Monday, March 11, 2019

An app to aid students’ reading skills

Rural students often face problems in reading, and understanding simple text books in Hindi and English. To overcome this challenge, Google has come up with an app called Bolo, which aims at helping primary school children read and learn smoothly. The app aims to aid students improve their Hindi and English reading abilities. The beta version of Bolo is operational in an offline mode.
As per the ASER 2018, only 27.2% of class III students were able to read the text books meant for class II students, while only 50.3% of class V students were able to read the books prescribed to class III students. “Learning gaps have serious implications on the future of the child,” says Nitin Kashyap, product manager, Google. Bolo will soon be available in other regional languages too.
“Efforts are being made to bridge the learning gap, but the pace has been slow. Three major roadblocks include lack of access to quality education, limited infrastructure and barriers to learn outside the classrooms,” Nitin adds.
Using this speech-technology based app, kids can read interesting stories, learn new words and its pronunciation all by themselves. There are about 50 and 40 stories in Hindi and English, respectively. These stories are available free of cost. With the help of built-in reading buddy – Diya, the app aims to inculcate reading habit among students. Diya not only reads the text aloud when needed, but also explains the meaning of English text in Hindi. At the end of the story, children can play interesting word games and earn in-app awards.

Full report on www.educationtimes.com

Source: The Times of India dated 11 March, 2019


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