February 12, 2020 - Today, Croatian startup Omoguru, a company that improves dyslexics reading skills, announces that it aims to help improve reading skills for over 130 million dyslexics in Croatian, English, Spanish and German language. Based on research over the last couple of years, Omoguru dyslexia-friendly tools are now ready to help English-speaking dyslexics.
There are solutions for dyslexics, especially in the segment of text-to-speech apps. But to improve reading skills you actually need to read. Since reading is quite tiring, the main premise of the app is to make it easier to read. Omoguru improves readability and provides a better visual impact. Even though dyslexia is the language difficulty, the only interface for reading is font and text. Dyslexics use the app to find the most appropriate appearance of the text that suits each reader perfectly. The core of the solution is a visually comfortable OmoType font family designed to improve letter detection and word recognition. Research proves it reduces reading time, mistakes and mental effort needed to read. The app provides specific text adjustments (font type, size, spacing between the lines and letters, syllable marking for reading rhythm, mirror letters differentiation) and tools that help with reading speed and focus.
“Omoguru Reader has been present in Croatia for over a year, where we currently have around 10 000 users of our tools. Since October, the version for English language is available on stores and user base, especially in the USA is constantly growing,” says Vanja Andric, who is in charge of getting the solution to as many dyslexics possible. Omoguru is currently preparing two pilot programs with middle schoolers in New York and looking to start conversations with many other schools.
Last month Omoguru received great feedback from an independent trial done in the UK with 6 dyslexic students. The trial was done by a Head of one SEN school and included teachers and educational psychologists. They concluded Omoguru is a truly wonderful application. Each child reported that it helped them read and all gave the app thumbs up. Teachers and education psychologists felt Omoguru was a well-developed app they should use to support students.
“Combining the tools, products, and activities, besides empowering the position of dyslexic children, our effort is to create a global community that destigmatizes dyslexia and encourages the blossoming of dyslexics creative potential by making it easier to read, learn and grow in all aspects of life in which reading is important.” said the founder and CEO of Omoguru, Petar Reic. Petar isn’t dyslexics himself but he lives with dyslexia every day. His wife and 13-year-old daughter are both dyslexic. He created this product because he couldn’t find anything else that would suit his daughter.
For people with dyslexia, the ability to read and understand text can be affected by the way in which text has been written and produced. Each person with dyslexia is affected in a different way. In the USA about 1 in 5 persons are dyslexic, while on average it affects 1 in 10 people worldwide.
“We aim to support them during education. Make it easier for dyslexic students to read the necessary literature and improve reading skills. They will be more independent and tackle what life throws at them as they move forward. It would be amazing if more dyslexics would have the ability to go through life with better reading skills, carrying fewer issues from the early days. And to be able to focus more on the positive sides of dyslexia.” say at Omoguru.
Join dyslexic students (and adults) who already use Omoguru to make the text more readable and decode words with ease. “The app is available for free, with books preloaded so you can start reading immediately. We also have some premium features you can subscribe to” say at Omoguru. The idea is to make the app as easily available to end-users but they look to provide business accessibility solutions. One such case is the Cornell Law School’s Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.
“Hopefully, businesses will be more interested to improve their website accessibility so we’ll be able to offer customer solutions completely for free” say at Omoguru. The app for Android and iOs are available in their stores.
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