Site, Sight, Cite. Alms, Arms. Eight, Ate. It might be a fun exercise for a junior school student to spot the difference between the words, but for those without sight, the similar-sounding words are all the same, even when they use screen-reading software. That is because for the visually-impaired, most words are heard and spoken, and seldom written by them.

Enabling Dimensions (ED), a software company that has been working to make the web a friendly place for the blind, says this is what prompted them to design a unique software product that will help the visually-challenged to spell. ?Contrary to belief, very few visually-disabled students know Braille,? says Shilpa Uttam, who handles the Indian operations for the Singapore-based IT company. She goes on to explain that visually-challenged persons usually learn by hearing, either with the help of friends, audio cassettes or text-to-speech computer software.

Enabling Dimensions started in 2002, when they made the Fifa football World Cup accessible to the blind on their website, www.enableall.org. ED has also been working with a group of blind achievers. It is through their interaction with these people that ED realised that spelling was a perennial problem with them.

SpellWell will facilitate the visually disabled to learn words that are helpful to learners in their profession or higher studies. ?Our wordlists will include commonly misspelt homophone words, words used in business communications, and in professions such as medical transcription,? reveals Uttam. ED?s technical experts are now ready with the first prototype, and are all set to launch the product on the Internet through the Enableall website.

The prototype for the e-learning module has a three-step approach to the learning process: Learn, Practice and Test.

At the end of it all, the blind become better spellers and more confident people.