WYNN 5.1 Helps Students Meet NCLB Requirements

New Web-based Features & Support of National Textbook Standards Provide Learners with Greater Benefits

Palo Alto, California – September 28, 2006 – Freedom Scientific's Learning Systems Group, a developer whose literacy software creates custom learning environments for struggling students, released the newest version of WYNN™ software today. WYNN 5.1 includes further enhancements to support its industry-leading solution for reading Web-based content and for reading books that meet NIMAS (National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard) goals.

For many struggling readers, printed books are not sufficient for a successful reading and learning experience. “Differentiated learning, based on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) requires multiple means of representation and multiple means of engagement,” said Roberta G. Brosnahan, Vice President and General Manager of the Learning Systems Group. She continued, “Due to the ability to tailor both auditory and visual representation of the page, electronic versions of textbooks provide greater interaction with materials, encouraging more successful reading and learning. WYNN’s new features greatly enhance this capability.”

Using WYNN 5.1, students can read DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) and NIMAS formatted books. Textbooks can be spoken aloud, and can be visually customized for each student's needs. WYNN also provides the study tools students are accustomed to using, such as highlighting, bookmarks, and dictionaries. WYNN integrates all these tools into one unique solution.

NIMAS is a national standard electronic format for textbooks used in K-12 schools. The standard is based on the DAISY format, an internationally accepted e-book format used since 1999. Publishers are increasingly asked to provide their materials in this format. With WYNN, this format is even more valuable to students.

WYNN 5.1 Introduces New High-End Voices

WYNN 5.1 will ship with both RealSpeak™ Solo and ETI-Eloquence™, the latest voices from Nuance. RealSpeak Solo is recognized as the most human-sounding speech synthesizer from Nuance. "We are pleased to be including such high-quality speech with WYNN. Many of our customers prefer the high-end, more human-sounding voices when listening to large quantities of reading materials,” Brosnahan said.

WYNN 5.1 Provides Further Enhancements to Its Patented Web-Browsing Technology

Students with learning differences have greater success with WYNN as it presents text in a clean, uncluttered format. WYNN 5.0 introduced a completely redesigned Web browser, which further extended its uncluttered textual presentation. Some of the Web-based features in WYNN 5.0 include: Web text being read out loud; WebMasking™, the patented feature that highlights selected text on a Web page by line, sentence, or paragraph while blocking out distracting elements like advertisements; highlighting directly on a live Web page; and extracting the highlighted text into a WYNN document with one mouse click.

WYNN 5.1 continues that tradition of making Web-based text easier to read and comprehend. Some of the new features include the ability to have hyperlinks spoken while hovering the mouse over them, auto-completion of Web addresses, Web information extracted into one document, and enhanced ability to find text on Web pages. All of these easy-to-use features provide differentiated learning, enabling the reader to better focus, read, and comprehend text.

WYNN 5.1 users may also access all standard WYNN features which include:

• Seeing and hearing text simultaneously
• Ability to visually customize text pages for easier reading
• Extensive study tools including Spell Check, Highlighting, Text Note, Voice Note, Dictionary, and Thesaurus
• Ability to access virtually any type of text, including printed pages, electronic text, Web sites, or PDF

For More Information

For a complimentary demo disk of WYNN 5.1 and pricing information, contact Freedom Scientific’s Learning Systems Group by phone at (800) 444-4443 x 1032 or by e-mail at WYNN@freedomscientific.com.

About The Learning Systems Group, Freedom Scientific®

The Learning Systems Group, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, was founded in 2000 by a team of educational and assistive technology experts to address the needs of students with reading-related learning challenges. The group's award-winning products, WYNN and TestTalker™, are best known as the "teacher’s choice." Products are currently sold in the United States, Canada, the U.K., Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Australia. Freedom Scientific, Inc. is also the world's leading manufacturer of assistive technology products for individuals who are blind or visually impaired.

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WYNN and TestTalker are trademarks of Freedom Scientific, Inc.