Samagra Shiksha State Project Director K. Vetri Selvi on Wednesday said the Shiksha wing and the School Education Department were collaborating with Google to introduce “Read Along”, a reading app that helps children have fun while they learn to read.
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Speaking at an online training session for district-level officials and teachers, Ms. Selvi said the “Read Along” app was being introduced to students of 1-6 Classes so they could utilise their summer vacation for increasing their reading capacity. “It leverages speech recognition and text-to-speech to help children read. It includes a built-in reading assistant Diya,” she explained, adding that as kids read aloud, Diya detects if the child is struggling with a passage and can jump in with positive reinforcement or help.
“At any point, the child can ask Diya to help him/her read a sentence or pronounce a word he/she does not know,” she said. She urged students, parents and teachers to download the app and ensure that it is put to use by the young learners. “It will keep young minds engaged with hundreds of stories and word games available in nine languages and build confidence among children in reading out loud with instant rewards of stars and badges,” she said.
Ms. Selvi said the advantage was that the young learners could move at their own pace and track their individual progress. She said teachers, students and their parents would be educated about this app from May 20 to July 5 and students should continue to use this new facility after the reopening of the schools.