The Digital Reader is now available in 6 languages thanks to Elhuyar's TTS voices. The Digital Reader is a tool to help students with reading and writing difficulties, a plugin that is installed in web browsers. The first version was released in 2016; it was developed by Elhuyar, with the support of the Department of Education of the Basque Government, and the Berritzegune Central made it available to the public.

The Digital Reader is a tool to support students who, in the reading and writing process, present reading difficulties, such as dyslexia. It can also help many other students, for example those with visual impairment or language disorders. The Digital Reader allows listening to the text at the same time that it is highlighted on the computer screen, thus facilitating the student's reading of the content.

You can see how it works here: VIDEO

The Digital Reader has made a leap to adapt to current technologies, and proof of this is the quality of the automatic voices used in the reading of texts, as well as the different possibilities of using the tool. As for the voices, the texts could be heard in Basque, Spanish and English, and now they can also be heard in Galician, Catalan and French, through voices offered through the neural TTS of Elhuyar (https://ttsneuronala.elhuyar.eus).

Elhuyar is firmly committed to the proper dissemination and prudent use of artificial intelligence tools. The Department of Education of the Basque Government has also promoted this project with the aim of guaranteeing and promoting an inclusive school. An example of this commitment is the Digital Reader, as it is a project to incorporate to the educational environment the latest innovations in artificial intelligence, whose objective is to facilitate reading comprehension to students with reading difficulties, making use of artificial intelligence.

Installation of the Digital Reader

The Digital Reader is a plugin installed on web browsers. It can be installed in Firefox, Chrome or Edge following simple installation instructions, which are available on the Department of Education’s website: (https://www.euskadi.eus/irakurle-digitala)

The Digital Reader looks the same, whatever browser you use. This is a bar-shaped add-on that will appear at the top of the browser window and the main functions of which are:

• Navigation: allows you to browse the website or the PDF file; for example, allows you to read the following phrase or paragraph, as well as read the selected phrase.
• Speed: enables speed to accelerate or slow the reading speed.
• Language: The Digital Reader offers the possibility to read texts in 6 languages; it allows to select the language.
• Voice: allows you to select the voice that will be used to read.
• Type of reading: allows you to read the followed phrase, without interruptions, or word by word.

In addition to offering the possibility to read the web pages available on the Internet, it also allows you to read the files stored on your computer. To do this, simply open the PDF file with the web browser, activate the Digital Reader and follow the steps shown on the screen.