Abstract: Systems and methods to provide a set of dictionaries and highlighting lists for speech recognition and highlighting, where the speech recognition focuses only on a limited scope of vocabulary as present in a document. The systems and methods allow a rapid and accurate matching of the utterance with the available text, and appropriately indicate the location in the text or signal any errors made during reading. Described herein is a system and method to create speech recognition systems focused on reading a fixed text and providing feedback on what they read to improve literacy, aid those with disabilities, and to make the reading experience more efficient and fun.