on Amazon’s website, not all books will work with Assistive Reader. The tool only works with Kindle books that have Enhanced Typesetting. To check if an e-book has it, Amazon says to head to the Kindle Store, find the book, and see if “Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled” is in the book’s feature list.

Assistive Reader can be found by going into a book, bringing up the reading settings menu where you might change font or font size, and turning on Assistive Reader.

“Assistive Reader provides you with new options to control TTS (Text-to-Speech) on your Kindle E-Reader 11th Generation and higher, Kindle Scribe, or Kindle Colorsoft,” Amazon said. The 11th-gen Kindle range came out in 2022, so if you have a Kindle or Kindle Paperwhite from that year or newer – or a Kindle Scribe or Colorsoft – you’ll get Assistive Reader.

One thing to remember is that Kindles do not have speakers or headphone jacks, so to use Assistive Reader you’ll have to connect wireless headphones to your device via the Bluetooth settings menu.

To check you have the update, which is software version 5.18.4.0.1, go to Settings > Device options > Software updates on your Kindle and see if it is there to download. It might have already been installed automatically.

This update also introduces a new font option in the Kindles’ accessibility settings that lets you enlarge the font size of the Kindle’s system and software. It doesn’t change the font size in books – you could already do that – but lets you boost the text size in the software such as your menus and the Kindle Store if you need to. Just like the Assistive Reader, the update will help Kindle users with impaired vision.