Google launched Read Along, an AI android app helping kids improve reading skills

Google | May 08, 2020

  • Google today launched Read Along, an Android app that taps AI and machine learning to help children learn to read.

  • It’s now available in over 180 countries and in nine languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese.

  • Read Along comes preloaded with around 500 stories and interactive games within those stories, for which kids earn stars and badges as they learn.


Google today launched Read Along, an Android app that taps AI and machine learning to help children learn to read by providing verbal and visual feedback. After first debuting in India, it’s now available in over 180 countries and in nine languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. Preliminary research suggests that apps like Read Along could significantly improve children’s reading skills. A three-month pilot of Read Along’s predecessor — Bolo — in the Unnao district of India involving 1,500 children across 200 villages found that, compared with a control group, 39% of the app’s users reached the highest level of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) reading assessment test and 64% saw an increase in scores. Moreover, 92% of parents said they noticed some improvement in their child’s skills.


Read Along comes preloaded with around 500 stories and interactive games within those stories, for which kids earn stars and badges as they learn, practice, and progress. An in-app assistant called Diya demonstrates how to pronounce words and sentences and uses natural language processing to detect whether a student is struggling or successfully reading a passage, and it gives them positive and reinforcing feedback along the way. Within Read Along, parents can create profiles for multiple readers, who tap on their photo to learn at their pace and to track their individual progress.



Learn more: BEST VR APPS AND GAMES TO HELP YOUR KIDS LEARN IN 2020 .
 

“Read Along is easy to start and doesn’t require sign in. Even the voice data is analyzed in real time on the device so that it works offline and is not sent to any Google servers,” ”

~ Hyder said.


The app personalizes kids’ experiences by recommending the difficulty level of stories and games based on their reading level performance. Read Along engineering lead Zohair Hyder notes that the app has no ads or in-app purchases and that it works without Wi-Fi or data. Parents need only connect it to the internet to download additional stories. .

“Google teamed up with Disney and Penguin Random House for a read-along app that paired the latter’s Little Golden Books series with music and ambient sounds.”


Read Along will continue to improve as we receive feedback from families, expanding the selection of books and adding more features.” The launch of Read Along follows that of narrated children’s stories on Google Assistant. Last April, Google brought Tell Me a Story, a Google Home smart speaker feature that reads aloud stories from popular franchises like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Blaze and the Monster Machines, to Android and iOS devices in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and India. In a related development, in October 2018, Google teamed up with Disney and Penguin Random House for a read-along app that paired the latter’s Little Golden Books series with music and ambient sounds.


With many students currently at home due to school closures, families around the globe are looking for ways to help children grow their reading skills. To support families, today we're sharing early access to Read Along by Google. It’s an Android app for children 5+ years old that helps them learn to read by giving verbal and visual feedback as they read stories out loud. Read Along was built with childrens' safety and privacy in mind, and has no ads or in-app purchases. And after the initial download of the app and stories, Read Along works offline without Wi-Fi or data—helping with worries about unsupervised access to the Internet.


Learn more: GOOGLE LENS WORKING ON A STEP-BY-STEP MATH PROBLEM SOLVER .
 

Spotlight

The B2B buyer journey has always been complex. And today, with the ever-changing demands of the modern industry buyer, it has become even more necessary to rethink the buyer journey, creating a future-ready digital experience

Spotlight

The B2B buyer journey has always been complex. And today, with the ever-changing demands of the modern industry buyer, it has become even more necessary to rethink the buyer journey, creating a future-ready digital experience

Related News

CONTINUING EDUCATION

Pathify Selected by Brigham Young University-Hawaii to Personalize Student Experience

Newswire | May 19, 2023

Pathify — the premier centralized user experience hub for higher ed — is honored to welcome Brigham Young University-Hawaii to their expanding community of partners committed to improving the student technology experience. The institution, which is part of the nationwide Church Educational System for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, plans to implement Pathify to optimize the digital experience for students. "We are excited about the many different features that the Pathify portal provides," said Leilani Guerrero, Manager of Digital Communications at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. "Being able to make resources available by groups and communicate with those individual groups is very important when we have such a diverse and international student body with different needs. Pathify also allows us to provide a customizable repository of tools and allows for two-way communication between students and departments." Pathify fills the massive user experience void at the center of the higher education digital ecosystem, delivering a personalized user experience unifying technology, content, communications and people. Offering highly personalized experiences for users at every point in their journey, the Engagement Hub encourages system-agnostic integrations, collaborative social groups, personalized tasks, and multi-channel communication with full web/mobile parity. "BYU-Hawaii represents a unique partner and use case for our platform," said Matt Hammond, Chief Revenue Officer at Pathify. "Their unique campus environment and distinct institutional culture create an exciting opportunity for how they utilize Pathify to support their students. We can't wait to see the awesome work they do!" BYU-Hawaii joins the Pathify customer community along other recent customers such as Howard Payne University, Aquinas College, and their sibling institution - Brigham Young University-Idaho. About Pathify Obsessed with making great technology while developing incredible long-term relationships with customers, Pathify remains hyper-focused on creating stellar experiences across the entire student lifecycle. Delivering cloud-based, integration-friendly software designed to drive engagement, Pathify pushes personalized content to the right people, at the right time — on any device. Pathify is led by former higher ed executives, entrepreneurs and technology leaders. About Brigham Young University-Hawaii Brigham Young University-Hawaii is the preeminent international center of learning in the Pacific. Its small campus is a unique laboratory of intercultural leadership development, where a diverse population of 3,200 students representing over 70 countries live, study and work together. Small classes taught by expert faculty empower students to master a challenging and relevant curriculum. Affordable tuition, financial aid, and online study options make this valuable education more accessible. Operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a total BYU-Hawaii education involves not only intellectual learning and career preparation, but also moral, ethical, and spiritual enrichment. All the while, students enjoy living and learning in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Graduates go forth to serve, prepared to promote peace and prosperity as leaders worldwide.

Read More

TALENT DEVELOPMENT

Clever Launches Multi-Factor Authentication to Help K-12 Schools Secure Sensitive Information With One Seamless Solution

PRnewswire | April 27, 2023

Clever, the platform powering digital learning for more than 75% of U.S. K-12 schools, today announced its new service, Clever MFA+. Designed to help districts facing a growing number of cybersecurity incidents in schools, Clever's new offering protects sensitive data by providing a dual layer of authentication that's easy for administrators and educators to use. "With the growing sophistication of hackers, we designed this tool to support the realities of schools today, offering busy teachers and staff peace of mind," said Mohit Gupta, Group Product Manager at Clever. "Clever MFA+ helps districts prevent malicious account access, meet insurance requirements, and ensure a safe and secure learning environment." In a recent Clever survey, one in four administrators said their district had experienced a hack, phishing incident, data breach, or other cyber attack in the past year. The impact, including cost and learning time lost to get systems running again, is high for K-12 education – on average costing schools $1.6M per ransomware incident. Clever MFA+ serves as a holistic, all-in-one solution that helps districts easily secure access to critical applications: • Staff-and teacher-friendly factors: Clever MFA+ offers a variety of authentication options, including app tokens (TOTP), SMS codes, voice calls and hardware tokens, as well as biometric. • Clever MFA+ into familiar devices and apps: The solution covers Chromebooks and Windows devices, while integrating with Google Workspace, Azure, AD and ADFS and any additional apps available with SAML, OpenIDConnect, or OAuth2. • One, secure Clever login: This new offering means sensitive applications and devices can be protected behind one secure login and with one familiar, trusted single-sign on partner. "Our instructional programs all filter through Clever — and some of our most sensitive information is rostered into those programs. Having a second layer of protection is paramount," said Dylan Jones, Instructional Technology and Data Coordinator at Sunflower County Consolidated School District. "Clever MFA+ provides seamless protection for an app that all teachers and staff are used to and familiar with! We already do identity management, rostering, and the single sign-on Portal with Clever — so MFA just made sense." Clever MFA+ is now available with a low price per staff user per year, and schools benefit from free set-up and support to make adoption seamless and quick. To learn more about Clever MFA+, visit here. The Clever SSO portal for students remains free of charge. Districts can take advantage of built-in MFA functionality to secure the Clever Portal for users with admin access and the existing Clever Badges + Pin functionality to protect students' accounts today. About Clever Clever is on a mission to connect every student to a world of learning. More than 75% of U.S. K-12 schools now use Clever to power secure digital learning experiences. With our platform for schools and a network of leading application providers, we're committed to advance education with technology that works for students everywhere.

Read More

ONLINE EDUCATION

PowerSchool Partners with EDU, Inc. Common Black College Application to Support College Access & Equity for Students

Businesswire | May 26, 2023

PowerSchool the leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education in North America, today announced a partnership with EDU Inc. and PowerSchool Naviance. This exclusive partnership will connect students using Naviance with the Common Black College Application, better enabling students to apply to many Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) at once starting with the 2023-2024 school year. The comprehensive college, career, and life readiness solutions available in Naviance are used by millions of students. Naviance college research tools utilize over ninety search criteria to help students find institutions that are the right fit for their aspirations and needs. As part of their exploration process in Naviance, students view college profiles over 25 million times each year. “Our data over the last few years has shown a clear increase in students looking for HBCUs,” said Amy Reitz, Group Vice President of Product at PowerSchool. “A key part of the Naviance philosophy is ensuring each student is empowered to find their best fit, and we value the tremendous role HBCUs play in our country’s higher education landscape. We are excited to partner with the Common Black College Application to benefit students, school counselors, and colleges.” The Common Black College Application is a network of Historically Black Colleges and Universities committed to supporting equity and access for students. Students apply to all member institutions with one application fee, reducing friction in the application process. “The partnership between Naviance and the Common Black College Application will have a profound impact in the lives of millions of students, interested in attending HBCUs, in the coming years,” said Robert Mason, Founder of EDU, Inc. “Equally as important, our work with Naviance will aid HBCUs in the achievement of their enrollment objectives. The partnership between Naviance and the CBCA represents the very essence of educational access and equality – goals that so many others seek to achieve and fall woefully short.” Starting in the fall, Naviance will identify colleges that are members of the Common Black College Application on their Naviance college profiles. PowerSchool and EDU, Inc. will also work together to integrate the Common Black College Application with Naviance eDocs for the following year, making it easy for counselors to submit supporting documentation for student applications. About PowerSchool PowerSchool is the leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education in North America. Its mission is to power the education ecosystem with unified technology that helps educators and students realize their full potential, in their way. PowerSchool connects students, teachers, administrators, and parents, with the shared goal of improving student outcomes. From the office to the classroom to the home, it helps schools and districts efficiently manage state reporting and related compliance, special education, finance, human resources, talent, registration, attendance, funding, learning, instruction, grading, assessments and analytics in one unified platform. PowerSchool supports over 50 million students globally and more than 15,000 customers, including more than 90 of the top 100 districts by student enrollment in the United States, and sells solutions in more than 90 countries.

Read More