From Omoguru's very beginning we keep lectures about dyslexia and reading difficulties as our highest priority. The lack of consistent, simple and modern knowledge has the crucial influence on students with reading difficulties. That's why, with everyone involved in their education, reading and learning - teachers, librarians, experts... we continuously share our knowhow and approach that enables them to provide appropriate support, help grow and develop in every aspect of their life for which reading is important.
We closely collaborate with the speech therapists community, sharing knowledge and approaches that improve both use and development of new technology solutions. Among the most prominent we highlight lectures at the conference for advanced technology solutions for children with difficulties (AT AAC) and conference held for the European Day of Speech and Language Therapy.
Many web pages are not accessible to screen readers for blind or to use with a keyboard for ones with motor skill challenges. Besides people with visible difficulties, digital content is often inappropriate for dyslexics and people with cognitive difficulties.
That is the main reason CARNET, as a leader in digitalization of education, wanted to take one step further and make all their educational solutions accessible. From 2021 OmoLab is testing accessibility of web pages, applications and digital education materials within the e-School project.
This is first such undertaking in Croatia so we can say all participants in the project are pioneers of digital accessibility 😊
There is no unique definition of dyslexia. In the EU we don’t even know the number of people with dyslexia. These facts affect policies that are being implemented to help dyslexics. To be able to propose a unique framework for dyslexia screening, with other partners in this project we are researching similarities and differences in definitions of dyslexia and screening practices across Europe.
Digital accessibility is part of a welcoming culture, common decency, and acceptance. It is a basic human right and benefits all citizens. However, importance of equal access to digital content often falls short on stakeholder's priority list. That approach affects almost quarter of the population. We wanted to bring to light challenges of web/digital accessibility in a creative way - so we joined forces with illustrators Hana Tintor and Tea Jurisic.
Our app analytics shows that our users have read over 600 000 pages in books and stories in the past 3 years. If we would stack each page on top of each other we would get 4-stories high building.
The OmoType font system is free for non-commercial education and personal use. Teachers told us they love to use it to prepare learning materials and exams both in elementary and high schools. We're especially joyful to see OmoType being used in all materials and for everyone so there wouldn't be a difference between students.
With picture books from dyslexic authors we want to empower the ones who slightly struggle with reading. So far we have published 3 editions - "Tiny People", "The Reading Star" and "The Most Special Gift" that are available on shelfs of almost all Croatian libraries.
So far we have created two digital collections of short stories for children from grades 2 to 5. Students can read, practice reading and fluency, and comprehension. We have learned from parents, teachers, and speech therapists that they can't wait for the next one :)
We're especially proud to be able to share our knowledge with teachers, speech therapists and various experts. In the last two years we had over 20 lectures in schools, to expert panels, and to speech therapy students.
In collaboration with national campaign for people with reading difficulties and dyslexia "I too want to read" we participated in the Book Nights manifestation. In short program "Omoguru reads for students from a distance" we were included in an education of those who wanted to better understand challenges of people with dyslexia and other reading difficulties and learn new skills that they can apply working with them.