Voiceover for Mac or jaws or nvda for windows

Others mentioned good points, I add another one. The very first step you can take in training your mother to use her laptop is to help her memorize the keyboard. If she doesn't already know, teach her touch typing. We blind people don't use mouse, so the primery input device we use is the keyboard. Knowing our way around it is very important, especially that she wants to use Word. Good luck.

Make sure she knows how to touch type and knows all the keyboard shortcuts!

If she's using a Windows 10 device, Narrator comes with it and may be enough for getting started, although as others have said JAWS and NVDA are more robust.

Microsoft has the Disability Answer Desk and either of you can call or chat anytime, for free. The contact details are on this page. Scroll down and there is live chat and phone options. $1

Also check out support videos and user guide:

Narrator at at Glance (and others) $1

Narrator 101 webinar: $1

Complete Guide to Narrator: $1

I highly recommend JAWS. They have some very nice training that you can go through with her. Also, in the United States you can get it for $90 a year.

First thing's first, a screen reader. Windows 10 has narrator built in, and it's getting better; but it's not quite there yet. SO if she's on windows, you really have two options. Jaws and NVDA. The former is paid, and costs quite a bit; but there is a home program that is like $90 a year in certain countries. The latter is free, but unless you invest in some voices, you're going to be stuck with eSpeak NG or the ones built into windows which are not really comfortable for listening to articles and the like.

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Whichever one you choose, and it's really down to preference and is a hotly contested matter among the blind community, get familiar with it so you can help her get familiar with it. Over time, the keystrokes you need to use become second nature. Also, a lot of these are windows based, and don't even require a keystroke. Common things like CTRL+C to copy and CTRL+V to paste. I think they can benefit sighted users as well.

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Mac has VoiceOver, which is really the only option outside a terminal. Chromebooks have ChromeVox, and on Linux, you have Orca in the desktop and either Speakup, or Fenrir for the terminal. Don't try to run both at once lol, and before running Fenrir, blacklist all of speakup's kernel modules.