With ReadSpeaker’s leading online text to speech technology, Castle Learning offers enhanced accessibility to its students.

 DEPEW, NY (USA)/ UPPSALA (Sweden) – January 17 2012 – Castle Learning Online has recently introduced ReadSpeaker’s web-based online text-to-speech solution to help students interact better with its web-based review, testing, and assessment tool.  Over 90,000 field-tested questions are now speech-enabled on the fly with near-to-human quality voices.

December 2011, which was the first month of ReadSpeaker’s online text-to-speech implementation on the Castle Learning platform, saw over 440,000 clicks on the listen buttons. The high level of usage by Castle Learning students demonstrates the usefulness of having a click & listen tool that doesn’t require any downloads for the end-user. The audio version of the Castle Learning platform enables all students including those that have cognitive issues, learning disabilities, and vision problems, as well as those who do not speak or read English as their first language, access the educational content and thereby improve their learning capabilities. The highlighting of the text as it is being read also reinforces a better understanding of the content.

“Many of our customers expressed the need for an integrated text-to-speech option, and we listened! Our partnership with ReadSpeaker is a cost effective way for schools to provide access to high quality content and an easy to use audio tool.”  said Nick Hall, Marketing Manager.

“We are thrilled by the rapid and positive reception of ReadSpeaker by Castle Learning students. Providing an audio alternative for Castle Learning’s material proves to be a must-have tool for users who have reading difficulties but also a comfort solution for all students,” says Joop Heijenrath, ReadSpeaker Co-Founder and responsible for ReadSpeaker’s business operations outside of Europe. “Having an audio version of online educational content is becoming a mainstream tool for learners and helps them access written content on all devices including smartphones and tablets.”

About ReadSpeaker

ReadSpeaker® is the worldwide leader in online text to speech. In 1999, ReadSpeaker pioneered the first-ever speech-enabling application for websites. Today, the company’s web-based text-to-speech services are used by thousands of websites/mobile apps and millions of users worldwide every month. ReadSpeaker speech-enables online content on the fly in 35 languages and 90 voices. The company provides a portfolio of web-based text-to-speech solutions for websites, mobile sites, mobile apps, RSS feeds, online documents and forms, as well as online campaigns. More than 5000 corporate, media, government, and nonprofit customers around the world use ReadSpeaker online text-to-speech solutions. For more information, visit http://www.readspeaker.com.

About Castle Learning Online

Castle Learning Online (Castle Software, Inc.) has been serving the education industry for over 20 years.  This web-based review, testing and assessment tool is used by over 1 million students and teachers to improve academic achievement in the primary core subjects – Math, English, Science, Social Studies and Foreign Languages (Spanish/French).  Schools also use Castle Learning as a delivery device for common assessments to meet data driven evaluation of student achievement.  Castle Learning’s correlation and alignment to Common Core and state standards make it a valuable asset for teachers and administrators.  The full access to all courses and levels for one economical cost stretches the budget dollar for participating schools and districts.  Castle Learning provides easy access for all users from any Internet connected device including handheld units, IPhone, IPods, Smartphones and tablets.  Castle Learning also offers a solution for SAT and ACT preparation.  For more information, visit www.castlelearning.com or call 1-800-345-7606 extension 2.