DARE launches new website with BrowseAloud 5 May 2011

DARE – The Dyslexia Advocacy, Resources and Education Charity Trust – is a brand new organisation in Australia that endeavours to promote the very best that technology and education can bring to the community.

In conjunction with the launch of its new website – learninghelp.org.au – DARE announced the adoption of award-winning text-to-speech software, BrowseAloud.

BrowseAloud reads website content aloud and highlights each word as it is spoken. It specifically assists groups who have difficulty reading online content, in particular persons with dyslexia, literacy skill difficulties and specific learning difficulties.

Trustees Antonia Canaris and Margaret Ellis are special education teachers who have witnessed how dyslexia attacks the self-esteem and life-prospects of their students. Ms Canaris comments, “The trustees of Dyslexia Advocacy Resources and Education (DARE) are proud to be able to launch our website with BrowseAloud. We hope that many people will be able to benefit from this amazing technology. We also hope that BrowseAloud gets adopted as a universal feature of web design.

“We realise that dyslexia is highly hereditary and thus feel that this technology will help families who find it hard to access up-to-date information that often has quite complex language and is hard to read.”

One of the core features that BrowseAloud deploys is ‘dual-colour highlighting’. Each sentence is highlighted in one colour, while each word is highlighted in a contrasting colour, as it is spoken. This has been found to improve reading comprehension.

Additional features include text magnification, a spoken dictionary, screen tinting and an MP3 Maker.

Visitors to DARE’s website simply click on the BrowseAloud icon on the homepage and follow the simple steps to download BrowseAloud, free of charge.

Media Release