Literacy for a Billion in India!

PlanetRead, in partnership with IIM Ahmedabad, has made a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative, to transition 150 million people in India, from a state of weak and fragile reading, to functional and fluent reading ability.  We will do this by implementing a proven and cost-effective innovation, called, Same Language Subtitling (SLS), on Bollywood film songs already shown on TV, in many Indian languages.

We will further explore the possibility of implementing SLS in other countries in Africa and South Asia. SLS is already being implemented on existing Bollywood film songs on TV, in 10 languages: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, and Punjabi. A Hindi song is shown with the lyrics subtitled in Hindi, Tamil songs with Tamil subtitles, and so on. What you hear is what you read. The subtitles are designed to change the color of every word in perfect timing with the song.

Several research studies have consistently found that exposure to SLS leads to a measurable improvement in reading ability. Reading skills are practiced automatically and subconsciously as a part of staple entertainment already consumed by millions. SLS is popular among viewers and known to improve TV program ratings. We believe that the SLS innovation has the potential to make a contribution to global literacy. As we move towards this goal, we would like to thank all of you who have been and continue to be a part of our journey.

Links:

• President Clinton on SLS