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

Google launches 'Bolo' to tutor children to read Hindi, English

Google's Bolo app, which is being launched in India first, uses speech recognition and text-to-speech technology.
Bolo will be available on Google Play Store in India for all smartphones running Android 4.4 (Kit Kat) and higher

NEW DELHI: Tech giant Google Wednesday unveiled a new app 'Bolo' that aims to help children in primary school learn to read in Hindi and English.

The free app, which is being launched in India first, uses Google's speech recognition and text-to-speech technology.

The app features an animated character 'Diya', who encourages children to read stories aloud and helps if the child is unable to pronounce a word. It also lauds the reader when he/she completes the reading.

"We have designed the app to work offline, so users need to just download the under 50MB app once and then they have access to close to 100 stories in Hindi and English that the children can read out loud and improve their reading skills," Google India Product Manager Nitin Kashyap told PTI.

Bolo will be available on Google Play Store in India for all smartphones running Android 4.4 (Kit Kat) and higher, he added.

Citing the annual ASER 2018 report, Kashyap said, it was found that only half of students enrolled in grade 5 in rural India can confidently read a grade 2 level textbook.

"Lack of reading ability can significantly impact further education, and ultimately children's ability to realise their full potential. Limited access to quality material, under-resourced infrastructure, and barriers to learning outside the classroom are some of the challenges that children often face," he added.

Google piloted the 'Bolo' app in about 200 villages in Uttar Pradesh and the early results are very encouraging with 64 per cent of children showing an improvement in reading proficiency in just three months, Kashyap said.

"We are now actively working with a number of non-profit partners to take the app to more people across the country who could benefit from it," he said.

Kashyap said the company is also looking at expanding the app to other Indic languages like Bengali, soon.

To ensure safety of the child, all personal information always stays on device. The users are also not asked for details like email ID and gender for logging into the app.

Source: https://www.livemint.com/ (Accessed on March 7, 2019)