Harry Potter, Robin Hood, Tintin, Alice et al are no less than real life childhood friends for most of us. While some of us take the world of books for granted, 70% of 5th grade kids in India cannot read a grade 2 text [ASER report 2012] . That this needs to be changed seems obvious, but how do we do it? How do we make this possible while the student-teacher ratio in our classrooms still remains 50:1 ?
Awaaz.De believes in the power of stories to make reading fun. While the government has set up libraries even in rural schools, most kids lack the basic reading skills. Their urban peers have parents who spend an hour a day reading bedtime stories or teachers who can expend individual reading time. However, kids in rural or semi urban areas miss out on the world of books because they don’t have a person who can correct their pronunciation, teach them how to enunciate or simply get them excited about books.
This was the motivation behind Books on Phone.
What: It is a guided reading tool for kids to access from any mobile phone along with a physical copy of the book.
How it works: Books have a phone number on the cover. Readers place a missed call to the number and receive a call back from the book, which reads itself out to them. Readers are also served questions, turning the phone into a mobile assessment tool.
Potential impact: Graded books allow beginning readers as well as unschooled parents to experience new books in new ways. The results of these assessments can be accessed by teachers and used to plan future lessons
Listen to our sample book on the phone and see how exciting it is to make reading fun and accessible!
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/123973129″ width=”100%” params=”color=094700&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=” 100%” height=”100″ iframe=”true” /]
Or place a missed call on 079-61907759 and wait for your book to call you back!
If you are a teacher, librarian, after-school centre manager or just someone who believes that each kid deserves to be able to read, please contact us to make your existing library books accessible on phone!
